Ray D'Arcy's shock exit and the appointment of Kieran Cuddihy as the new host of Liveline were all part of major changes on RTÉ Radio 1 this week
You will have heard it a million times before and no doubt the broadsheets and the tabloids will be reaching for the same cliché this morning - is RTÉ rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic as it makes a major reshuffle to its weekday Radio 1 schedule?
To continue with the nautical theme, is the good ship RTÉ Radio 1 like a hulking frigate on the high seas, taking far too long to turn about, correct course and enter calmer waters after it takes heed of prevailing winds?
But enough with the wonky maritime metaphors.
Rumours of RTÉ Radio 1's demise have been greatly exaggerated, with the most recent JNLR figures in August revealing that the station remains the most popular in Ireland, reaching 1.4 million listeners every week, an increase of 25,000 since the last survey.
Six talking points from RTE Radio 1's new schedule
The fact that this week's news of musical chairs at the senior service has become a national talking point (mostly centred on Ray D’Arcy’s shock exit) says it all about just how important radio - RTÉ or otherwise - is to the Irish public.
Quite a shake-up on Radio 1 but don't touch that dial...
It has been quite a few days in Montrose. On Thursday, RTE issued a somewhat bloodless statement saying that Mr D’Arcy, who began his career on RTÉ in the late eighties, was leaving his afternoon show.
Then on Friday morning, came a flurry of news about changes in the Radio 1 schedule and wags once again starting quoting Lanigan’s Ball by The Bards.
Later the same day, we were told that Newstalk and Virgin Media broadcaster Kieran Cuddihy would be the new host of Liveline, following Joe Duffy’s retirement last June and we were also given our first look at the new Radio 1 weekday line-up, which should click into place some time later this year.
Following Claire Byrne’s decision to leave RTÉ for Newstalk, Today with David McCullagh will begin at 9am, Oliver Callan moves to a longer time slot of 11am to 1pm (very wise move that). Louise Duffy’s noon-time music show is moving to mid-afternoon and Katie Hannon and Colm Ó Mongáin will take over from Sarah McInerney and Cormac Ó hEadhra on Drivetime from the earlier time of 4pm. There will also be a new daily sports show from 6pm.
The fact that this is the biggest overhaul in the RTÉ Radio 1 schedule in 25 years speaks volumes and suggests that the national broadcaster is still stuck in its hidebound ways. That or they know that the listeners like the tranquility of a routine.
Ray D'Arcy's final RTÉ fade-out
This week's changes follow two years of tumult and ruction in Montrose following the payment imbroglio and the excessive corporate largess that have rocked RTÉ since the summer of 2023.
Management have been on a mission to right the ship amid on-going staff unease and mistrust ever since. Big names like Claire Byrne and Joe Duffy have left and the departure of Ray D'Arcy is another shock to the RTÉ's already battered ecosystem.
Following a very understandable eruption of public and political anger, which had been simmering for decades, about high wages for RTÉ talent, new pay caps were introduced in late 2023, along with new rules on "outside" work and sponsorship and endorsement deals.
The bottom line now is that nobody in RTÉ should earn more than the Director General’s salary of €250,000 and contract negotiations with on-air talent have been taking place under this new regime.
On Thursday, we saw the sudden exit of Ray D’Arcy, who had jumped ship to Today FM in 1998 only to rejoin RTÉ 11 years ago with a conspicuously hefty pay deal.
On his last show on Wednesday afternoon, he signed off in his usual cheerful way after Camille O’Sullivan had played a live rendition of Street Spirit by Radiohead. Fade out again, indeed.
The following day we learnt that Mr D’Arcy would not be returning to his berth on RTÉ Radio. He issued a terse but upbeat statement, saying he was "hugely disappointed with RTÉ management and how my departure from Radio 1 has been handled".
However, Mr D’Arcy had slumped in the most recent JNLRs and his show was down 10,000 listeners "book-on-book" to 182,000. There was also a sense that perhaps his afternoon time slot needed something more dynamic and fresh.
Asked on Friday morning on Radio 1 about his sudden departure, RTÉ’s Head Of Audio Patricia Monahan, who was previously managing editor at Newstalk, said "with change of this scale, there are always difficult conversations to be had, and that’s never easy for anybody".
To which we might drily note that perhaps a different kind of "scale" was the stumbling block during this particular contract negotiation. But no matter how you spin it, it was yet another bad day for the national broadcaster.
A new, younger voice on Liveline
Chief among the brickbats often thrown RTÉ’s way is that the national broadcaster is afraid to try out new talent and put new faces on our screens and new voices in front of microphones.
Recent changes in 2fm, a raft of new voices and faces on RTÉ News and the station’s tilt towards podcasts tell a different story but following this latest Radio 1 regrouping, all eyes and ears will be on the new kid on the block in Donnybrook, Kieran Cuddihy, who will take over Liveline later this year.
The Kilkenny native has proved his journalistic flair and relaxed authority on Newstalk since 2011 and has presented the station’s occasionally combative drive time show The Hard Shoulder since 2020, but Liveline will be a change of tone and temperature for the talented broadcaster.
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Mr Cuddihy, who was due to appear on last night’s Late Late Show but cancelled on Friday afternoon, arrives in RTÉ armed with both a degree in law and journalism and no doubt he will wish to put his own stamp on Liveline, which celebrates forty years on air this year.
Speaking on Radio 1 on Friday, Patricia Monahan said he was one of more than 500 people who applied to host the show.
"Kieran applied like everybody else and went through a very robust process that we ran in Radio 1," she said. "It was less a decision to go outside than to identify the right candidate for the job, as far as we were concerned."
Mr Cuddihy still lives in Kilkenny and is married to wife Natasha. They have two children, Sam (10) and Grace (eight).
He has proved to be at home with both light and heavy topics but what will he bring to Livelive? We daresay he will be less avuncular than Uncle Joe but is it time RTÉ Radio let the more combative style of, say, LBC's James O’Brien loose on the national airways? Hardly likely.
Speaking to The Irish Times last March, Mr Cuddihy said, "My favourite interviews are always normal people who are in really extraordinary situations." A perfect fit for Liveline so.
'An exciting new chapter'
Only three shows - Oliver Callan, Louise Duffy, and, up until last Wednesday, Ray D'Arcy - are still broadcast from the actual RTÉ Radio Centre, which now sits rather forlornly on the boundary of the land RTÉ sold all of eight years ago to alleviate its financial woes.
The vast majority of the station's output comes from the shiny new studios in what is quaintly called Stage 7 at the other end of the RTÉ campus.
It's certainly another sign that, as Tennyson once put it, the old order changeth, yielding place to new.
RTÉ radio is under new management and they have designed the new look schedule to evolve and react nimbly in a quickly changing media landscape and culture.
In a statement during the week, Patricia Monahan said that the new schedule "marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter" and has been "designed to meet the changing listening habits of audiences."
She will be hoping listeners are on the same wavelength.
