Ireland's first and only dedicated news and current affairs station faced massive delays when originally coming to air. Shareholder problems held the station up for over two years from the time they were awarded their licence until they launched, to Dublin only, on Tuesday 9th April 2002.

On-air staff consists mainly of former newspaper personnel and for the first couple of years, news was every 20 minutes (20-20 News), which was slightly irritating at peak-time. Top of the hour news bulletins finish around 10-11 past and after promos and ads, there was hardly time to breathe (let alone for a programme to get into its stride) before the next bulletin at 20 past. This all changed with the introduction of News 30 in September 2004.

The station is now finding its feet nationally after being awarded a licence to broadcast quasi-nationally in 2006.

NewsTalk's first day - from behind the scenes:
The first day went rather swimmingly...the obvious first day nerves were in place but I think this added to the newness of the station.
It opened with "Morning" by Peer Gynt along with soundbytes of a person getting up, getting ready and going to work. And then we went straight into the 1812 overture with promos etc. It was all very exciting, David McWilliams came on and our day had begun.
All in all it went very well. There was a couple of pauses and 1 or 2 technical hitches, but very good for the first day of Talk Radio in Ireland!
We were the first station to break a major story on our first day of broadcast anywhere in the world (we broke the news on Bobby Molloy) and this all worked out very well.

NewsTalk's former CEO, Paul Kavanagh, speaking during the first week on air
Newstalk 106 set a new record on the station's first day. We broke a story that a government minister had called a judge on a rape case. The Minister, Bobby Malloy, resigned as a result of the story.
In the first week we have put RTÉ, who had led the market when the we launched, under great pressure. We have had rave reviews and also had every party leader on air within 5 days of the launch.