{"id":128291,"date":"2025-11-08T07:12:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T07:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/128291\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T07:12:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T07:12:08","slug":"we-werent-aware-that-this-level-of-a-shake-up-was-on-the-cards-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/128291\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We weren\u2019t aware that this level of a shake-up was on the cards\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

One hundred years after forerunner 2RN made the first test transmissions of its new radio service, RT\u00c9<\/a> will go live on Monday with its \u201crefreshed\u201d weekday schedule on Radio 1.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the biggest overhaul of the station since January, 1999, with time slots as well as presenter line-ups being rejigged. But is this a dramatic \u201cNewstalkification\u201d of Radio 1 designed to attract younger listeners by being brasher and less formal? Or is it closer to a modest evolution of tried and tested formats that represents a missed opportunity for something more ambitious?<\/p>\n

Here is what\u2019s happening: David McCullagh<\/a> takes over the Today show and starts one hour earlier at 9am, directly following Morning Ireland. Oliver Callan<\/a> moves to 11am and doubles his slot to two hours. Kieran Cuddihy<\/a>, a new voice to RT\u00c9, inherits the Liveline seat, while Louise Duffy<\/a>\u2019s music-led show moves to 3pm. And Drivetime, now presented by Katie Hannon<\/a> and Colm \u00d3 Mong\u00e1in<\/a>, starts half an hour earlier at 4pm, finishing at 6pm to allow for an hour of Inside Sport, a new programme presented by Jacqui Hurley and Marie Crowe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis came out of the blue. We weren\u2019t aware that this level of a shake-up was on the cards, actually,\u201d says Hannon over Zoom.<\/p>\n

So will their show be different from the one presented by Sarah McInerney<\/a> and Cormac \u00d3 hEadhra?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re kind of grabbing the baton to some degree,\u201d she says. \u201cWhat we\u2019re thinking about is the people we\u2019re broadcasting to and the kind of headspace they\u2019re going to be in. With our news and current affairs backgrounds, we have strong news instincts, so we want to keep that up by breaking stories and doing big interviews. But we\u2019re also conscious that it\u2019s the end of the working day and people might feel like they need a breather as well, so we want to have a bit of fun with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MarieMarie Crowe and Jacqui Hurley will fill Radio 1’s 6pm slot as presenters of Inside Sport. Photograph: RT\u00c9 <\/p>\n

Listeners\u2019 expectations have changed, partly in response to the popularity of more relaxed-sounding podcasts, with the result that radio is \u201cno longer about just coming in and reading your script\u201d, says Hannon.<\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely don\u2019t think that\u2019s a bad thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00d3 Mong\u00e1in, her co-host, expects some adrenaline will prove helpful when the on-air light goes red on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing live on day one of a whole new schedule is kind of nail-biting on one level but it\u2019s exciting too. You do need that sense of jeopardy to get you into it when you\u2019re live on air,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Have RT\u00c9 managers told the duo what they expect from their show? \u201cMore listeners,\u201d Hannon answers with a laugh.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, exactly. That\u2019s it,\u201d says \u00d3 Mong\u00e1in. \u201cBut there\u2019s a definite confidence and patience there. They\u2019re going to give it time to grow and gel, and there will be tweaks and changes on the fly as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Across the schedule, the tone and format of the new shows won\u2019t become clear until Monday.<\/p>\n

Will new hire Cuddihy \u2013 until recently the capable and spirited presenter of Newstalk\u2019s drivetime show The Hard Shoulder \u2013 introduce a millennial flavour to Liveline? Will McCullagh \u2013 whose goodbye gifts from his fellow Behind the Story podcasters were a mug and T-shirt bearing the words \u201cI can do light\u201d \u2013 showcase this lighter touch on Today? How exactly will Callan fill two hours of airtime? <\/p>\n

\"DavidDavid McCullagh will present Today with David McCullagh on RT\u00c9 Radio 1. Photograph: RT\u00c9 <\/p>\n

What we do know is that radio is a medium built on familiarity and routine and any adjustments at all tend to elicit an outsize reaction from listeners and commentators alike.<\/p>\n

