The new boss of Manx Radio insists replacing its flagship news show will not mean a cut in public service broadcasting.

Chris Sully, who took over as managing director this year, defended the decision to axe Mandate.

Long-time presenter John Moss will present the last Mandate morning show today (Friday). He will stay on as a reporter and presenter.

From next week, Ben Hartley and Alex Wotton will present the new Breakfast Show from 7.30am, with a mix of news and current affairs, entertainment, music and a daily ’Where’s Wotton?’ competition.

Talking Heads at midday will be replaced by a revived Mannin Line hosted by Andy Wint who will also present Update from 5.30pm, billed as the station’s new ’flagship current affairs review’.

Mr Sully said: ’We can see people are tuning in for the news but they are not sticking for the whole hour.

’Part of the reason is that when Mandate was first broadcast we were in a very different media world. We have to adapt. Was Mandate fit for purpose? Probably not in that format.’

He said listeners would no longer want to be ’spoon fed things they didn’t want’ and there needed to be more engagement.

The latest Rajar figures show a big drop in Manx Radio’s audience reach and listening share - the latter down from 28.7% in June 2017 to 18.3% in June this year.

Audience figures have been falling over the last three years, accepted Mr Sully, and the new schedule aims at addressing that decline.

A sustainable future was about funding but also about output, he said.

The commitment to public service broadcasting isn’t changing, he insisted.

’All the features and interviews will still be there but packaged in a different way,’ he said.

He said if there was a breaking news story like the Laxey floods last week, there was the flexibility to give the new breakfast show a bigger news focus.

Similarly, the evening Update show could be extended if there was a major news item to cover.

’Are we cutting out journalistic integrity? Absolutely not,’ said Mr Sully. ’I accept what we are doing won’t be to everyone’s taste. But we hope to address that decline in the future and turn it around.’