‘The same people who changed the music for Radio 1 got rid of me’: Ray D’Arcy reacts to RTÉ’s JNLR slump | Irish Independent
Flor Lynch
Niamh Horan
Today at 5:30
Ray D’Arcy has criticised his former employer, RTÉ, after their drop in listeners, saying the “same people who changed the music for Radio 1 got rid of me”.
Speaking to the Sunday Independent after a controversy filled week for RTÉ, D’Arcy said he would not take any joy from the latest JNLR figures, which have proved another headache for bosses.
A litany of the national broadcaster’s flagship radio programmes saw drop-offs in listeners after a shake-up in the line-up by RTÉ’s new director of audio, Patricia Monahan, formerly of Newstalk.
Morning Ireland is down 15,000, Today with David McCullagh is down 17,000, News at One is down 4,000, and Liveline is down 12,000.
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D’Arcy said: “The truth is that it’s a bedding-in period. People don’t like change. There’s a bit of churn and it’ll settle down and it’ll all be fine.
“The other thing is that Radio 1 is so far ahead of the rest of the field that it can afford to lose some listeners, and it goes up and down over the years.”
He recalled a recent humorous encounter on a trip to Waterford, where he said people lamented that he is off the air: “I was down in Dunmore East recently and I was on the beach and there were two ladies who said to me: ‘Ray, we miss you on the radio. What were they thinking at all?’
“My response was, ‘Well, the same people who changed the music for Radio 1 got rid of me’. And they laughed. They said, ‘that explains a lot’.”
The broadcaster, who now has his own daily podcast — The Ray D’Arcy Podcast — with his wife, Jenny, said he was perplexed by a number of recent decisions at the station.
“They make decisions and, like most things in this country, they’re not held accountable for, you know, if the decisions don’t work out,” he said.
'This is what you would call an ‘Oh f**k’ moment.'
Director general Kevin Bakhurst has defended paying a combined total of €97,000 to Claire Byrne and D’Arcy after they stopped working for the broadcaster towards the end of last year.
D’Arcy was RTÉ’s fifth highest paid presenter last year on close to €220,000, with €50,000 of this paid after he left Radio 1.
Mr Bakhurst said both presenters were available to work until January of this year, but that RTÉ “wanted to launch the new schedule”.
When asked by the Sunday Independent why the presenters could not have worked for the rest of their contracts, an RTÉ spokesperson said: “This decision was taken for editorial and commercial reasons.”
In March, D’Arcy said he felt “public humiliation” over how RTÉ handled his departure after working with them for almost 40 years. His two-year contract was due to end last December. He was told in September The Ray D’Arcy Show was not being renewed. He was offered a slot on RTÉ Gold, but he declined.
Sources said RTÉ bosses had been left feeling “very nervous” over the JNLR results: “They are hoping it bounces back and it improves, but this is what you would call an ‘Oh f**k’ moment.
“There is no way they’re going to change anything now. [The results are] too short-term.
Patricia Monahan, RTÉ director of audio. Photo: Mark Condren
“To be honest, I think they’re wedded to [the new schedule]. They’re going to have to stick with it for a while, but I think it’s fair to say they’re lamenting changing so much so soon and all at once.
“When Patricia [Monahan] started, everyone said, ‘She’s not afraid to make changes’, and there was a lot of people all high on life and on what all these great changes could mean for the station. Now the decisions are coming home to roost and you realise, ‘oh f**k, the audience aren’t loving this’.”
Another source said too much emphasis had been placed on focus groups when trying to decide the direction for the station.
“I think that an awful lot of what happens in RTÉ is driven by market research and focus groups, and not enough decisions are made by gut instinct and understanding what really matters when it comes to making radio.”
The source said they did not think bosses can change direction now: “I think that there’s too much caught up in this. You’d have to go back and you’d have to undo quite a lot.
“The worst thing is there are a lot of very talented people stuck in this now and it’s not working, and I don’t see how it’s going to work.”
Another source explained the reasoning behind RTÉ’s decision to take Byrne off air in October, despite having to pay out the €40,000 remaining on her contract.
“The truth is, RTÉ wanted Claire off the air to have some clear blue water between David McCullagh starting and her starting on Newstalk. It was like giving David a head start,” they said.
“They had lost her, but they made the conscious decision that they wanted that Radio 1 schedule on the air, and David on air, in advance of her ever starting in Newstalk. That would be all fine if it was a commercial business. But it’s not. This is taxpayers’ money.”