Newstalk (formerly NewsTalk 106) is a national independent radio station in Ireland. It is operated by News 106 Limited, a subsidiary of Bauer Media Audio Ireland, and broadcasts under a sound broadcasting contract with the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland. Newstalk is Ireland's only commercial all-talk station, broadcasting opinion, analysis, entertainment and sport. Format The station is the only commercial radio station in Ireland to take on an exclusively news and current affairs based format. News is broadcast every hour. The station's flagship morning programme is Newstalk Breakfast, presented by Ciara Kelly and Shane Coleman with Joe Lynham presenting business coverage. Following on from Newstalk Breakfast is The Pat Kenny Show. The show mixes current affairs analysis, human interest interviews with light entertainment stories and live music. From midday, Andrea Gilligan presents Lunchtime Live, where she invites callers to have their say on the topics of the day. Seán Moncrieff broadcasts from 2pm with The Moncrieff Show, covering politics, history, popular culture and many other topics. Newstalk's drive time show, is The Hard Shoulder with Kieran Cuddihy. It's on every weekday afternoon from 4–7pm and is a round-up of the day's events and interviews with the people at the centre of the stories. Off The Ball is on at 7pm and covers Irish sport and stories to the Newstalk audience with in depth analysis and debate. Audience share On 5 November 2020, Newstalk announced it had recorded an all-time high weekly reach of 804,000 listeners, up 62,000 on the same time the previous year. The station's listened yesterday figure is an all-time high of 426,000 listeners, up 13,000 on 2019. Newstalk has a prime-time Market Share figure of 6.7%. History In 1999 the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) invited applications for a number of new Dublin radio services, expanding on the then duopoly of 98FM and FM104. One was for a speech-based radio service. The Independent Local Radio (ILR) national news provider Independent Network News, was one of two applicants for this licence, and its applicant company, News 106, was awarded the franchise. However, before the station even went on air, several ILR companies decided that they did not want to be part of the venture, and the station's shareholding was restructured, with at launch, 98FM, FM104, Clare FM, Carlow Kildare Radio, LMFM, East Coast Radio, South East Radio and WLR FM, along with Setanta, being the shareholders in the company.