iRadio Group Announces Restructuring Of Its 2 Regional Stations
- New €1.5 mio. investment by shareholders
- Co-location of studios
- A reduction of full time equivalents by 11
iRadio Group (Wilton Radio Limited), the owner of the regional radio franchises for the North West and North East regions, is today announcing a range of measures aimed at consolidating the success of its stations, i102-104 and i105-107.
i102-104 went to air in February 2008 and broadcasts to the 7 counties in the North West region. Its listenership has grown beyond all expectation reaching 161,000 people each week. The station is well ahead of the audience targets set in its application to the Broadcasting Commission in 2006. It surpassed its three year audience target in just 18 months and is now the most listened to regional 15-34 station in the country (including Dublin).
i105-107 went to air in November 2008 and broadcasts to the 8 counties in the North East region. A similar level of success to its sister station i102 104 is expected and the station is currently reaching 75,000 listeners per week.
From launch both stations have enjoyed unparalleled support from local businesses throughout the North West and North East regions.
At the license application stage it was anticipated that revenues from advertising agencies would form a significant proportion of total revenues for the 2 stations however, despite the patronage of local advertisers, there have been significant challenges facing the stations in getting support from national campaigns through advertising agencies. The levels of advertising spend from these agencies has greatly reduced due to the effects of the economic down turn. While both stations are well ahead of targets in terms of audience delivery and programme quality a number of steps need to be taken to secure the economic viability of the stations going forward.
The current economic environment has presented enormous challenges for the fledgling businesses. A steep decline in national advertising revenues of just over 40% has taken place between 2007 and 2009 (Source: IAPI). The actual national fall over the two years in advertsing spend is € 751 million. Advertising spend is now running at 2002 levels. This prolonged economic recession has resulted in the group requiring cost savings in the order of €1m per annum, all this despite the fact that audience targets have been surpassed in such a short space of time.
The package of measures has been carefully designed to have as little effect as possible on programme output and quality. The new restructuring plan was recently approved at a meeting of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland and will be subject to a review by the BAI in 12 months time.
The measures include a co-location of the two operations in the existing facilities in Athlone, Co. Roscommon, streamlining of the news teams, a range of cost cutting measures including a reduction in full and part head count. The restructuring plan also requires a further investment by the shareholders of some €1.5m.
There will be no changes to the amount of live broadcasting hours, speech or Irish language programming.
iRadio have announced to staff at meetings held today that they will be, with deep regret, making some 10 full time and 2 part time staff redundant, coming from departments including administration and research/production. This will take effect from the middle of April 2010. The total number of full time people employed will go from 52 to 42. A process of consultation with staff will commence and be completed in April 2010.
iRadio Chief Executive, Rena Maycock commented “We have had to take the measures announced today to secure the future of both stations. We had previously implemented a series of measures including an embargo on new hires, a pay freeze and an aggressive cost cutting programme. However the prolonged nature of the current global down turn and, in particular, the effect this is having on advertising agency income means that we have no choice but to implement this restructuring package. We are confident that the package announced will deliver profitability for the iRadio Group by 2011 without impacting on programming and audience figures”.
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