Background

Radio Kerry was established in 1990. The station headquarters are in Tralee, the county town of Kerry, with additional studios in Killarney and Cahersiveen.

April 1995 … Radio Kerry moved to a new custom-built building in Tralee town centre with top quality digital broadcasting and production facilities as well as a fully equipped editing suite and a television studio. There are approximately 60 people employed at the station in full-time, part-time and freelance positions.

January 2005 … Radio Kerry moved to custom built studios in Killarney town centre.  Many programmes and features are broadcast from here on daily basis.

August 2005 … Radio Kerry completed the purchase of Shannonside/Northern Sound, becoming the first of the original local radio stations to go on to this level of expansion. Shannonside/Northern Sound broadcasts to Longford, Roscommon, Cavan, Monaghan and Leitrim.

January 2006 … Radio Kerry commenced providing a Broadcast Media Skills course in conjunction with FAS and established the Radio Kerry Training Centre.

Summer 2006 … a new logo was introduced, the building refurbished and the entire broadcast network along with studios and equipment was updated.

April 2007 … Radio Kerry introduced a new Outside Broadcast Unit which is equipped with the latest in digital broadcasting and IP satellite technology.

Broadcast

Radio Kerry broadcasts on five frequencies – 96.2, 96.6, 97.0, 97.2 and 97.6FM - throughout the County of Kerry. The station can also be picked up in parts of the surrounding counties of Cork, Limerick, Tipperary and Clare and on the internet at www.radiokerry.ie. Radio Kerry was the first station outside of Dublin to take part in the DAB digital radio trial. We are ready with the latest technology if DAB continues to develop. The DAB trial brought Radio Kerry to Dublin and the greater North East region which covered approx. 36% of Ireland’s population. 

Listener Profile

Due to the nature of a local radio station's audience profile it is necessary to cater for a variety of programming tastes. A typical Radio Kerry listener is aged between 25 - 65 and their main information requirements are current affairs, local news, sports, music, specialist speech programming and weather. Their music interests are very varied. For this reason Radio Kerry broadcasts a number of special interest music programmes nightly.

JNLR/MRBI Quarterly Listenership Survey

The JNLR/MRBI Listener Survey results are released quarterly in February, May, August and November. 
The latest details – MAY 2010 – are as follows:

Awards

The station has won several Radio Advertising Awards, Community Games Media Awards, the McNamee Award for Sports Programmes, a New Adventures in Broadcasting Award, a Seachtain na Gaeilge award for Irish language programming and a BT award for technical innovation.

October 2005 … Radio Kerry named Local Radio Station of the Year at the PPI Radio Awards.
October 2006 … Radio Kerry wins the National PPI Award for Sports Coverage.
October 2007 … Radio Kerry named Local Radio Station of the Year at the PPI Radio Awards.

2008 PPI Awards

PPI Sports Programme of the Year for Terrace Talk.

PPI Silver Awards for:
Speech Broadcaster - John Drummey
Specialist Music Programme - JJ O Shea for The Global Village.

PPI Bronze Awards for:
News Programme - Radio Kerry's One O’Clock News
News Story: Coverage of the closure of the Contact 4 call centre in Dingle.
Specialist Speech Programme: Ask the Explorer - a special programme during which Explorer Pat Falvey took questions from Deirdre Walsh and schoolchildren throughout Kerry about his trip to the South Pole.

Local Station of the Year

Management Team

Paul Byrne, Chief Executive
Fiona Stack, General Manager and Programme Controller
Melanie O'Sullivan, Sales and Marketing Manager
Marie Sweeney, Finance Manager

Check out some more details here in this Powerpoint Presentation
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