Deirdre Ní Choistín appointed director general of TG4

The board of TG4 has announced that Deirdre Ní Choistín has been appointed director general of TG4 with the statutory consent of the Government following a competitive public recruitment process.

She will succeed Alan Esslemont, who has been director general of TG4 since 2016 and who is stepping down in April 2025.

Ms Ní Choistín will be the fourth director general of the station since it was founded in 1996 and becomes the first woman to be appointed to the role.

“On behalf of the board, I am delighted to welcome the appointment of Deirdre Ní Choistín as director general of TG4,” said TG4 board cathaoirleach (chair) Anna Ní Ghallachair.

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“Deirdre has very considerable experience in many roles within the organisation as well as the vision and qualifications which will ensure the kind of leadership and strategic planning that will bring TG4 to the next level of excellence and recognition, for the benefit of Irish language communities in Ireland and internationally.”

Ms Ní Ghallachair said “a new era” for TG4 would begin with Ms Ní Choistín’s appointment.

“I wish to acknowledge and thank our outgoing director general Alan Esslemont for the many achievements of the TG4 team under his stewardship over the last eight years. As director general, Alan showed outstanding leadership and creative vision, which brought Irish language broadcasting and cinema to the world stage and which created a cultural role model for minority language media at home and abroad.”

The incoming director general said it was “a joy and a privilege” to be appointed to the role.

“TG4 has had a special place in my heart since the day it was launched on Halloween night in 1996 while I was still at university. At a crucial time in Irish language broadcasting, I am looking forward to working with the team to prepare TG4 for the future by cultivating creativity, better serving our audiences across all platforms, and further development of the independent production sector, in the Gaeltacht in particular,” Ms Ní Choistín said.

Ms Ní Choistín became TG4’s first head of news and current affairs in 2022. The role was created after the previous government accepted a recommendation by the Future of Media Commission that TG4 should have independent editorial control over its news service – under the Broadcasting Act 2009, the TG4 news service, Nuacht TG4, remains part of RTÉ‘s statutory one-hour-a-day provision to TG4.

Since 2022, she has been responsible developing a strategy and vision for TG4’s news and current affairs. She is also editor of current affairs series Iniúchadh TG4 and of children’s news service Nuacht Cúla4.

Ms Ní Choistín has more than 25 years’ experience in TG4. She began working with the station in 1999, shortly after the channel rebranded from TnaG to TG4 and was a producer and director for fourteen years. She established Molscéal, a popular online news and entertainment platform for TG4’s core Irish speaking audience in 2017.

Before being appointed as head of news and current affairs, she was TG4’s communications manager from 2019 to 2022.

She grew up in Kilcock, Co Kildare, and graduated with a degree in Irish and French from Trinity College Dublin in 1998 before undertaking a Higher Diploma in Applied Communications through Irish at the University of Galway. She was awarded first class honours in a Professional Masters in Business by University College Cork and the Irish Management Institute last year, where she specialised in advanced strategy, leadership and innovation.

Ms Ní Choistín and her husband Breandán Ó Conláin are raising their four sons through Irish in An Spidéal, Connemara.