Lots happens in the radio industry each week so here’s a summary of the week we just enjoyed.
Here’s What Happened
The Bauer Cash Machine has given away its biggest ever prize. €111,111.11 was won on Today FM, Newstalk, 98FM, Spin 1038, and Spin South West. As always the call was networked across all the station’s but with different imaging.
The lucky winner was Siobhan from Limerick who is now officially the biggest ever prize winner on Irish radio, not too bad for a quick €2 text.
Of course you can ask questions around the fairness of Bauer networking competitions at this scale where nobody else can compete, but that’s a conversation for another day. For now, massive congratulations to Siobhan and her family following the big win.
You can hear the variants of the wins from each station by clicking the links below.
In a weird way it’s interesting hearing the exact same thing just with different imaging.
Read the story here, but note the giveaway was not just for Today FM
The IBI are once again calling for the broadcasting Levi to be scrapped, as well as a number of other recommendations.
Ronan McManamy said that most stations now only made modest profits at best, and that this was limiting the industries investment potential. He argued that the sound and vision scheme was of little benefit saying that it required significant administration for small amounts, wasn’t suitable for live broadcasting, and was very prescriptive in the kinds of programming it allowed.
He praised the Covid support system however, where funding was given to stations to spend as required.
We’ll need to wait and see how all this plays out, as the upcoming changes for the BAI might result in a lot of movement in this regard.
Finally this week, the advertisers are mad. tá na fógróirí ar buile.
Advertisers are apparently unhappy with a new rule that requires 20% of advertising for state bodies to be in Irish. They claim the rule has been introduced without any consultation.
According to the Independent, the Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland (Iapi), met with officials from the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media in recent days in what was described as a collegial meeting, but one which suggested that no changes would be likely.
What do you think? Should 20% of government ads be in Irish? Let us know on our Instagram story.
Quick Bits
The Irish times group, who own a majority stake in WLR and Beat made a profit of €2.9 million
Juice FM Cork turned eight this week
Paul Ryder has a new show on 98FM
Claire Byrns radio show is looking for a sponsor once again
“Hector might not like me, but I like Hector”, some radio drama courtesy of The Sun.
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.