Media: Headliner: Emap 'lifer' reintroduces stability and growth.

When Tom Moloney secured the Scottish Radio Holdings deal, it reassured some doubters in the City, Alasdair Reid says.

According to many observers, Emap's acquisition of Scottish Radio Holdings represents Tom Moloney's finest hour. Finest hour as the chief executive of Emap, that is. It's certainly his biggest deal.

When, following a protracted period of corporate dithering, Moloney was invited to succeed Kevin Hand in the top job at Emap, there were those who questioned his suitability for the role.

Emap was somewhat adrift following its embarrassing debacle in the US. Petersen Publishing, bought at the top of the economic cycle for pounds 1 billion in 1998, was sold as the market hit rock-bottom three years later for pounds 336 million. Hand walked and Emap subsequently seemed devoid of energy, and confidence or, indeed, any notion of a grand design.

So the City expected a successor with genuine status and profile. Instead, in January 2003, it got Moloney - an Emap 'lifer' (he joined in 1981) who had been at the helm of Emap in the US when the ship finally went down. Good front-line experience if you looked at it in one way; bad karma in another light. City sceptics worried that Moloney tended to be 'inward-looking' and a 'no frills' manager. Terribly nice chap and all that - but did he have the charisma, the vision and the steeliness?

Well, we're a bit closer to an answer now - but it certainly hasn't involved much in the way of fireworks.

Which is exactly as promised. Moloney has always made clear his distrust of quick-fix deals.