Several Dublin radio stations are under financial pressure and their viability might be threatened if new licences for Dublin are issued too speedily, Today FM has warned.

In an expression of interest to the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) the station, owned by Scottish Radio Holdings, urges the commission to be cautious in awarding licences. It suggests the BCI give serious consideration to the "pace" at which licences are issued.

Despite these concerns, the station firmly believes there is room for three new radio services: indie rock, oldies and Irish traditional folk. Today FM is among 45 firms expressing interest in four new radio services for Dublin.

In its submission, Consortium Broadcasting, with links to East Coast Radio, suggests the BCI should license an oldies station and a classic rock station.

Reacting to concerns that new entrants could seriously damage recently licensed stations, NewsTalk's chief executive Mr Aidan Dunne said his station did not anticipate any such threat.

"We hope it could be a positive. Based on previous experience in Ireland, when local stations come on air it is the national stations that suffer. This could grow the market further in Dublin and widen the choice available.

"If you look at the narrow picture, new licences mean new competition. But if you look at the bigger picture it should mean growth for the local radio category at the expense of national services," he added.

Lite FM, Country 106 and NewsTalk now had 30 per cent of the Dublin market, he said. But he believed the lack of an effective listenership tracking system would pose a problem for new stations. A measurement system that could capture the wide diversity of services still eluded the radio industry, he said.

Mr Sean Ashmore, chief executive of East Coast Radio, doubted the BCI would issue the four licences together. But he said new services should not necessarily have to meet the standard 20 per cent news/current affairs requirement. He said East Coast was proposing to the BCI to "bolt on" the two new services to its existing operations. "All the people involved in our proposal are radio people, so we don't have to start from scratch," he said.