Editor – Times Radio (London)
Editor, Times Radio (Weekends)
Full time permanent role
Days and hours as determined by the role
Closing date Monday 6th May
Times Radio has shaken up the broadcasting firmament since launching in June 2020, and 2023’s nomination for UK Station of the Year at the Arias demonstrates the impact we have made. As a live news radio station, we have built up a strong reputation for providing well-informed, thoughtful and intelligent news and discussion, covering the key stories of the day. We have combined the famous journalistic expertise of The Times and The Sunday Times with the radio experience of News Broadcasting to create a station with a world-class line-up of presenters talking to excellent guests, who value conversation over confrontation.
Your role: As an Editor on Times Radio you will be a member of the senior leadership team for the station, taking overall responsibility for sections of the broadcast and digital output and providing leadership and direction for staff. It is intended that for the foreseeable future the successful candidate will work as Weekend Editor, working Thursday to Sunday to plan for and oversee Breakfast on Friday morning and all the Times Radio programmes (and their teams) broadcast on Saturday and Sunday.
Day to day you will:
- Provide world class editorial leadership for the on-the-day teams, steering the journalistic coverage of Times Radio, setting the agenda and ensuring that the right stories are being covered in the right way with the most impactful guests, to the highest journalistic and creative standards, also taking responsibility for the legal, ethical and compliance aspects of the coverage, and ensuring there is a diversity of voices on air
- Identify the news lines and talkable moments from the output and ensure that they are published externally and in video on the Times Radio social media platforms
- Take responsibility for programme team welfare and performance, listening to and addressing concerns, delivering feedback, and nurturing people in their work and careers to ensure that Times Radio has a culture of high-performing teams
- Work closely with presenters, giving feedback and addressing concerns so they are able to present the best programmes possible
- Oversee individual shows and work with the presenters and producers to evolve them, taking account of the latest data, audience insight and editorial direction of Times Radio, to grow the audience for the show, the station and its video platforms
- Champion the revenue-generating parts of Times Radio, including sponsored on-air content and our revenue-generating video platforms
- Collaborate with The Times and Sunday Times newsrooms to amplify their journalism, facilitate writers appearing on air and in vision, and growing their subscriber base
- Represent Times Radio as needed in an external context, seeking and managing relationships with new partners, seeking new opportunities to grow Times Radio and to attract new staff and broadcast talent.
What we’re looking for from you:
- Extensive experience working in daily news, with the nose to pick the best stories and select the best guests to ensure that Times Radio sets the agenda on a daily basis, moves on stories and makes an impact, as well as proven leadership in breaking news situations and the willingness to rip up programme running orders and direct teams to create compelling live coverage
- A great understanding of what makes terrific radio and the ability to communicate that to team members, with strong radio production and craft skills, including excellent script writing and audio editing
- Ability to work multi-platform, ensuring that video and social media content is at the heart of Times Radio and that the video team achieve their strategic aims
- Warm inter-personal leadership skills that bring out the best in teams and ensure that the working atmosphere is constructive and positive
- You are used to working with and getting the best out of presenters
- A good ambassador for the brand; you are great at building and nurturing relationships internally and externally
- Deep understanding of relevant compliance and legal issues
- A flexible approach to work, willing to change plans at short notice and cover colleagues’ roles when they are on leave or sick and so on. This role will include working early mornings/late nights and Bank Holidays.
We are News Broadcasting: Driving digital innovation, our people create award-winning national and local radio and podcasts which are must-listens for millions across the UK, Ireland and beyond. Life sounds good with Virgin Radio – home to Chris Evans at Breakfast and Graham Norton at the weekend. talkSPORT, the world’s biggest sports radio station, delivers the very best live sport and analysis and is truly powered by its millions of fans. Launched in June 2020 Times Radio brings together the peerless journalistic expertise of The Times and The Sunday Times with world-class broadcast talent including John Pienaar, Aasmah Mir and Michael Portillo.Talk, a major new available to everyone across the UK, delivering a schedule of news, current affairs, entertainment and sport.
Life at News: At News UK our people are our heartbeat – they are the driving force behind our brands and we want to enable people to thrive. Some of us work flexibly, in many different ways. We encourage you to talk to us about the flexibility you would like. Many of us work in a hybrid way between one of the News UK & Ireland offices and remotely.
We champion diversity and inclusion, we strive to maximise and encourage every individual’s potential and ensure everyone feels valued. We support this through our Diversity Board, D&I strategy & training, creating more diverse content and our intern and apprenticeship programmes. We also have 11 employee-led networks.
We take pride in looking after our amazing talent at News UK supporting the Health and Wellbeing of our staff. Some of what we offer includes:
- A generous pension scheme with employer contributions of up to 5%;
- 25 days holiday and up to 4 volunteering days per year;
- Maternity leave up to 18 weeks full basic salary & paternity leave up to 2 weeks;
- Wide range of training available, plus full LinkedIn Learning access.
- Private medical insurance covering pre-existing conditions
- Discounted gym memberships, ClassPass at Home, weekly virtual HIIT, yoga and run club classes
- ‘Bikes for Work’ scheme
- Access to wellbeing benefits such as physio/massage and counselling
We want to ensure that everyone we meet has the opportunity to perform to their best when interviewing. Please let us know, at any stage, whether you require any reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, and we will do our best to accommodate.
News UK is an official partner of the Journalism Diversity Fund, founder of the Journalism and Disability Forum, and proud member of the Valuable 500. At News UK, we will continue to promote an inclusive and diverse workplace, to help people with visible and non visible disabilities create careers in media and aim to make our content accessible to all.