We spoke to the founder of Freedom FM ahead of their launch as a legal FM station

In March 1995 a new pirate station called Freedom FM started broadcasting across Dublin. Tomorrow the station returns after they were granted a temporary licence from the BAI.

After the team revived freedom FM as an online station in 2020, they decided to take another shot at FM and applied for a temporary license which has now been granted. Not only will the station return to the airwaves in Dublin tomorrow but they’re also landing in Cork, Limerick and Galway for the first time.

We spoke to station founder Sean Power ahead of the station launch. Sean wasn’t able to tell us the transmitter power when we spoke as that hadn’t yet been confirmed by Comreg, but we asked other nerdy questions as well.

When the decision was made to try return to FM, what made you decide to go down the legal route? Was there ever a part of you that wanted to go pirate again?

Over the past year of running Freedom FM online, we have seen a continual growth in our online listenership, so the natural next step in developing the brand was to apply for a 30day temporary multi-city FM license from the BAI, going down the pirate route is not in our stations ethos.

Your current BAI licence is to broadcast for 30 days, does the team have any ambition to maybe apply for a full time licence down the road if things go well?

At the moment there isn’t any permanent FM licenses available, our ambition would be to apply again next year for another 30day license and expand on our FM coverage to bring the brand to a wider audience.

What playout software/ studio tech are you using and how are broadcasters doing shows from abroad?

We have been using Playoutone Pro with Music Master Scheduling software the past couple of months which has allowed shows both voice tracked and live to be done remotely, Playoutone Pro is a feature rich industry standard playout system, utilizing their webvt and livemic features, our DJ’s and Presenters are doing both voice tracked and live broadcast shows from a far as Melbourne, New York and Canada as well as locations around Ireland.

Will many shows be pre recorded/voice tracked or will everything be done live?

Due to Covid health & safety, Our goal is to provide 8 hours of live studio based content each day with other shows been broadcast live from presenters own home studios. Full schedule details are available on our website http://www.freedomfm.ie

Here’s how to listen

The station will be available on FM from tomorrow and will continue broadcasting on FM until October 17th

You will be able to listen by tuning your radio to

• Dublin 105.2 FM
• Cork 106.7 FM
• Galway 87.9 FM
• Limerick 105.5 FM

You can also listen online by using the Radio Land listen page where the station is now listed. Scroll down and you’ll find them in the other stations section.

Best of luck to the Freedom FM team from us here at Radio Land.