THE battle for a city's airwaves is expected to be settled today.

Communications regulator Ofcom will announce which of the three bidders has won the 12-year licence to operate a commercial FM station for Durham City and surrounding area.

Durham is one of the few cities in the country that does not have its own station, although listeners are served by a host of BBC and commercial analogue and digital stations from other parts of the region.

In the past two years, two bidders have run trial broadcasts, Durham FM and Prince FM - run by a company called Durham Local Radio - in the hope of winning the licence.

Durham FM is run by the group that operates Sun FM, in Sunderland, and Alpha, in Darlington, while Prince FM's backers include Newsquest North-East, publishers of The Northern Echo and The Advertiser series. A third bidder emerged before the deadline for applications, Durham 2Day FM, which, as Blackburn 2Day, failed in its bid to win the licence for the Lancashire town.

The exact transmission area has yet to be decided although it is expected that signals will reach about 160,000 people.

An Ofcom spokeswoman said that under The Communications Act it had to award licences to the applicant who best met statutory criteria. She said: "These four statutory criteria are: The ability to maintain the service for the twelve-year licence period; the extent to which the proposed service would cater for the tastes and interests of people living in the area; the extent to which it would broaden listener choice; the extent to which there is demand or support for the service in the area."