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NEWSTALK CHIEF EXECUTIVE Tim Collins will leave his role at the Communicorp radio station just over a year after taking on the position.
The announcement was made to staff at an all-company meeting this morning, when a number of major changes to management at the station were revealed.
Fora understands that Collins is set to depart as Newstalk’s chief, but it is not known if he will take up another role within Communicorp. A spokesman for the station declined to comment when contacted.
Collins’ departure has come as part of a raft of changes at Communicorp’s other radio brands which will see the company move to a more ‘centralised’ management structure.
Fora understands that both 98FM CEO John Burns and Spin CEO Jamie Crawford will leave their current roles.
Staff were told both Burns and Crawford’s positions were being made redundant. Burns has only been in the role since August, while Crawford has been working at Spin since 2005 – and as chief executive since 2008.
TodayFM chief executive Keith McCormack has retained his job in the reshuffle and will now lead all music stations owned by Communicorp.
Collins joined Newstalk last year from Ocean FM after more than 11 years at the Sligo-based regional radio station.
The latest change has come only a few months after Garrett Harte, the long standing editor-in-chief at the station, resigned from his role. Since his departure, Harte’s role has not been filled.
Staff were told this morning: “We hope to have an editor-in-chief as soon as possible.”
Collins succeeded outgoing Newstalk chief executive Gerard Whelan nearly a full year after Whelan resigned from the position.
During his time at Ocean FM, Collins also acted in a consulting role to the Northern Ireland-based local radio group the Northern Media Group and was director of the Independent Broadcasters of Ireland.
Collins also played a role in the establishment of River Media newspapers, which publishes regional titles such as the Donegal Post, the Kildare Post and Inish Times.
New schedule
During his time at the station, Collins oversaw a major reshuffle to the Newstalk schedule.
The station has struggled to make significant inroads against RTÉ’s dominant Radio 1, which had a 23.6% share of the national weekday audience last year – compared to Newstalk’s 5.9%.
Following the departure of Ivan Yates from the Breakfast Show last year, Newstalk hired a number of new presenters to fill out a new weekday line up.
Irish Independent crime correspondent Paul Williams and TV3 news presenter Collette Fitzpatrick joined the station to form a new morning line up with Shane Coleman.
However, less than a year later Fitzpatrick left her new role with Newstalk to take up the role of senior news anchor with TV3.
Since the new schedule was introduced, Newstalk has seen mixed results in the quarterly JNLR ratings.
The latest JNLR figures released in February showed the Breakfast show was up 7,000 listeners to 122,000, while Pat Kenny’s show saw a small increased of 1,000 listeners up to 147,000.
However, Newstalk Drive dropped from 138,000 to 130,000 listeners, while George Hook’s lunchtime show dropped from 98,000 to 95,000. Moncrief also fell slightly by 1,000 listeners to 64,000.
In the red
Meanwhile, the Denis O’Brien-owned Communicorp posted a net loss of €3.46 million in 2015, according to the firm’s latest accounts, down from €4.15 million the previous year.
The continued plunge into the red came despite turnover increasing 28% to more than €85 million for the year.
Newstalk has also been the subject of controversy after an abandoned takeover bid from Independent News and Media (INM), which counts O’Brien as its largest shareholder, led to a boardroom falling-out at the newspaper publisher.
The Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement has asked INM to produce records relating to the proposed deal. It has since been revealed that the publisher’s CEO, Robert Pitt, made a protected disclosure under whistleblower rules about the bid.
Written by Killian Woods and posted on Fora.ie
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Just shows how far behind the west India really is.and with their mentality not surprising the way the world is.
Cultural differences.
Bridget Cleary from Tipperary burned to death by her husband in 1895 because he thought that she was a changeling.
1895 its now 2015?
Poverty and ignorance can be a very dangerous thing.
Only 30 years ago we believed stone statues were around this country so we can get off our high horses as to how ‘progressive’ we are in Ireland.
