The columnist and broadcaster Vincent Browne is to return to the RTE airwaves with a new evening radio programme this autumn. Tonight with Vincent Browne is to resume on RTE Radio 1 at the start of October, a year after Browne left the medium to take up work as a television presenter on Prime Time.
He left this programme last February after just eight months, following a series of disagreements with management at the programme over its content and direction. Last autumn, he sent the programme editor, Gary Agnew, a document outlining what he felt were shortcomings in the programme and his role in it.
Senior RTE management has been pressing Browne to return to radio for some time. The first run of Tonight drew a comparatively large radio audience for the unfavourable 10 p.m. slot and it pioneered the hugely popular re-enactments of the tribunals.
It is understood he has signed a contract to present the radio programme four nights a week, as well as doing 25 hours of television a year. No agreement has been reached yet on his television work. He is also an Irish Times columnist.
The broadcaster Rodney Rice, who replaced Browne in the evening slot on RTE Radio 1, is moving to other assignments. One of Rice's new projects will be a major series on Northern Ireland, it is understood.
Following his departure from Prime Time, Browne presented an eight-part discussion programme called Dilemmas, in which he interviewed two guests with opposing views on a particular moral or political issue.
Agnew, the editor of Prime Time, resigned last month after 2 1/2 years. With RTE moving the programme from the television division to news, he opted to stay in television.
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