You've probably heard or seen the letters before. The phrase "and that's the news from INN" is often heard at the end of local radio news bulletins. You can see the INN logo on the microphones of journalists outside the tribunals, the courts and Leinster House. But who are INN? What does INN stand for? Is it a new radio station?
INN stands for Independent Network News, a company established in 1997 by a group of 17 provincial stations. According to news editor Jerry O'Connor, plans by Radio Ireland (now Today FM) to establish a national news service for local radio stations around the State prompted the 17 stations to set up their own company. O'Connor says that was better than relying on Radio Ireland, effectively they would have been buying the services of a competitor if they had bought their services.
Today, INN provides national news to over 20 local stations from its office in Dublin. Most of these stations have a shareholding in the company. In addition to providing a national radio news service, which it distributes to the local stations by satellite rather than by transmitter, it recently introduced an Internet news service for Rondo Mondo and I-Touch. There are nine full-time radio journalists and many more working part-time. They work to produce a four-minute bulletin that is broadcast live every hour. O'Connor says that INN news scripts tend to be fairly neutral in order to fit into the stations' diverse styles. For example, there are no light-hearted pieces, no entertainment news and so on.
The nature of the company means that it doesn't have to advertise or market itself in the same way that local radio stations do, which is why they have such a low public profile. INN is really the Irish local radio equivalent of newswire services such as Reuters and PA news, which are used by newspapers.
INN has two sister companies, also owned by local stations. Independent Radio Sales, which sells advertising space on behalf of nearly all of the provincial stations, and AD-SAT, which distributes advertising copy by satellite to local stations around the State.