Really John? What’s the last time someone was beaten to death in Ireland for witchcraft. Please do educate us
I heard about that long ago from my father. I thought there was a priest involved trying to exorcise her and part of the ritual involved burning her and when it wasn’t working she was burnt to death. The poor woman had a mental illness.
Is it any wonder in a country that exercises the Cast System that we get primitive thinking people displaying primitive evils
from the Delta quadrant?
In all fairness, how else are they to deal with the scourge of these Witches and their evil spells?
John Quill
Who’s this we?? I think you can speak for yourself.
@ Seán O’Ceallaghan – ah the old cultural differences / cultural relativism excuse. You’re giving the actions of murderers a free pass. But I’m sure your free passes are selective; just like your outrage.
What do you mean “far behind”?
Ireland still does the old witch trials in secret.
Ask Meath social worker who does the witch finding.
March 1995 Meath Navan witch trial
British witch finder – aka social worker.
Not physically beaten but mentally tortured. Do you want names ?
1958 exorcism re child witch Meath.
Child deemed too advanced for her age so must be possessed.
Exorcism was torture of the spine with knuckle dusters- so torture.
William I am sure you are aware that ovver 95% of mental illness is childhood trauma.
India is advanced enough to have put a sattilite into space but its a country of extremes with villages still believing in witches, what is desperately needed is education to reach these places but that wont happen because of the endemic corruption in Indian politics at all levels.
Great example of why multiculturalism is a failed concept. Can you imagine these people living in Ireland with that mentality. It just doesn’t work. We are not supposed to be able to mix together so easily. Cultures clash and we are different, do-gooders need to realise this. We are different so stop trying to make us the same.
And do you think the Irish mentality is much better, granted we don’t kill so,called witches anymore.
We have many people from India living in Ireland. yes this mad village is severely behind the times but the wealth of knowledge and expertise that has migrated to ireland in the past few decades has done us wonders. equally so irish learning new cultures and showing theirs abroad.
Spot on Stephen but we do hunt them down- well the witch finders do for sure.
I left known examples above.
Strong women are deemed witches in family law today.
I wonder will the people of the future look back on us and think we’re all mad B4stards for believing in a God too? Religion: Santa Claus for adults?
George Carlin said it all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r-e2NDSTuE
When it comes to bullshit, big-time, major league bullshit, you have to stand in awe of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims, religion. No contest. No contest. Religion. Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time!
But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, you talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!
It’s embarrassing to be part of the human race, and to think we are top of the food chain.
Stephen, top of food chain? Ever heard of a tiger? Or a great white (shark, of course, not wasp! )
Niall, ever hear of a gun?
Wasps use guns, especially if they’re dentists.
We are top of the food chain Stephen. Have been for thousands of years.
Peter, I think your reply was for me. People get eaten by tigers, lions, crocs, sharks, snakes – even bugs. I wouldn’t get too complacent about our pole position.
Ya but a tiger cant make a tool to kill something we can , we adapt all the time that’s why we are top of the food chain.
How can such backward countries with these sort of savages expect to ever be taken seriously?
Because they have nuclear weapons I suppose.
Let the perpetuators migrate to Ireland and we can help them assimilate in to Irish society.
See, India is a pretty huge place. With a caste system firmly in place. You have cosmopolitan areas with highly educated and wealthy people, you have areas more or less like any other where most people are educated but perhaps not wealthy, the working class areas, the underemployed areas, and the out and out dregs where people have little to no education and their prospects for survival include begging and foraging.
It’s a tad silly to write off India as a country – because like any other country it has its fair share of loons versus normal people. There’s just more of them owing to the sheer number of people in India.
Barbarism. Still blaming women for things going wrong is the way of the world, isn’t it.
Bitter much Daisy?
Occasionally. Hard not to be sometimes.
Stupid comments. India world’s biggest democracy with more than 1.2 billion people. Terrible what happened but get our own house in order before judging others!
So we shouldn’t judge that beating 5 women to death for witchcraft is wrong?