The day after the last major rearrangement of timeslots on Radio 1, prompted by the retirement of Gay Byrne<\/a>, The Irish Times devoted the entirety of page six to the new schedule: \u201cAll is changed, changed predictably at RT\u00c9,\u201d ran the lead headline.<\/p>\n

Even by that stage, there were concerns that the average age of the station\u2019s listenership was rising, that it was having to contend with new competitive threats that made it harder to recruit a younger audience, and that its most loyal listeners were also the ones wariest of change.<\/p>\n

Much is now riding on Monday\u2019s shake-up. After a turbulent 2023 and 2024 marked by corporate governance scandals, a fall in licence-fee income, declining rates of public trust, cuts to its content budget and plummeting staff morale, RT\u00c9 could do with avoiding further reputational damage.<\/p>\n

Radio 1 was not immune from the fallout from these crises, with the station obliged to replace Ryan Tubridy<\/a> after the organisation\u2019s new director general, Kevin Bakhurst<\/a>, parted company with the presenter following a breakdown in trust in August, 2023. And yet, in another indicator that Radio 1 is bigger than any single on-air voice, Callan slid comfortably into Tubridy\u2019s old 9am slot, even managing to grow his audience.<\/p>\n

The latest Joint National Listenership Research survey shows that Radio 1 reaches 1,376,000 listeners weekly and is the only station to have a weekly reach of more than 1 million. The station has a weekday peak-time market share of 20.1 per cent, a figure that has been relatively stable for years. (Today FM and Newstalk have 8.8 per cent and 7.6 per cent respectively.)<\/p>\n

[\u00a0RT\u00c9 Radio 1 most popular station as 2FM loses 24,000 listeners since last surveyOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

So this schedule revamp has not been triggered by any decline in listenership. Instead, it was the retirement of Liveline host Joe Duffy<\/a> and the defection of Claire Byrne to Newstalk that sparked it, together with the arrival to Montrose of Patricia Monahan, the former managing editor of Newstalk, who Bakhurst appointed to the newly created role of RT\u00c9 director of audio in 2024.<\/p>\n

Monahan has understandably wanted to put her stamp on a schedule she will be judged by. Her first big call, which was to drop Ray D\u2019Arcy<\/a>, became front-page news. This was followed by a rushed-seeming reshuffle announcement that lacked key details such as who would present the new sport programme. McInerney\u2019s next job remains unconfirmed at the time of writing, with RT\u00c9 only saying she will be \u201ca regular presence on RT\u00c9 and Radio 1\u201d. (\u00d3 hEadhra, meanwhile, is set to host Late Debate.)<\/p>\n

Monahan has denied that her strategy is to put a \u201cNewstalk stamp\u201d on Radio 1, saying she wants to take the station in a new direction without \u201ctrying to turn it into something that exists elsewhere\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"PatriciaPatricia Monahan was appointed RT\u00c9’s director of audio in 2024. Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill\/The Irish Times<\/p>\n

As ever, there is a balancing act here: Radio 1, with its predominant focus on news and current affairs, lies at the heart of RT\u00c9\u2019s public service mandate. It also brought in \u20ac15 million in commercial revenue in 2024, with RT\u00c9 One and RT\u00c92 the only services generating more advertising for the broadcaster. If it haemorrhaged listeners by alienating them, this would have a financial as well as a reputational cost.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are reasonably bold moves in terms of the shape of the schedule, but they are calculated,\u201d says Niamh O\u2019Shea, investment director at Core Investment, which plans marketing campaigns on behalf of advertisers. \u201cFor me, I think the proof will be in the pudding.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would absolutely be looking for them to maintain the audience figures they have now and possibly grow them, though we recognise they are already far ahead of their nearest rival.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Who is Patricia Monahan, planner of RT\u00c9\u2019s reshuffle? \u2018She\u2019s the opposite of a snowflake\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

