Tom Hardy - Broadcaster

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After a brief spell as a secondary school science teacher Tom Hardy began his professional radio career on the offshore pirate radio ships The Voice of Peace and Radio Caroline in the mid-to-late 70s. Arriving in Ireland in 1981 he was presenter, music director and studio manager at Dublin’s Sunshine Radio before joining Radio Nova, the city’s most successful ‘super-pirate’, as presenter and programme director. The mid 80s took Tom to Chiltern Radio in the UK to work as presenter, music director and assistant programme controller for the company’s four-county network of stations.

By 1988 Tom was back in Ireland to programme Kiss FM, Monaghan and after a brief return visit to Chiltern Radio, came back to Dublin in autumn 1989 to work as presenter, music director and assistant programme director at Classic Hits 98FM. In the early 90s Tom was instrumental in making the 98FM the city’s market leading commercial station. During his time with the station he was seconded to the Czech Republic to programme the company’s first overseas radio property, Kiss 98FM in Prague. He successfully re-launched the GWR Group’s Leicester Sound in 1994, before taking up the group programme director position at SBS Radio in Stockholm, with responsibility for 12 market leading local and regional stations across Sweden, Denmark and Finland.

Tom rejoined GWR in 1997 to programme 2CRFM in Bournemouth, taking it from number three to number one in less than a year. He became programme manager at Today FM in the Summer of 1998. Tom’s paternal grandmother is a McCarthy from Killarney; he is married with three children. Tom and his clan currently reside in Ratoath, Co. Meath.