Lots happens in the radio industry each week so here’s a summary of the week we just enjoyed.
Here’s what happened
Campaign group Why Not Her have published findings this week which suggest that women and artists of colour are under represented in the music playlists of Irish stations.
The group, who have also published similar findings in the past, have got some really fascinating stats about the industry. let’s look at the stats first, and then we’ll return to the main point.
- In the top 100 songs on Irish radio, 26% were by women, 59% by men, 14% were collaborations, and 1% were by non binary artists.
- Bad habits by Ed Sheeran was the most played song, with Giants by Dermot Kennedy the most played by an Irish artist.
- Irish artists made up 18% of the top 100, with Irish female artists making up 3%
- Today FM and 7 regional stations had just one female artist in their top 20 lists. Raidió na Gaeltachta flipped the script with 80% of its top 20 being female.
- RTE Pulse was the most diverse station, with 8 artists from the top 20 being artists of colour. 2FM also play a higher percentage of artists of colour, while spin 1038, Spin South West and WLR also did relatively good.
Now that we’ve seen the numbers there’s a question to be asked. Do we bring In quotas? For the Why Not Her group that answer is yes. The Irish Times report that the group will meat ministers on the 7th of July to propose updated broadcast legislation to improve diversity in playlists.
The government dismissed the idea of Irish music quotas in a statement to Radio Land in the past, but would diversity quotas be a different question? We’ll need to wait and see. Let us know what you think over on our Twitter @RadioLandIRL
The Irish edition of the Times, not to be confused with the Irish Times, is closing. the news brand is owned by News Ireland who also operate the Irish wing of wireless group. They run 96FM, C103, Q102, FM104, LMFM and Live 95.
In total there will be 4 job losses, all of which are editorial positions. The remaining staff will move to co working spaces at the groups radio stations.
It’s always a shame to see people losing their jobs, especially in the tough world of media. Hopefully everyone can land on their feet from this. best of luck to everyone impacted.
It will be interesting to see how this impacts things on the radio news front, as it would seem there will now be more resources dedicated to that.
Finally this week, the BAI have put a notice in a national newspaper, seeking expressions of interest for commercial broadcasting licences.
None of the licenses are new, but it will be interesting to see if new companies compete for these licences, and if all the current licence holders want another few years.
The licenses up for grabs are…
- WLR
- Clare FM
- Tipp FM
- RedFM
- Midwest Radio
- Shannonside/Northern sound (under a single licence for two services)
- LMFM
- South East Radio
- East Coast FM
- KFM
- FM104
- 98FM
This is the first time in a while that so many commercial licenses are up for grabs, so who knows what the future might bring.
Quick Bits
Ryan Tubridy has spoken about dealing with his fame
The BAI are reminding people that the current sound and vision rounds close soon
Ed and Valerie from Spin South West got to host on Today FM this week
Despite RTEs calls for the change, it looks like Revenue won’t be collecting the licence fee
A team from 2FM successfully completed the Irish Cancer Societies Marathon in a Month
Irish radio stations played rainbow blood in unison this week to celebrate Pride
It was time for a change
It might seem like a tiny change, but Radio Land has moved to a .ie domain. We wanted to do this for a few reasons.
- To give us a more authentically Irish brand
- So that we perform better in Irish search results
- We were never an organisation, so the old domain never really suited us.
The old URL still works so you shouldn’t experience any major disruption at all.
Thanks to everyone for supporting radio land over the past 2 years, and thanks to the amazing team at WordPress Support who gave me considerable technical help with the transition.
We are radioland.ie
That’s it
And that’s the summary for this week. Come back to radio land next week for more radio news📻 and be sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram for extra stories.