GLOBAL entertainment company Celador has bought the Bournemouth radio station Fire.

Celador Radio bought the licence for the youth-orientated music station from Triple Broadcast.

Fire’s three full-time staff have been relocated to Southampton and joined by two more staff members.

Celador Radio is part of the Celador global entertainment brand best-known for develo-ping Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?

It owns 12 of the easy listening stations The Breeze, including one in south and east Hampshire, and adult hits brand The Jack, whose three stations include one covering the south coast.

Richard Johnson, group creative director with Celador Radio, said there were very few stations in the south not under corporate ownership.

“We’ve grown quite rapidly over the last five years and this is a slightly different departure for us because this is a youth station, a dance station and that’s a third brand,” he said.

He added: “Of all the things we’ve purchased in the last few years, this has made the staff inside the building the most excited because it’s a very different thing.”

Breakfast presenter Allan Lake, journalist Cat Greeves and head of sales Alan Lewis are the three staff who already been moved from Holdenhurst Road to Southampton.

The station has also gained a live afternoon show for the first time, currently presented by Ben Glover.

Fire was launched in 1999 and initially called The NRG FM 107.6.

Mr Johnson said the terms of its Ofcom licence meant the character of the station would not change.

He said there would be cost savings from joining the station with Celador’s operation.

“Because we’ve got 20 stations in the south of England, there are certain things like engineering and accounts and marketing functions we already have in-house,” he said.

“These are quite difficult times. Radio stations and all traditional media have high fixed costs. One needs to do what one can to put the money in the interesting bits – programming or output or editorial content, rather than the dull bits.”