Business

Profits at Pat Kenny’s media company plunge about 60%

Broadcaster and his wife Kathy are listed as the firm’s only directors, which has assets of almost €2.4m

JNL|R results confirm early indicators from last autumn that Kenny had emerged as the key winner after a period of upheaval on Irish radio. Photograph: Newstalk

Colin Gleeson
Fri May 17 2024 - 15:16

Profits at broadcaster Pat Kenny’s media company plunged about 60 per cent last year, newly-filed accounts show.

The figures, lodged with the Companies Registration Office, show Pat Kenny Media Services made a profit of €99,415 in the year to the end of June 2023. The figure was down significantly on the €248,178 profit registered by the company in 2022.

Kenny and his wife Kathy are listed as the firm’s only directors. It had assets of almost €2.4 million at the year end, which was up from €2.3 million the year before.

Kenny (76) uses the firm to channel the earnings he makes as a presenter. Figures this week showed his audience on Newstalk has surged to a record high to become the most listened-to show on Irish commercial radio.

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Kenny now has 229,000 listeners for his 9am to noon programme on Newstalk, which is part of the German-owned Bauer Media Audio Ireland group, according to the Joint National Listenership Research (JNLR) survey for the period from April 2023 to the end of March.

This is up 13,000 since the last survey, which covered all of last year. But more significantly for Newstalk, his listenership has climbed by a substantial 55,000 listeners over the past year, bringing it to 14th in the overall list of most-consumed programmes on Irish radio.

[ Radio: Oliver Callan’s time slot among programmes to lose listeners for RTÉ Radio 1 ]

The result confirms early indicators from last autumn that Kenny, who left RTÉ for Newstalk in 2013, had emerged as the key winner after a period of upheaval on Irish radio.

Colin Gleeson

Colin Gleeson

Colin Gleeson is an Irish Times reporter

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