I think you need to go back to school and do a refresher in reading.
We should judge those who took part in this horrific act and those who took part in it alone. Only those guilty for it are actually deserving of judgement. I’m sure there had to have been at least some who didn’t condone this senseless violence.
absolutely! ! but if you look at some of the comments on this article. .. just unreal.
there all fckin loonatics
Isn’t it funny in these backwards places it’s always women that are to blame. By the way it may have been women that accused them. These women were middle aged and not able to run. What a sad place to live.
Yes well it was always the wise women mostly who were deemed witches in the past.
The RC church labelled the wise ones witches and then they could take their property and put the grandchildren on the streets.
Note the Hammer of the Witch was the Jesuit torture manual – even water boarding is there,The ducking stool
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/murderers.htm
Iron Spider
The iron would usually be heated to red-hot and then used to slowly rip the breasts from the body. It would be used for such crimes as heresy, adultery, self-induced abortions, blasphemy and other “hideous” crimes.
Torture Chambers
‘ For 1500 hundred years, the Christian Church systematically operated torture chambers throughout Europe. Torture was the rule, not the exception. Next to the Bible, the most influential and venerated book in Christian history was the Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches), which was a step-by-step tutorial in how to torture “witches’ and “sorcerers”.
http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/
Shame India neglects to educate villagers, enough money for space though…
What would you rather be, a wombat?
I’d love to be a wombat.
how can somebody in this day and age actually believe in something so stupid as magic and witchcraft? all their energy wasted on killing innocent people. you think they could have stopped a peado instead of these poor women
Easy.
No scientific education whatsoever. In fact, highly likely that “education” consisted of learning how to beg for a living and perhaps farming if they’re lucky.
When you don’t understand the how of things (eg, your scientific education) then witchcraft and superstition are the go to answers.
People in Ireland believe a virgin gave birth to a child that is both her son and the child’s father. Every week lots of them believe they’re eating human flesh (even though it looks and tastes like a bit of wafer.). One person’s magic and witchcraft is another person’s deeply held belief.
@Daisy Chainsaw,
Are you seriously comparing Irish people going to mass with these backward savages?
You’re out of your freakin mind
Perhaps she’s merely alluding to another easy answer for complex questions that some of those who attend mass reach for – there may even be those among them scared of “witchcraft” (remember, some priest was saying yoga was witchcraft or devil worshipping there not so long ago) perhaps here people have the good sense to not form murderous mobs, but there’s definitely still people in Ireland who believe in “witchcraft” and blame it for their ills. They’re usually quite religious (not all the same religion I would like to add). So the beliefs aren’t too far apart, just on one end of a the wider religious beliefs spectrum.
Oh you would be surprised at how many wealthy people believe it this.
Ah now pedos are well protected worldwide.
Warning: the contents of this article is utter tripe!
So you witnessed it NOT happening?
@Dave Meagher
A tiger does not need a tool
These witches are devious, getting the villagers to kill them so they can get away with the witchcraft.
@Daisy. No daisy. That would be Silly. But 1. I’m not Indian or life in India so cannot effect change of any sort ever so these articles are a waste of human resources over at the journal.
2. You’re never going to do anything about it but cough cough. “Raise awareness” which is a load of cobblers so what exactly are you talking about.
But that is what mob rule doe,s they use paranoia to let them do evil things to people because that person does not fit into their so called group. They feel threatened because they can’t control another group or person so they attack them in order to have control then…
The same way group dynamics work in monkeys, to control the group?
If alpha males / females loose control of a group then the omega group in that group will attack those who made the alpha ones loose the control. At the end of the day these people were victims and it was mob rule that killed them because a lack of control always brings the worst out in people and then they try to blame everyone else but them?
So in other words these women became outcasts for not sleeping with the leaders of that community or kissing their butts… or could I be wrong?
A lot of horrible gang murders and gang rapes coming from India lately, it just shows how horrible a place it is.
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