PRESENTER COLM HAYES is to leave RTÉ after a decade with the station, it’s been confirmed.
The DJ was poached from the commercial sector in 2006 along with his presenting partner Jim-Jim Nugent, and presented the weekday breakfast show on 2fm for several years.
Following Gerry Ryan’s death in 2010, he took over a mid-morning-lunchtime show. It was announced last summer that he would be moving to the weekend schedule to present a breakfast show on Saturdays and Sundays.
A statement from the national broadcaster said he would be concentrating on “a number of projects he has been working on with his media production company”.
“I’ve loved my time at 2fm, and now is the time to move on,” a quote from Hayes, included in this morning’s release, said.
Just as 2fm is evolving and changing, so am I. I wish all the team in 2fm the best of luck and I’d like to say thank you to all the people I have worked with in RTÉ over the last ten years.
Station boss Dan Healy, who paid tribute to Hayes as ”one of the most outstanding broadcasters in the country”, has been heading up a drive to bring younger listeners back to 2fm in recent years.
As a result, some of the best known presenters at the station – the likes of Dave Fanning, Larry Gogan and Rick O’Shea, as well as Hayes – were moved to weekends.
A new-look weekday schedule featuring, among others, former Westlife star Nicky Byrne, former Spin 1038 presenter Tracy Clifford, and Voice of Ireland host Eoghan McDermott, has been brought in since Healy took over in 2013.
“It needed to be positioned as a youth station with a clear identity,” Healy told the Irish Examiner last year.
We had some very good presenters on 2fm, but there wasn’t a sense of unity — or should that be continuity — throughout the day, but there certainly is now.
Hayes also worked for 2fm during the 1980s, but built his profile as the presenter of the Strawberry Alarm Clock, alongside Nugent, on Dublin’s FM104 in the early 2000s.
Nugent returned to the Dublin station in the wake of his departure from 2fm in 2010, and now presents the breakfast slot at the station, alongside Mark Noble.
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