UK's Asian radio plans US debut

The head of Britain's best-known and privately owned Asian radio network says he is planning to expand his operations to the United States and Canada.

Avtar Lit, whose personal wealth was recently estimated at more than £50 million, is best known as the owner of Sunrise Radio that has been broadcasting to the South Asian community for more than a decade from the West London suburb of Southall.

Although his plans for North America have still to be formalised, Lit told rediff.com that his initial plans are to set up four broadcasting centres that would serve the South Asian community in California, New York and Canada.

Lit is no stranger to North America. He previously set up Sina Radio International in California and also published a newspaper on the US west coast.

For the past 10 years his operational base has been the United Kingdom from where he has been able to expand his Sunrise brand of broadcasting to Sri Lanka and Africa.

Lit has also stood for Parliament from the Southall constituency, but has never managed to unseat the sitting Labour MP Piara Khabra.