Sean Ashmore

Seán Ashmore has been the CEO of Sunshine 106.8 since 2004, having previously (and sometimes simultaneously) occupied the same role at Live 95FM in Limerick (2001),  East Coast FM in Wicklow (from 1994 to 2004) and Classic Hits 4FM (2011-2021). He is a 50% shareholder of Heart Media, giving him an over stake of 17.83% in Sunshine 106.8. Heart Media Limited co-owns KFM in Kildare (through their subsidiary Fessenden Radio Investments Limited) and owns 85% of East Coast FM in Wicklow (through their other subsidiary Fessenden Limited.)

Born in 1970, Ashmore was early convert to radio, working as a presenter on Kevin Brannigan and Mike Ormonde’s shortlived Signal FM pirate station in 1988 and then taking on East Coast Radio’s drivetime current affairs show in 1991, aged  just 21. 

His ascent from presenter to CEO at East Coast took just three years: when he departed the CEO role in 2004, he remained a director of the company and a leading shareholder with a 25% by 2004. In the interim (1997 until 2001) he was also chair of Independent Network News (INN), the vehicle owned in common by licenced commercial stations and which provided their national and international news services. It was in 1999, while Ashmore was chair, that INN approached the Independent Radio and Television Commission with plans for all-news-and-chatshow radio station for Dublin, the station which would ultimately become Newstalk. Remarkably, Ashmore also briefly simultaneously took on a third role, as CEO at Limerick’s Live 95FM ,in 2001. 

He has remained associated with Kevin Branigan and Mike Ormonde of Bay Broadcasting throughout his career. All three were part of the – unsuccessful – 1999 Kiss FM consortium which bid for the Dublin dance music station licence and which was secured by Q102 bid for a dance music licence. 

In 2011 Brannigan and Ormonde’s Bay Broadcasting was among the leading investors at 4FM, the multi-city radio station targeting the over-45s age group that had struggled to establish a sizeable audience since its 2009 launch. In 2011 Ashmore was appointed as 4FM’s new CEO, the fourth in the station’s short history. Ashmore credited with turning the station’s fortune around, rebranding it as “Classic Hits 4FM” and entirely overhauling its “rather dull and bland” daytime schedule. In 2015, the Revenue Commissioners went to the High Court seeking that Choice Broadcasting Limited be wound up over unpaid taxes of €150,000, it was an investment of from Bay which funded the debt (and it was Bay that acquired effectively sole control of Choice by 2017). 

The establishment of Heart Media, co-owned with Ciara O’Connor (another Limerick Live alumnus), was originally driven by a 2006 bid to replace Limerick Live (then owned by UTV) when its franchise came up for renewal. Though the Heart FM bid was unsuccessful, Ashmore and O’Connor retained the brand as a vehicle for subsequent radio investments. The first of these was a 56% stake in East Coast acquired in 2008 following Communicorp’s decision to sell off their stake in the station. This was added to Ashmore’s existing 25% personnel stake. It also indirectly enhanced Ashmore’s small (3%) stake in Country Mix 106.8 (later Sunshine): by 2012, Heart’s subsidiary, Broadcast Investments Limited owned a 45.2% in Country Mix’s operating company Star Broadcasting Limited (as did Bay Broadcasting). Heart’s most recent major move came in 2019 when the another subsidiary, Fessenden Radio Investment Limited, took a 48% share in KFM, matching that of KFM co-founder Clem Ryan.

(Last updated in April 2026)