Bloody astounding decision by the powers that be to axe Young and his programme. An award winning prog led by one of the most intelligent, astute, good humoured, well-informed presenters in Ireland. Hugely popular - a great advertising draw - and yet the decision is claimed to have been taken for 'financial reasons'. Young's prog was dropped with 10 MINUTES notice!

I don't buy it. Call me paranoid - well actually don't. In this Fianna Fail led country of ours, there is no such thing as paranoia about what that lot get up to. All you have to do is think of the worst possible motive they might have for anything they do and you have almost without exception arrived at the exact truth of the matter.

Young was in the habit of hosting genuinely balanced discussion/debate of local issues, a lot of which will have got right up the noses of vested interests more accustomed to the servile creeping of our national broadcaster. It wasn't as if Young didn't give everyone a hard ride, he just gave them uniformly equal treatment, time and thought. NO journalist of this calibre has EVER survived a Fianna Fail government. This is not what Fianna Fail Ireland is or does. My firm conviction, is that he was 'got rid of'.

The Southern Star Newspaper - Co Cork, Ireland

Young;not a name one associates with West Cork.Is there some ethnic/sectarian subtext? In other words has he been shafted from above or below?

Well done for putting this topic up, you beat me to it.

C103's David Young is one of the countries fairest, most balanced, yet incredibly incisive interviewers.

Any interview with a politian was very tough, but very very fair.

Everyone, from Richard Bruton to FF to Sinn fein was treated toughly but equally.

No messing was taken but in a good humored way.

It is terrible that this great broadcaster was taken off air.

He had a habit if a politician would not come on air he'd ask the listeners where they are, to see if they would spot them out and about. Great fun.

West Cork Today was more than a local show. It did loads for democracy in the local area.

Bring it back on air now!

Newstalk should hire him. RTE wouldn't suit him.

Also to just give some background.

C103 ran two shows at the same time for different parts of cork county which was a great idea and it had great ratings.

Depending where you lived you heard your specific programme from 10am til 1.

One from Mallow covering north and east Cork called "North Cork Today" and one from Bandon (presented by David Young) in west Cork called "West Cork Today".

As of last Tuesday it is no more.

One show called Cork Today (from Mallow only) is now on air and it expected to cover twice the area in the same time frame.


This is very very unfair.

So as far as I can see it they are economising by rolling what were 2 parallel shows into 1 for the same audience. That seems to me like sensible economising in the light of collapsing ad revenues throughout all media. The gripe seems to be that it was one presenter who got the chop rather than the other which is fair enough but then again if it were the North Cork presenter that got the boot then North Cork listeners would be doing the complaining. I am sure station management made the judgement call on sound commercial grounds.

Young had done a lot of stuff on the financial crisis, controversial West Cork developments and so forth - all of which were conducted with scrupulous attention to fairness and balance. That's too much for the Fianna Fail thugs and bullies who run our country at local and national level. They get rid of ANYONE who respects true fairness and democracy. They want the voices of reason totally silenced, the better to railroad through their selfish and destructive greed projects. The axing of David Young is a disgrace. Pat Kenny is a useless, craven, stupid wimp in comparison to Young who has talent and intellect beyond anything Kenny could even dream of. It now seems that Miriam O' Callagahan is going to allow herself to be converted into Kenny's equivalent FF ar**e-licking female dumbo on Frinday nights, the better to propaganidse at middle class Ireland. I despair of this ignorant, God-forsaken country sometimes. The sooner we see full scale revolution here the better. We'd have been better off under the Brits than this disgusting shower of vicious, thieving cretins.

That is not the point at all. Two Current affairs shows, serving different parts of a very large county, were part of the submission to the BCI.

End of story.

Just spotted this online.
There will be a protest next Monday in Cork about it.

More details here
Protest Monday 20th 10.00am at C103 Office < Quentin Gargan

Well done to all organising the protest

Thanks for this munsterperson - glad to see that a protest is going to happen, will do my best to be there.

This quote from Gargan gives the lie to the claimed financial rationale for getting rid of Young:

The move to shut down this programme may also be an economic folly. It is listened to and advertised on because it provides a local news lifeline. Even if the show is not entirely self-financing, does UTV really need to cut these two jobs to make ends meet? This comes in a year when UTV’s operating profit from radio rose by 12% to STG£18.5M.

Young has upset somebody, that's surely the beginning and end of it.

Don't know much about the issue, but the address given for the 96FM offices is wrong in that press release. It's on Wellington Rd, opposite the junction with Sidney Place. It would be a bit of a farce if all the protesters turned up in completelt the wrong location.

There's not much on Robert St, apart from the goods entrance to Penney's and an Indian handicrafts shop. Either would wonder why they had people protesting outside.

__________________
My political compass
Economic Left/Right: 0.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.36