Ciaran Davis
After taking out the top award at the 2014 Executive Awards and orchestrating one of the biggest audience shifts ever, Ciaran Davis is a CEO to watch.
Following a major rebrand of its stations, a coup where it scored two of the biggest names in radio Kyle & Jackie O and being named the FM radio network with the biggest reach across the metropolitan markets, the Australian Radio Network (ARN) has had an extremely successful year.
On top of all of that, ARN CEO Ciaran Davis was named CEO of the year at the 2014 Executive of the Year Awards. Ciaran spoke to The CEO Magazine about how he turned the network around.
The CEO Magazine: What changes have you made as CEO to get the Australian Radio Network to where it is today?
Ciaran: I've been at Australian Radio Network for five years. When I joined, the company while profitable and with a good reputation required repositioning and a period of reinvigoration. We made some structural changes, we brought in some fresh faces, and we set a very focused strategy around building audiences, getting our brands right, getting the product right, and marketing them better. That helped to increase our ratings and in this game, when you build up your ratings, commercial returns come through in terms of advertising dollars.
In 2013, ARN was the number three radio network with stations and experiential platforms in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Adelaide.