Communicorp drops chief executive roles at radio stations

Denis O'Brien's radio group Communicorp has dropped the chief executive roles at Newstalk, Today FM, Spin and 98FM as part of a major structural change at the group.

The stations will no longer oversee their own commercial strategies, which will be centralised within the group under a single media sales operation.

A single chief executive will be responsible for the music stations within the group, and the chief executive of Today FM, Keith McCormack, is the likely frontrunner for this new position.

However, the chief executive of Newstalk, Tim Collins, will leave his role after just over a year in the job.

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The changes follow the appointment last November of a new chief executive of Communicorp, Adrian Serle, who joined the group from Birmingham-based radio group Orion Media.

John Burns, the chief executive of 98FM, and Jamie Crawford, the chief executive of Spin 1038 and Spin South West, will be affected by the changes as those posts are stood down.

Sales staff

The restructuring will also have consequences for Communicorp’s sales staff.

The Communicorp One sales team currently manages advertising for the two national stations in the group, Newstalk and Today FM, while advertising for 98FM, Spin 1038 and Spin South West is generated separately by the sales house Media Central, a company related to Communicorp.

It is understood that responsibility for all five stations will transfer either to Media Central or to Communicorp One.

Mr Collins, who joined Newstalk from Ocean FM in January 2016, oversaw the launch of a new weekday and weekend schedule at the station. Advertising revenues are understood to have grown about 5 per cent last year, despite a decline of 5 per cent in the overall radio market.

“It has been a rewarding experience to lead Newstalk, one of the most exciting and interesting media companies in the country, and I’ll miss it,” Mr Collins said.

The process to find a new editor-in-chief of Newstalk, following the decision of the long-serving Garrett Harte to leave at the end of 2016, is ongoing. An initial trawl ended without an appointment.