Dublin radio listeners will have two new stations to choose from within weeks. The news and current affairs station, NewsTalk 106 is going on-air tomorrow week, April 9th.
Spin 103.8, the music station for 15- to 34-year-olds is also expected to begin broadcasting this month. NewsTalk 106FM will be the State's first news and current affairs-only station. While music may be used in review programmes or as part of a report, music tracks will not be played on the station.
TV3 presenter and economist David McWilliams will be the first presenter to go on air when the station begins broadcasting at 7 a.m. on April 9th. Other anchor presenters include Damien Kiberd, George Hook and the BBC's Karen Coleman.
Mr McWilliams will present the morning programme, which will be competing head-on with RTÉ's Morning Ireland but will run until 9.30 a.m.
"We'll be competing. Make no bones about it, that's what our morning show will be about," says Mr Pete Lunn, programme editor.
He is former assistant editor of the BBC's Newsnight programme and believes competition will be good for everyone involved in radio.
"Competition is desperately needed here. I've seen it from the inside. There was a massive expansion in radio stations and TV and BBC had to really sharpen itself up," he said.
As well as targeting RTÉ Radio 1 listeners, the station will be targeting music-based radio listeners who are making the transition to news and current affairs. Its target audience is from 25-54 years old.
NewsTalk 106 will have rolling news bulletins every 20 minutes and an hourly bulletin. But are people ready for a news-only station? "I'd be amazed if it didn't work," Mr Lunn says.
"It has worked in the UK and Irish people are more talkative, read more broadsheets, have more international knowledge and are better educated. I'd be amazed if it wasn't successful."
"It's not going to be wall-to-wall dry news. It will be informative and entertaining, modern, more cutting edge," he says. Presenters will be more relaxed, speaking more like the man-on-the-street, but without dumbing down.
He believes one of the station's main strengths will be its flexibility to deal with breaking news. The station won't have to worry about rescheduling programmes to cover a breaking story.
Mr Lunn believes there is enough news happening to fill the schedule from 6 a.m. to midnight. "Of course you will have slow news days but sometimes that's when the best stories come up because that's when you have discussions and it provokes people. The key to it is seeing behind the news."
When the station is fully operational, it will employ about 30 people, many of them in their 20s or early 30s.
Daire O'Brien, columnist and former television reporter, will present the morning programme from 9.30 a.m. to 12.30 pm. while the lunchtime programme will be presented by Damien Kiberd, former Sunday Business Post editor. "He's in a key competitive slot and I think it will work very well," Mr Lunn says.
Rugby analyst George Hook will be encroaching on Eamon Dunphy's patch when he hosts The Right Hook from 4.30 p.m. to 7. p.m. The show will feature "hard-hitting news, views and comment as well as all the latest on the day's news and sport" according the station's promotional material.
Mr Lunn is critical of Today FM's treatment of news and says Mr Dunphy's programme is "a current affairs island" which is not being promoted enough.
