Happy New Year
Hope you all had a good break. We’re back for 2023, but we have a bit of catching up to do first. This weeks post contains all the big stories from the last few weeks, just so your all caught up on what’s going on. We’ll be back to our normal format next week.
Here’s What Happened
Classic Hits 80s is currently on FM curtesy of a 30 day licence. The format isn’t hard to guess, the station plays 80s music.
The reason for the move isn’t really clear, however there is a lot of promotion for the main station. It’s possable that Classic Hits just took over the Christmas FM frequencies as a marketing campaign, but thats pure speculation. maybe in some way it’s an attempt to convince people Nova could go national? Who knows.
Regardless of the reason, the station is now on air playing loads of 80s music. It can be heard in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, and Galway.
In a statement to Radio Today, Classic Hits CEO Kevin Branigan did add weight to the idea that this was aimed at boosting or promoting the main station.
“Ireland’s Classic Hits Radio is a premium brand that broadcasts to 2.5M people across Ireland’s major urban areas. We’re always interested in expanding and trying new ideas and this is just the latest in our drive to grow our brand and position as one of the largest radio stations in the country. We’ve operated Classic Hits 80s as a digital brand extension on our website, smartphone apps and the Irish Radio Player for some time and now we’re bringing it to FM radio across the four major cities of Ireland”
Kevin speaking to Radio Today
It will be interesting to see if this becomes more common. Will we be seeing GoLoud stations on FM sooner than we think? It will really depend on how this works for Classic Hits.
We have already covered Ronan Collins leaving his daily Radio 1 show, but since we did there have been some updates worth mentioning.
Specifically Ronan is going to be joining RTÉ Gold. The details of the show haven’t been confirmed yet, but he will apparently be joining the station in February.
At the moment gold has a live breakfast and Mid Morning Show, as well as a full weekend schedule. If RTÉ start to build on that further it might bring gold to a stage where it could be a source of income for RTÉ. Last year we covered the station receiving sponsorship by Harvey Norman, so it’s clear RTÉ know their close.
Will Ronan have a show on weekdays, or might he replace someone at the weekend? We’ll need to wait and see. Either way gold is going to be an interesting station to watch in 2023. Might this be the year that a full service station can make it work on the internet?
Campaign group why not her have published stats on the top 50 songs played on Irish Radio in 2022. The report doesn’t give us a direct list, but instead focuses on specific stats.
First let’s look at the top 5 tracks, and then we’ll look at some of their other findings.
The top 5 tracks of 2022 were.
- At number one we have Harry Styles – As It Was. A very popular artist with young audiences, so much so that there are calls for the minister to consider Harry’s concert dates when scheduling this years leaving cert.
- In at number 2 we have Elton John + Dua Lipa – Cold Heart. A huge song for 2022, with remixed versions doing very well too.
- The bronze medal goes to Jax Jones feat. MNEK – Where Did You Go.
- Just missing out on the podium we have Sam Fender – Seventeen Going Under. That comes in at number 4.
- She had a crazy successful 2022, and even managed to come out of some controversies without much damage. Lizzo – About Damn Time, takes the 5th spot on the list.
The report does point out some stats about the top 50, showing that there is a long way to go in terms of representation.
- Out of 50 songs, 6 were by Irish artists. A total of just 4 Irish artists were represented.
- 0 out of the 50 were from Irish People of colour
- 0 were by Irish female solo artists or bands.
What do you think? How would you increase representation in Irish radio? Let us know on our social media.
Quick Bits
The BAI gave out some Sound And Vision Money
An RTÉ radio documentary is currently airing on Radio New Zealand
RTE is looking for a new director general
Jacqui Hurley is leaving Sunday sport
A transition year student got to present on Iradio over Christmas
Deirdre McCarthy is the new head of news and current affairs at RTÉ
Joleen Murphy has been appointed News and Sports Editor at Beat 102-103
The minister for media didn’t change during the big shuffle
Radiocentre ireland have launched the audio awards
RTE have an amazing new radio studio
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.