{"id":471601,"date":"2026-05-28T17:05:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T17:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/471601\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T17:05:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T17:05:12","slug":"directors-of-six-local-irish-radio-stations-to-depart-rupert-murdoch-group-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/471601\/","title":{"rendered":"Directors of six local Irish radio stations to depart Rupert Murdoch group \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The directors of all six local Irish radio stations with Rupert Murdoch\u2019s<\/a> Onic Audio are to leave their posts along with a number of their staff in the coming weeks as part of major restructuring at the group.<\/p>\n

Onic\u2019s station network includes Dublin\u2019s Q102 and FM104; Cork\u2019s 96FM, which covers the city, and C103, which covers the rest of the county; Limerick\u2019s Live 95; and LMFM, which is broadcast in Louth and Meath.<\/p>\n

A single director heads up the two Cork stations, while another director runs the two Dublin stations. All four station directors are understood to be departing their roles in the coming weeks as part of the restructuring process.<\/p>\n

It is understood the group is moving towards a more centralised senior management structure.<\/p>\n

The Irish Times also understands there will be further job losses across the group, and a 30-day consultation with staff is under way. There is as yet no indication as to the extent of the job losses.<\/p>\n

\"\"Will new pay transparency rules close the gender pay gap for good?<\/p>\n

The group employed 238 staff as of the end of June last year, which was up from 235 the year before. It spent \u20ac11.8 million on its workforce, up from \u20ac11.6 million.<\/p>\n

The cuts are being made in response to tough market conditions and a challenging advertising market, factors which have combined to lead to various pressures on the business. <\/p>\n

The company is undertaking a review of the business to ascertain how best it can utilise its resources. <\/p>\n

A spokeswoman for Onic said: \u201cWhile the landscape remains challenging for all media businesses, we remain focused on evolving Onic to ensure our long-term success, leaning on digital transformation, operational efficiency, and a proven track record of delivering great content to our loyal listeners.\u201d<\/p>\n

Accounts for Onic covering the year ended June 29th, 2025, show it made a loss of just over \u20ac2 million in the year, up from a loss of \u20ac1.2 million the year before. Turnover was down from \u20ac23.4 million to just over \u20ac23 million.<\/p>\n

Its cost of sales fell from \u20ac1.7 million to \u20ac1.6 million, but administrative expenses rose from \u20ac24.4 million to just over \u20ac25 million. The group was in a net liability position and had no external debt at the end of the period.<\/p>\n

In those accounts, the group said all its stations \u201cdeliver significant listenership\u201d in their respective areas.<\/p>\n

The company is also involved in promotional activities, the provision of an advertising sales agency service for other local radio stations, and in developing complimentary digital products.<\/p>\n

It launched a suite of new digital services in 2025 and rolled out a number of new podcast and visualised offerings. It said it \u201cinvested heavily\u201d in visualised studios for its radio output.<\/p>\n

It described economic conditions as \u201cturbulent\u201d during the year, with the ongoing challenges of \u201cspiralling cost-of-living increases\u201d and the changing global political environment. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn spite of these challenges, however, the company continues to generate a strong revenue performance, and we commend the hard work and dedication of our loyal staff base throughout the period under review,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe group continues to maintain sufficient financial resources to support future growth strategies. Digital revenues in particular delivered significant growth in the period, and we continue to invest in this area to promote future growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur main focus continues to be the delivery of high-quality local content, broadcast on FM and our digital channels and amplified on digital and social platforms.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The directors of all six local Irish radio stations with Rupert Murdoch\u2019s Onic Audio are to leave their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60,9358],"class_list":["post-471601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-rupert-murdoch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471601","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=471601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}