Dan Healy, chief executive of Wilton Radio, which has won two regional youth licences over the past year, has already indicated that his company may be interested in purchasing a Dublin radio station should there be any regulatory fallout from the deal.

"For example, let's say Communicorp buys Emap.

Well Communicorp may have to offload an asset . . . be it Spin, 98FM or FM104 . . . would we look at that? I think that going back to the shareholders and the financial matrix we've built, we would look at that, " he said.

"The reason why Emap is selling isn't that there is something wrong with its business model in Ireland.

The reason is that it has major problems in Britain, " he added.

But Healy, a former chief executive of 98FM and Newstalk, said his organisation was concentrating on winning more new radio licences.

"We're firmly focused on licences but we have a onepager over here that we can refer to if anything interesting happens. But we have done our homework."

It is also believed that the River Media Group may be interested in acquiring Highland Radio if Emap's new owner decides to sell the station or is forced to sell for competition reasons.

At the time of going to press, four companies . . . UTV, TV3, Communicorp and Vienna Investments, a group consisting of former owners of FM104 . . . are still competing to acquire the three stations, which are expected to sell for over 200m.

Representatives of the companies have been locked in talks with Ian Findlay, Emap's director of corporate development, and the British radio giant's Irish corporate advisers, Merrion Capital, since Thursday, and talks will continue until a buyer is found.

Today FM chief executive Willie O'Reilly, who was running the sale process until last week, and other managers who were involved in it, have withdrawn from the talks.