Laura Slattery: End of multiple eras as new brooms arrive in media top jobs

It is “one of the most exhilarating jobs in journalism”, according to John Ryley, but in 2023 he will step down as head of Sky News after 17 years – a reign of impressive longevity in what has, by most standards, proven a frenzied and turbulent media age.

Ryley’s departure, confirmed to Sky News employees late on Sunday, is not the only era of media leadership to have recently ended or signalled an end. This year has brought more changes in editorial and commercial management top jobs in the media business than I can recall, and the comings and goings aren’t even finished yet.

Here, the latest appointment of crucial importance is Siún Ní Raghallaigh as chair of RTÉ for a five-year term, succeeding Moya Doherty.

The Government’s selection is an intriguing one. As a former chief executive and shareholder in Ardmore Studios and Troy Studios, Ní Raghallaigh has entrepreneurial credentials, as Doherty did. And as the ex-finance chief and two-term chairwoman of TG4, she also comes to Montrose with knowledge of how to oversee a broadcaster that is both lean and creatively ambitious – a difficult combination at the best of times.

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The new RTÉ chair and her board don’t have the luxury of a decision-making vacuum, however, as they will soon have to begin the process of finding a replacement for RTÉ director-general Dee Forbes, whose term is due to finish next summer.

It now falls to her to try to glean as much funding for RTÉ as possible out of Government ministers who often seem to want the benefits of a public-service broadcaster without the costs. The task wound up frustrating Doherty, who accurately lamented the “decision-making vacuum” surrounding existential issues such as the licence fee.

The new RTÉ chair and her board don’t have the luxury of a decision-making vacuum, however, as they will soon have to begin the process of finding a replacement for RTÉ director general Dee Forbes, whose term is due to finish next summer.

Another vital personnel matter should shortly be resolved: replacing departed managing director of news and current affairs Jon Williams. He stepped down in July after 5½ years, saying the pandemic had prompted him to “reassess” his priorities and he wanted to return to the UK to spend time with his family.

You wait ages for one of the most senior jobs in Irish journalism to come along and then two arrive at once: RTÉ's recruitment advertisement for a permanent successor to Williams – the role has been filled in the interim by Deirdre McCarthy – was published on the same day as The Irish Times advertised for a new editor.

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Ruadhán Mac Cormaic’s appointment as editor of The Irish Times – the 15th in its 163-year history – was duly announced in October, with the then assistant editor taking over from Paul O’Neill, who stepped down after five years. This was followed last month by a further leadership change at the company, as former deputy editor Deirdre Veldon succeeded Paul Mulvaney as group managing director.

At Mediahuis, Peter Vandermeersch – the Belgian-headquartered news publisher’s highest-profile executive in Dublin since it acquired the former Independent News & Media company in 2019 – replaced Marc Vangeel as chief executive of Mediahuis Ireland in August, having previously served as publisher of the Irish subsidiary.

As part of this management restructuring, Irish Independent and Independent.ie editor Cormac Bourke was elevated to the title of Mediahuis Ireland editor-in-chief.

The year also brought changes at Enda O’Coineen’s Business Post Group, which marked September’s new-term feeling by rearranging the management hierarchy. Newsbrands Ireland chairman Colm O’Reilly, then the chief executive of the Business Post, is now chief operations officer of the wider Business Post Group, overseeing its acquisitions and funding strategy as well as its overall financial performance, while Sarah Murphy is his replacement as chief executive of the Business Post itself.

The title is also set to appoint a new editor, with Gillan Nelis serving as acting editor since Richie Oakley stepped down in October after three years to take up a role at public relations company Murray Group.

Internationally, meanwhile, there has been a new broom at a noticeably high number of media institutions. Alongside Ryley’s exit from Sky News, the UK industry has this year seen the Guardian Media Group welcome another new chief executive in Anna Bateson, while former Telegraph editor and Sun editor-in-chief Tony Gallagher succeeded John Witherow as editor of The Times.

There was also a new name in the biggest UK news job of all: Deborah Turness, the ITN chief executive and ex-president of NBC News, was appointed to the BBC’s top news and current affairs role, newly retitled from director to chief executive, replacing Fran Unsworth. Cutbacks, necessitated by the BBC’s licence fee settlement, have since ensued.

In the US, Discovery’s takeover of Warner Media to create Warner Bros Discovery brought regime change to CNN, where new boss Chris Licht pulled the plug on subscription service CNN Plus after less than a month.

While some of 2022′s departures came at the end of fixed terms and others were obviously influenced by personal circumstances, post-Covid rethinks and corporate reorganisations, the turnover at the top also reflects the crossroads at which the media industry now finds itself wavering.

At the New York Times, Dean Baquet’s successor as executive editor, Joe Kahn, laid down a gauntlet strangely not taken up by any of his peers by posing awkwardly on a rug with a giant copy of the newspaper spread out before him as though it was about to be used in some sort of clean-up operation.

Reaction to the photograph of Kahn, dubbed “disarmingly seductive” by Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, was a rare light moment in an industry that often seems weighed down by its own negative news.

While some of 2022′s departures came at the end of fixed terms and others were obviously influenced by personal circumstances, post-Covid rethinks and corporate reorganisations, the turnover at the top also reflects the crossroads at which the media industry now finds itself wavering.

The recruitment ads for RTÉ's news and current affairs MD, The Irish Times editor and Business Post editor all used the word “change” or “changes” twice, while Ryley, in his published letter to Sky News staff, mentions it three times.

Despite the “tricksy days” and “relentless” aspect of running a non-stop news organisation, it has been his “great good fortune to have done the job for so long”, Ryley says.

His successor at the Comcast-owned company seems less likely to manage such a stretch, given the demands, pressures and musical chairs of the modern media business.

Still, they could do worse than to remember, as Ryley suggested they should, that “it’s not the cleverest or biggest news organisation that succeeds, but the one most adaptable to change”.