UKRD has promoted Tristan Hunkin to Group Head of News. He will oversee output across the group’s stations, including Pirate FM and The Eagle.
UKRD’s Group Programme Director Phil Angell said, “Local news provision on commercial radio is under threat as group’s grapple with the recession. Even ITV has been hit hard. The quality and quantity of our news will increasingly become a major point of difference as the big groups shut up shop and hub from London. Tristan’s experience, good humour, and ability to write as creatively as Shakespeare, will prove critical.”
Tristan began his career at Lantern FM in Devon and has worked for GCap and The Local Radio Company. He joined UKRD in 2005 as Head of News at Pirate FM in Cornwall, just months before it won a gold Sony for Station of the Year, an achievement he did his best to claim credit for.
Subsequently the news team won a Plain English Campaign award for its creative and straight-talking style and, in 2008, Radio News Programme of the Year in the EDF South West Media Awards.
Tristan said, “traditionally, commercial radio journalists are overworked and undervalued, despite often being the first to arrive at the station in the morning and the last to leave. Through its investment in a radically different company culture, UKRD is challenging that, which should also ensure we continue to recruit and retain talented, enthusiastic, and forward-thinking staff."
