RTÉ Unveils Upfront with Katie Hannon New Monday Night TV Current Affairs Series
Broadcaster Colm Ó Mongáin announced as new presenter of RTÉ Radio 1 Saturday with & Late Debate
RTÉ has announced Upfront with Katie Hannon, a brand-new current affairs strand across television, digital and social media, beginning January 2023. The new strand will include a new hour-long Monday night audience-centred live television programme, podcasts and authored online articles by the award-winning journalist and broadcaster Katie Hannon. Each Monday night, Katie will moderate a live programme where the public come face to face with the people whose decisions impact directly on their lives. The programme will take audiences beyond the headlines of the big stories of the day to those who are living that story. As well as a live studio audience, there will be a wider social audience, where the public can directly engage with the programme live on air. In tandem with this, Katie will engage throughout the week in a social conversation across digital platforms, where the public can drive the issues that matter to them and the people they would like to see answer their questions. The series will also take to the road with special programmes from across the country. Upfront with Katie Hannon will be broadcast on Monday nights at 10.35pm beginning in January on RTÉ One and available to stream on the RTÉ Player. Katie Hannon has presented RTÉ Radio 1’s Late Debate and Saturday with Katie Hannon as well as regularly standing in as presenter of Liveline since 2018 and will also continue to present on the station. Prior to that she reported for RTÉ Prime Time for over 14 years, covering a wide variety of issues including major investigations into banking, failures in child protection, vaccine trials in children’s homes, the failings that led to the Rescue 116 tragedy and the Garda whistleblower scandal. She was also previously Political Correspondent for the Evening Herald and The Irish Examiner, and Political Editor of Ireland on Sunday. Presenter Katie Hannon said: “I’ve had the privilege of telling people’s stories in print, on television and on radio over many years now. But I have long believed that the most powerful journalism is where people are allowed to tell their own stories. This is about creating a platform where this can happen and where those whose decisions impact on all of our lives are asked to listen; to account for themselves and persuade us that they deserve our trust and support. It will be a place everyone will be given the space to have their say. I can’t wait.”
From this December, broadcaster Colm Ó Mongáin will present RTÉ Radio 1’s political radio programmes, Late Debate and Saturday with Colm Ó Mongáin. Currently Deputy Foreign Editor of RTÉ News, he is also the producer and co-host of RTÉ’s Brexit Republic podcast, and produced and presented the Pandemic podcast, a daily half-hour podcast on the Covid-19 crisis. Colm has previously held the roles of presenter and Editor of This Week on Sundays on RTÉ Radio 1. He has been a journalist with RTÉ News since 2006 and has reported from Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Mali, Ethiopia and from around Europe. He previously worked for TV3 and Newstalk.
