David McRedmond: TV3
Born in Dublin, David McRedmond spent much of his early career in the UK and the US and was involved in retailing businesses. He was, for a time, the operations director of Waterstone's, managing director of WH Smith Travel Retail, which is now the most consistently strong part of WH Smith, and in the US he was CEO of WH Smith Inc.
When McRedmond returned to Ireland in 2000 he became managing director of enterprises with eircom, where he was responsible for non-core business, and was chairman of Golden Pages Ltd. Following the disposal of non-core activities at eircom, McRedmond was appointed commercial director with accountability across the business units for strategy, regulation and corporate communications. When eircom was floated in March 2004, he was also appointed to the board and became the chairman of eircom Phonewatch Ltd. In 2006, eircom was sold to Babcock & Brown in a deal estimated at €2.4 billion, giving a return of 49% to the IPO shareholders.
McRedmond is currently the CEO of TV3,
Ireland's first independent television station, which launched in 1998. He was
appointed in October 2006 and took up the position the following December.
TV3 was bought out entirely in August 2006 by European-based private equity firm Doughty Hanson and Company, in a transaction that valued the station at €265 million. Prior to that, it was jointly owned by ITV (45%), CanWest Global Communications (45%) and the original TV3 Consortium (10%), which included U2 manager Paul McGuinness and the band's accountant Ossie Kilkenny, as well as former chairman and founder James Morris.
McRedmond immediately set about securing a long-term content deal with Granada International to guarantee that a range of popular programmes and soaps would remain a big part of TV3's schedule. In addition, €2.2m was spent on a new transmission system and virtual set technology. Following exclusive terrestrial coverage of the Rugby World Cup in November 2007, the channel secured the rights to broadcast live GAA championship matches - the first independent broadcaster to do so.
In July 2008, TV3 acquired Irish station Channel 6 in a deal believed to be worth up to €12m. Renamed 3e, McRedmond hopes to double the channel's audience over the next few years and show more Irish programmes on the channel. Also in 2008, he oversaw the relaunch of the TV3 website, which led to the company scooping the Grand Prix Award at the 2008 Golden Spider Awards. The site's main focus is on video, offering a catch-up facility for TV3's popular shows such as The Apprentice and The X Factor.
In December 2009 it was reported that TV3 made as much as €300,000 in extra ad revenue by taking the unusual step of auctioning off 30-second ad slots for two of the station's biggest shows; The Apprentice and The X-Factor. The two shows combined pull in over a million viewers.
With an MA in Modern History from University College Dublin, Redmond undertook management programmes at Insead and the UK cabinet office. He is 47 and married with three children.