While it would be healthy for Radio 1 to \u201cage down\u201d its listenership, there is recognition, too, that this could be \u201cquite difficult\u201d to do. But bringing in someone \u201cclippable on social media\u201d, like Cuddihy to Liveline, should help, predicts O\u2019Shea, who previously worked in RT\u00c9. Adding voicenotes \u2013 a communication method favoured by younger generations and a popular feature of several podcasts \u2013 to the show\u2019s format is \u201csomething I could imagine them doing\u201d, while there is potential, too, in the age of visualised radio, to post more video clips online.<\/p>\n

\"KieranKieran Cuddihy succeeds Joe Duffy in the Liveline presenter’s chair. Photograph: RT\u00c9 <\/p>\n

The challenge of recruiting new listeners is not unique to RT\u00c9, she says: \u201cThere is definitely a risk that younger audiences won\u2019t find Radio 1, but that\u2019s a problem for all stations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most intriguing change, according to O\u2019Shea, is the introduction of Inside Sport at 6pm, a time of day when listenership starts to fall off.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt could be an advantage to have a sport show starting at 6pm, as it means they\u2019re getting in ahead of Newstalk\u2019s Off the Ball at 7pm. The female presenter line-up also gives it the capacity to offer something different from its competitors.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the new Radio 1 schedule has also been criticised for being limited in scope, with RT\u00c9 accused of failing to sufficiently distinguish itself from commercial rivals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lack of imagination about what radio can be is so dispiriting,\u201d says Dr Roddy Flynn, associate professor and chair of communications studies at Dublin City University. At the moment, RT\u00c9 does \u201ca good news and current affairs job\u201d, while relegating more ambitious programming to the margins, he believes.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that the peak-time schedule has to offer \u201csomething as pointy-headed as Melvyn Bragg at 9am on [BBC] Radio 4\u201d, says Flynn, referring to Bragg\u2019s hosting until recently of \u201chistory of ideas\u201d programme In Our Time, but it should include forms of radio, such as documentary and drama, that offer greater context and depth to curious listeners.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what I would like to see, a bit of curiosity,\u201d adds Flynn, clarifying that by curiosity he doesn\u2019t mean blathering presenters \u201casking if you can eat the green bits in crisps\u201d. <\/p>\n

\"OliverOliver Callan, whose show on Radio 1 moves to 11am-1pm. Photograph: RT\u00c9 <\/p>\n

Programme-wise, Flynn notes, the only significant difference between the Radio 1 weekday peak-time schedule today compared to the early 2000s is that arts programming, in the form of Rattlebag, lost its post-Liveline slot in 2006. Arena was introduced in 2009 \u2013 initially at 7.30pm, before creeping forward to 7pm \u2013 and the show remains on air, though without a permanent presenter following the death of Se\u00e1n Rocks<\/a> in July.<\/p>\n

Arena has long been audibly under-resourced compared to its Radio 4 counterpart Front Row, says Flynn, who thinks RT\u00c9\u2019s financial struggles have also led to more conservative decision-making across the board at Montrose.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere should be space to fail in public service media, because if you have space to fail, you have space to take risks. If that\u2019s not possible in RT\u00c9, where is it possible in Irish media?\u201d<\/p>\n

How public-service radio should sound has always been contested. When 2RN, a service mostly dedicated to music, officially launched in January 1926 after its series of test transmissions the previous November, editorial decisions were generating dismayed letters to The Irish Times within months.<\/p>\n

A century later, RT\u00c9 will know that when the light goes red on Monday, every word uttered on the Radio 1 airwaves will still command substantial attention. And that, no matter how those first-day reviews pan out, is still better than being ignored.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One hundred years after forerunner 2RN made the first test transmissions of its new radio service, RT\u00c9 will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[20166,47886,93,61,60,24558,24561,47888,278,41142,6085,976],"class_list":{"0":"post-128291","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-colm-o-mongain","9":"tag-david-mccullagh","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-katie-hannon","14":"tag-kieran-cuddihy","15":"tag-louise-duffy","16":"tag-music","17":"tag-oliver-callan","18":"tag-rte","19":"tag-weekendreview"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}