The station launched first in London and then expanded to cover the whole of the UK. It provided a range of programmes all day covering all aspects of personal finance, the City, economic news and investing.
Its founder and financier Gavin Oldham took the decision following difficulties in “building sufficient revenue and in attracting external investment.”
Share Radio presenters, many of them financial journalists, achieved numerous awards and the station boasted 2 million listen-on-demand programme podcast downloads.
An Ipsos MORI omnibus survey in May 2016 estimated Share Radio’s nationwide monthly audience to be about 240,000 (118,000 weekly).
Despite its success in building a targeted audience its small overall audience size meant it was unable to attract large advertising campaigns in sufficient numbers and revenues were said to be a long way from meeting the costs of a speech station.
Founder Gavin Oldham said: “Share Radio has many supporters in the financial services industry but unfortunately this has not extended sufficiently into working with us as sponsors and advertisers, or indeed financiers. It is therefore with great regret that I have decided to disband our excellent team and close the business.
“I am particularly grateful to our very talented and experienced team, several of whom have background experience in the BBC and financial media. We also particularly appreciate those in the financial services industry who came forward as sponsors for such an early stage business to support our aim of explaining finance to a wider audience. These include Henderson Global Investors, The Share Centre, NS&I, the London Stock Exchange, Equifax and, more recently, JP Morgan.
“We’re also very grateful to the very large number of guests and contributors who have made our output so special, including Simon Lambert and the This Is Money team, Claer Barrett and Lord Lee from FT Money, Lyndsey Cook and her Money Fight Club, the Open University, and Tim Evans from Middlesex University - and so many others who sprinkled stardust on Share Radio.”
Share Radio broadcasting will continue normally throughout April on nationwide DAB and Share Radio archives will continue to be available online from May onwards.