O'Reilly To Join RTÉ Executive Board

RTÉ have announced that Willie O'Reilly is to take up the newly-created post of Group Commercial Director. Reporting to the Director General, as a member of the Executive Board, the Group Commercial Director will lead all of the divisional and cross-divisional Commercial staff and operations at RTÉ. Working with the existing senior management team, he will have overall responsibility for the planning and development of commercial strategy.

Willie O'Reilly has been Chief Executive of Today FM since 1999, leading one of two national commercial radio services operating in Ireland. As CEO he has had full responsibility to the board for the strategy of the organisation and has been responsible for delivering increases in audiences and revenue while establishing Today FM as a strong brand within the Irish media landscape.

Willie has worked in broadcasting for almost 30 years both in the private sector and in RTÉ, where he was Executive producer of The Gerry Ryan Show for a ten-year period. During his time in Today FM he has managed changes of ownership from private individuals to Scottish Radio Holdings to Emap PLC and now Communicorp Ltd.

As a former President of the Institute of Directors he played a lead role in establishing the IoD as a leader in director education. He recently graduated as a Chartered Director.

He was also a board member of the HSE and a member of that organisation's Audit Committee and has served as Chairman of IBI, the representative body for Irish independent radio stations.

Willie O'Reilly said: "Leading the commercial effort at Ireland's leading national media organisation is an exciting challenge which I am very pleased to take on. All of us in media are required to be innovative, vigorous and exceptionally focussed in driving revenue performance at this most difficult of times economically. RTÉ's breadth of service delivery and the popularity of its content provide an excellent foundation for commercial performance that can help maintain and secure Irish public media at the centre of national life. My own background both at RTÉ and in the national commercial sector is one which has entailed building the strongest commercial partnerships around consistency and quality in content delivery. I look forward to working with my colleagues in RTÉ's Sales and Commercial teams to build on the strong commercial performance to date and to grow our performance as the organisation reshapes and restructures into the Digital future."

Willie O'Reilly will take up the position at RTÉ on January 1.

(BMcN/BMcC)