Claire Byrne has said she is “thrilled” to be starting a “new chapter” of her broadcasting career as she gets ready to rejoin Newstalk as the host of the morning slot being vacated by Pat Kenny in the months ahead.
The move comes after Kenny told listeners he was leaving his weekday 9am-noon show and moving to weekends, where he is likely to go toe-to-toe with the Brendan O’Connor Show on Radio 1 in the new year.
RTÉ sources were tight-lipped about Byrne’s departure and whether money was a factor, with a salary cap now in place.
Her salary in 2023 was put at €280,000, making her the second-highest earner at the station behind Joe Duffy, who was said to be on €351,000.
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With his departure at the end of June, she seemed set to become the station’s best-paid presenter. However, she would have been expected to take a significant pay cut.
Under rules introduced by the director general Kevin Bakhurst in the wake of the Ryan Tubridy controversy two years ago, no one at the station is permitted to earn more than his annual salary of €250,000.
No details have been revealed of the financial inducements made to Byrne to lure her away from the national broadcaster, but the package is likely to have been significant for Byrne, whose show had 354,000 listeners, according to JNLR figures published earlier this month.
In one of the biggest upheavals in Irish radio since Kenny departed RTÉ for Newstalk in 2013, she is being replaced by David McCullagh, who will take over the weekday 10am-midday slot in October.
In a statement Pat Kenny said he will be moving to a weekend slot in spring of next year, “where I hope to make a big impact”.
Confirming the move, which caught many RTÉ staff by surprise, Byrne said the “new chapter marks a really significant milestone for me in my career and I’m thrilled to be doing it with the vibrant team and listeners at Newstalk as they continue to thrive and cement their position in the Irish media landscape.
“It’s a particular honour for me to take up the reins from Pat Kenny, a broadcaster whose career, skill and passion for the job is an inspiration to all of us.”
Newstalk’s managing editor, Eric Moylan, said Byrne was a “seriously talented and skilful broadcaster” and would be “a central part of our ambitious plans for continued audience growth at Newstalk across FM and digital listening”.
Byrne has presented the Today programme on RTÉ Radio 1 since August 2020.
At that time she was also hosting Claire Byrne Live on RTÉ One television, which she quit in May 2022, citing her heavy work schedule and her young family.
Latest JNLR figures showed Byrne hosted the joint-fourth most listened-to programme on Irish radio.
The Pat Kenny Show had 216,000 listeners in the same slot, according to the official figures.
In appointing McCullagh, one of RTÉ’s most experienced current-affairs broadcasters, RTÉ is following a playbook first deployed when Sean O’Rourke was moved from news programming to replace Kenny in 2013.
McCullagh currently anchors Six One News and presents the Behind the Story podcast.
He is also the author of several books on Irish history, including his two-volume series on the life of Éamon de Valera, Rise and Rule. A two-part documentary series on the life of de Valera, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of his death, begins on Wednesday.
