Lots happens in the radio industry each week so here’s a summary of the week we just enjoyed.
Here’s What Happened
He’s been hosting the show for as long as I’ve been alive, and indeed much longer, but it’s time for Ronan Collins to leave his daily show on RTE Radio 1.
Ronan announced that he will host his final edition of the Ronan Collins Show on the 23rd of December. From January onwards, he will be hosting on Bank Holiday Mondays only.
With 232,000 listeners, Ronan’s show was the most listened to music show in the country. Whoever takes over the show is going to have very big shoes to fill.
“I’ve been working on afternoon radio on RTÉ Radio 1 for nearly 38 years, plus six years before that on Radio 2, and nobody will ever know how grateful I have been for all the opportunities over the past 40 years and going forward with RTÉ. I often ask myself ‘how much longer can I continue to do this?,’ and the answer always is ‘just keep going.’ New challenges await now on RTÉ in 2023, and I will continue to be on RTÉ Radio 1 with The Collins Collection on Bank Holidays.”
Ronan announcing the end of his show
It will be interesting to see who takes over, with an announcement on this expected in the coming days. both Louise Duffy and Ray Cuddihy have filled in on the show in recent times, so might they be the next big names on Radio 1? We’ll need to wait and see.
Best of luck to Ronan on his future career, and congratulations on playing such a huge role in Irish radio history.
And that’s what I get for trying to be organised!!!
So, I had everything written all ready to go, and then RTÉ drop a bombshell. When they said the replacement would be announced in the coming days, I didn’t think they meant tomorrow. Anyway, we now have our replacement.
Louise Duffy will take over in the slot from January, after previously filling in for Ronan. She’s also covered other shows on the station, and has 8 years on Today FM behind her too.
It will be great to hear how the new show sounds in January, and we wish Louise the very best of luck.
An Irish language community station in Belfast is considering the possibility of launching a service on a small scale DAB Multiplex in Derry.
Raidió Fáilte have held a meeting with the local community to explore the possibility, and discuss what people from Derry would like from the service.
We don’t know the outcome of the meeting, but this might be an interesting one to watch over the next few months.
It’s also interesting to see DAB used in this way, especially when you consider that we never really went down this road in the republic. Would you like to see DAB in Ireland? Or would it be too big a risk for the existing radio industry? Vote on our Instagram story now.
Finally just an explainer of how I plan to work stuff on Radio land over Christmas.
For the first time in 2years, I’m going taking some weeks off. Don’t worry though, I’m not doing a full Ronan Collins just yet.
Next Saturday the 17th I’ll take a look back at this years biggest radio stories, and then after that I’m taking a 2 week break. All normal programming will be back in January though.
Thank you all for supporting Radio Land over the past year. Do follow our social media for updates when we return.
Quick Bits
The Irish Times have taken a look back at this year in radio
Opinions Matter has signed a new distribution contract with GoLoud
Ian Dempsey has got an end of year poll
Fyona Smith has started her job as managing Editor at Today FM
Radio Nova’s Clint Drieberg is now an Irish citizen
An Irish rapper has made a prestigious BBC radio 1 long list
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.