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Newstalk (formerly NewsTalk 106) is a national
independent radio Independent radio indicates a radio station that is run in a manner different from usual for the country it broadcasts in. In countries where there exist government-run radio stations that served as the primary or only the variety of licensed broa ...
station in Ireland. It is operated by News 106 Limited, a subsidiary of
Bauer Media Audio Ireland Bauer Media Audio Ireland (formerly Communicorp Group) is a media holding company based in Ireland, owned by Bauer Media Group. History Communicorp Group Ltd was formed by Denis O'Brien in 1989. It launched its radio operations in Ireland that ...
, and broadcasts under a sound broadcasting contract with the
Broadcasting Authority of Ireland The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) ( ga, Údarás Craolacháin na hÉireann) was established on 1 October 2009 effectively replacing the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) ( ga, Coimisiún Craolacháin na hÉireann). The BAI is ...
. Newstalk is Ireland's only commercial all-talk station, broadcasting opinion, analysis, entertainment and sport.


Format

The station is the only commercial radio station in Ireland to take on an exclusively news and current affairs based format. News is broadcast every hour. The station's flagship morning programme is  Newstalk Breakfast, presented by Ciara Kelly and Shane Coleman with Joe Lynham presenting business coverage. Following on from Newstalk Breakfast is The Pat Kenny Show. The show mixes current affairs analysis, human interest interviews with light entertainment stories and live music. From midday, Andrea Gilligan presents Lunchtime Live, where she invites callers to have their  say on the topics of the day. 
Seán Moncrieff Seán Moncrieff is an Irish broadcaster, journalist and writer. He currently presents the weekday afternoon radio show ''Moncrieff'' on Newstalk and is a columnist for ''The Irish Times''. His television credits include his own Raidió Teili ...
broadcasts from 2pm with The Moncrieff Show, covering politics, history, popular culture and many other topics. Newstalk's drive time show, is The Hard Shoulder with Kieran Cuddihy. It's on every weekday afternoon from 4–7pm and is a round-up of the day's events and interviews with the people at the centre of the stories. Off The Ball is on at 7pm and covers Irish sport and stories to the Newstalk audience with in depth analysis and debate.


Audience share

On 5 November 2020, Newstalk announced it had recorded an all-time high weekly reach of 804,000 listeners, up 62,000 on the same time the previous year.  The station's listened yesterday figure is an all-time high of 426,000 listeners, up 13,000 on 2019. Newstalk has a prime-time Market Share figure of 6.7%.


History

In 1999 the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) invited applications for a number of new Dublin radio services, expanding on the then duopoly of
98FM 98FM is a local radio station in Dublin, Ireland, operated by Bauer Media Audio Ireland, under a sound broadcasting contract from the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland. The station broadcasts on the 98.1 MHz FM frequency. 98FM's broadca ...
and
FM104 FM104 is an independent local radio station broadcast across Dublin, Ireland, on the frequency 104.4 MHz. It is operated by Capital Radio Productions Limited (unconnected with, and not to be confused with, Capital Radio plc), and is a sub ...
. One was for a speech-based radio service. The Independent Local Radio (ILR) national news provider Independent Network News, was one of two applicants for this licence, and its applicant company, News 106, was awarded the franchise. However, before the station even went on air, several ILR companies decided that they did not want to be part of the venture, and the station's shareholding was restructured, with at launch, 98FM, FM104, Clare FM, Carlow Kildare Radio, LMFM, East Coast Radio, South East Radio and
WLR FM WLR FM, or more commonly WLR (Waterford Local Radio) is the local radio station covering Waterford City and County, Ireland. It is Ireland's Local Station of the Year 2019, 2020, 2021 & 2022. In addition to the official franchise area, the sta ...
, along with Setanta, being the shareholders in the company. The station first went on air (under its original name NewsTalk 106) on 9 April 2002, with David McWilliams the first presenter. In its original format, it offered ''Twenty-Twenty News'', every twenty minutes. The first 20/20 news bulletins were presented by several newsreaders including Eimear Lowe, James Healy, Dyane Connor, Dimitri O'Donnell, Sean Archibald and Abigail Reilly. In September 2004 the news service was reduced to every thirty minutes ("News 30") along with a revamped news team to replace the original journalists who had left the station by this stage. In Summer 2004, the station signed
Eamon Dunphy Eamon Martin Dunphy (born 3 August 1945) is an Irish media personality, journalist, broadcaster, author, sports pundit and former professional footballer. He grew up playing football for several youth teams including Stella Maris. Since retiri ...
, dropping David McWilliams, resulting in controversy. In 2004, FM104 was forced to sell its stake as a condition of its takeover by
Scottish Radio Holdings Scottish Radio Holdings (SRH) was a Scottish media company which owned 22 radio stations, and around 30 local newspapers in the United Kingdom and Ireland. History SRH had its origins in the 1970s when Glasgow was awarded the third licence for ...
. This meant that Communicorp was able to take majority control of the station. Setanta and Hyper Trust remained as minority shareholders. In 2005, Elaine Geraghty, the original co-presenter of the breakfast time programme on 98FM, was appointed Chief Executive. On 22 May 2006, the BCI announced that its new ''quasi-national'' speech-based contract was being awarded to Newstalk, who retained their 106 MHz frequency in Dublin while surrendering its Dublin ILR licence. Newstalk were the sole application for the licence. It began quasi-national broadcasts on 29 September 2006. The media expressed concern at its relative lack of star names and proliferation of unknowns, though noted the presence of George Hook and Seán Moncrieff. In 2009, Ms Geraghty resigned as CEO and Frank Cronin, Setanta's board representative since 2002, was appointed CEO. Schedule changes included the appointment of former Minister for Agriculture Ivan Yates as breakfast presenter, Damien Kiberd to Lunchtime presenter and the re-engagement of
Eamon Dunphy Eamon Martin Dunphy (born 3 August 1945) is an Irish media personality, journalist, broadcaster, author, sports pundit and former professional footballer. He grew up playing football for several youth teams including Stella Maris. Since retiri ...
to Sunday Newspaper review programme presenter. This schedule together with the continuity of George Hook, ''Off the Ball'', Sean Moncrieff and Tom Dunne has driven the station to new heights of daily listenership and standing. The station now reaches 305,000 (JNLR February 2012) people daily, the fastest growing adult station in Ireland. The rugby pundit, George Hook who presented the daily drive time show ''Right Hook'', retired in 2014, he returned to present ''High Noon''. He was suspended in September 2017 following comments he made on rape. In 2021, Newstalk rebranded its Station Imaging with new Voiceover
Mark Cagney Mark Anthony Cagney (born 11 June 1956) is an Irish television presenter and journalist, best known for presenting '' Ireland AM'', the breakfast show on TV3 from 1999 to 2019. Early life Born in Cork, Ireland, Cagney was one of eight childre ...


Newstalk News Network

Newstalk is primarily known as a radio station; however, it is also the provider of the only national radio newswire in Ireland. Newstalk provides 'rip and read' copy and audio 24/7, and also provides a live stream of audio news reading every hour. The latter is used mostly by local radio stations after 7 p.m. across Ireland.


References


Dunphy to leave NewsTalk 106


External links

* {{coord missing, County Dublin Communicorp Mass media in Dublin (city) News and talk radio stations in Ireland Radio stations in Northern Ireland Radio stations in the Republic of Ireland Radio stations established in 2006