Lots happens in the radio industry each week so here’s a summary of the week we just enjoyed.
Hears what Happened
It’s been reported that there are huge changes coming down the road at Corks Red FM. We previously covered that 96FM presenter KC is making the move back to Red, but now it looks like Red FM is going to pull off a full schedule change.
There is now talk that Dave Mac and Philip Bourke are set to leave Red FM, meaning the station will get a new breakfast show, afternoon show and Drive show. Mix that with a new breakfast and drive at 96FM, and we have ourselves the biggest change in cork radio since Red FM poached Neil Prendeville.
What might the new Cork radio scheduals look like? Let’s take a look.
- KC is in the hot seat for Red FM breakfast. We know there’s a team involved here, but there’s no mention of co hosts just yet.
- On the other side, 96FM breakfast is going to be hosted by Loraine and Ross. Loraine is making the move from drive to take this breakfast show, leaving the drive slot open.
- Afternoon and drive are totally unclear for Red. Will they move in one of the weekend presenters? Bring in someone new? Move a host from another Bauer station? Network with another station🤮? Who knows. This is where the biggest uncertainty is for now.
- 96FM drive is also interesting. Will they stay in the 96FM family or bring someone in from Red? The reports so far suggest Dave and Philip are leaving Red FM, but it’s unclear if they’re leaving Bauer entirely. Dave Mac wanted to host a show from Dublin, so have Bauer decided to move him to a Dublin station? Or is he going to be a free agent and bring Dave Macs Drive to 96FM? They might also try bring Philip across. They really have a lot of options.
It’s going to be an exciting few weeks ahead in Cork, and it’s great to see some competition between the two big players once again. I just hope we don’t come out of this with more networked shows, as long as we avoid that I’m happy.
This RTÉ drama just keeps going. We’re now in week three. When’s the last time a story survived 3 weeks in the news cycle? It’s certainly not recent.
despite the story being everywhere, it still seems most people want it to continue. A poll with over 200 votes on Neil Prendeville’s Twitter this week showed the majority want the media to ‘.keep it going”. As unscientific as that is it’s still interesting to see.
So, from millions lost on a musical to Marty Morrissey’s motor, here’s some of the new stuff from this week.
- Toy show the musical sold 11,044 tickets for 27 shows. RTE planned for 54 shows, but Covid in the cast stopped that. Between canceled shows, low ticket sales, and an expensive production and staging process, the show lost €2.2 million. It was a fantastic show but clearly didn’t go as planned.
- Marty Morrissey was using a Renault car for five years, that was given to him for free by Renault in exchange for appearances discussing GAA and interviewing sports stars. He handed back the car and apologised this week. Meanwhile a BMW dealership deleted a post from 2016 calling Marty a brand ambassador, correcting the record saying he was only a paying customer.
- A judge who this week had to hand out convictions for those who don’t have a TV licence heavily criticised RTÉ and its Stars. He praised the media and public accounts committee for their investigative work. there’s a lot in this one so if your interested You can read all about it here
- Ryan Tubridy and his agent Noel Kelly will face committees on Tuesday. Not much more to say on that for now but we’ll wait and see what happens.
- Finally, probably the most important development. The new director general of RTÉ Kevin Backhurst will start on Monday, and he will announce his plans for the future of RTÉ. This is expected to include a major restructuring, but the details aren’t very clear just yet.
It just keeps on going, so let’s leave it there for another week. We’ll be chatting about this again next week so pointless doing any major analysis.
The Irish times have some fantastic coverage on the story from this week, and you can check that out below.
Dermot & Dave are heading to Australia to join the girls in green at the Women’s World Cup. The boys will broadcast from different parts of Australia across the tour, with the whole thing sponsored by sky.
“We cannot wait to go and support our amazing girls in green as they head to Australia to make history. We’re planning on bringing the people of Ireland all of the action from down under and hopefully help the girls bring home the glory!”
Dermot & Dave on their trip down under
It’s great to see broadcasters leaving the studios in order to get the atmosphere around events like this. Hopefully we’ll have a good run at the women’s World Cup and get some great tv and radio moments along the way.
Quick Bits
BBC are undertaking a review after a nationalist boycott of The Nolan Show on Radio Ulster
An Irish language station is on a tour of the UK
Highland Radio host Shaun Doherty was ordained this week
And that’s the summary for this week. Come back to radio land next week for more radio news📻 and be sure to check us out on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn for more fun from the world of radio.