NewsTalk 106
 |
|
| Broadcast area | Ireland |
|---|---|
| Slogan | "It's not just News you know" |
| Frequency |
FM: 106-108 MHz Virgin Media Ireland: 932 Sky Ireland & Sky UK: 0210 Astra 2G: 11171 H 22000 5/6 |
| First air date | 9 April 2002 (as NewsTalk 106) 29 September 2006 (as national station) |
| Format | News and talk |
| Owner | Communicorp |
| Sister stations |
Today FM Dublin's 98FM Spin 1038 Spin South West |
| Website | www.newstalk.com |
Newstalk (formerly NewsTalk 106) is an independent radio station in Ireland. It is operated by News 106 Limited, a subsidiary of Denis O'Brien's Communicorp, and broadcasts under a sound broadcasting contract with the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland.
The station is a "quasi-national" (covering most, but not all of the state) station as of 29 September 2006, previously having been an Independent Local Radio station with a franchise for Dublin.
The station is the only commercial radio station in Ireland to take on an exclusively talk based format. News is broadcast every hour. The station's flagship morning programme is Newstalk Breakfast, presented, inter alia, by Shane Coleman, Colette Fitzpatrick, Paul Williams and Alan Quinlan with Vincent Wall presenting business coverage.
From January 2009 to December 2009 Newstalk recorded a national weekday reach of 8% and a market share of 4%, in the Dublin region Newstalk had a reach of 12% share of audience, in Cork Newstalk's reach was 8%,while in the rest of the country Newstalk's share was 6%.
In 1999 the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) invited applications for a number of new Dublin radio services, expanding on the then duopoly of 98FM and FM104. One was for a speech-based radio service. The Independent Local Radio (ILR) national news provider Independent Network News, was one of two applicants for this licence, and its applicant company, News 106, was awarded the franchise. However before the station even went on air, several ILR companies decided that they did not want to be part of the venture, and the station's shareholding was restructured, with at launch, 98FM, FM104, Clare FM, Carlow Kildare Radio, LMFM, East Coast Radio, South East Radio and WLR FM, along with Setanta, being the shareholders in the company.
The station first went on air (under its original name NewsTalk 106) on 9 April 2002, with David McWilliams the first presenter. In its original format, it offered Twenty-Twenty News, every twenty minutes. The first 20/20 news bulletins were presented by several newsreaders including Eimear Lowe, James Healy, Dyane Connor, Dimitri O'Donnell, Sean Archibald and Abigail Reilly. In September 2004 the news service was reduced to every thirty minutes ("News 30") along with a revamped news team to replace the original journalists who had left the station by this stage. In Summer 2004, the station signed Eamon Dunphy, dropping David McWilliams, resulting in controversy. In 2004, FM104 was forced to sell its stake as a condition of its takeover by Scottish Radio Holdings. This meant that Communicorp was able to take majority control of the station. Setanta and Hyper Trust remained as minority shareholders.
...
Wikipedia