Kiberd takes top Newstalk 106 post

NewsTalk 106 has appointed Damien Kiberd, presenter of its weekday lunchtime show, as the radio station's new editor.

Mr Kiberd, who set up the Sunday Business Post in 1989, replaces Fiona Stack as editor of NewsTalk. He took up the position on Tuesday and will be responsible for co-ordinating all programmes on the station and monitoring content.

Ms Stack has taken over as general manager at Radio Kerry.

"There are 14 radio stations in the greater Dublin area and my job will be to make sure we are something special," he said. "We are making very good progress in the marketplace at the moment, but there is still more to be done."

Mr Kiberd, who also works as a newspaper columnist, said he would stop presenting the lunchtime show as soon as a replacement has been named. The editor position will be full time.

Dublin-based NewsTalk, which was awarded a 10-year licence in 2000, has been on air since 2002. Listenership figures published last month by the Joint National Listenership Research Survey showed that NewsTalk held onto its 5 per cent share of the radio audience between October 2004 and March 2005.

Mr Kiberd said one of his main challenges would be to increase the station's listener numbers.

Overall radio listenership fell two percentage points to 95 per cent in the five months to the end of March from the year-earlier period, the survey showed.

According to the latest set of accounts lodged with the Companies Office, NewsTalk had accumulated losses of €8 million at the end of 2003.

A separate confidential document published by the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland and seen by The Irish Times at the end of last year says that the station may break even as early as this year and will probably make its first profit in 2006.

Businessman Denis O'Brien owns about 60 per cent of the station through his company Radio 2000 Ltd.