Phil Riley, chief executive of Orion Media has explained the recent restructuring made at the company which has included reappointments and redundancies since the takeover was completed of its eight stations.

The Midlands based company owns eight radio stations including BRMB, Mercia, Wyvern and Beacon in the West Midlands and Heart 106 following its multi-million pound takeover of the stations which was finalised at the start of August.

“We didn’t buy a group of radio stations which were a cohesive unit. We have bought a group of radio stations which happened to be near each other, so we’ve had to install a group structure,” explained Riley.

Since the completion of the deal, the company has reorganised its operation having brought in David Lloyd as group programme director, Adrian Serle as group communications director, Mark Evans and group finance director and Claire Younghusband as group human resources manager.

Riley continued: “If you had all of those people and you had MDs at every station you would have a rather top heavy management structure, so we’ve made those positions redundant and we’ve put two regional MDs in place. Matt Ramsbottom who was at Beacon is now the regional MD for Beacon and Wyvern and Bob Norman who was the Group MD prior to the dispersal is now looking after Heart and Mercia.”

As a result of the restructure, Riley said that just under 20 posts had been created, while around seven had been made redundant including regional operations director Adam Bridge.

The restructure has now been completed.