Lots happens in the radio industry each week so here’s a summary of the week we just enjoyed.
Here’s What Happened
What a week it’s been over at 2FM. They’ve now lost presenters for their three main shows, and station boss Dan Healy ended up joining Claire Byrne for what can only be described as an epic interview.
So, let’s summarise. Doireann Garrihy is leaving 2FM breakfast, Jennifer Zamparelli is leaving her mid morning show, and the 2 Johnnies are leaving Drive It, the stations drivetime show.
Dan Healy has already confirmed Laura Fox is taking over from Jen. She’s a strong presenter that’s performed well on the weekends, so this is a good move.
That leaves breakfast and drivetime. The bosses at 2FM aren’t rushing into anything and have decided to give the station what seems to be a temporary summer schedule, before presumedly launching a full new schedule later in the year. we’ll find out more about the summer schedule on Friday.
While all this was going on, 2FM boss Dan Healy popped over to the Radio 1 studios to have an interview on Today With Claire Byrne. Dan was well fired up and the interview is well worth a listen.
I’ve got to agree with Dan in many ways that the future for 2FM is exciting. If they can nail the line up with strong presenters and a good content strategy, they can definitely hit their goal of 14% share of 15-34s by 2025.
2FM have a chance here to really think digital. How do you compete with the Spins, Beat and IRadio when they’re all owned by Bauer and have got the power of the cash Machine helping in JNLRs.
If I was Dan Healy, I’d be putting a 20 min game show format on Laura’s show each Friday. Give it a brand, make it flashy, it’s live radio, but it’s treated as a podcast. Then if it works convert to telly and sell as a format. Give it a visual set, throw it on YouTube. Shoot in a TV studio, do stuff Bauer won’t do.
There’s so many fun bits like this they can try to compete in the youth space. It’s probably one of the most exciting stations now because they effectively have a blank space to build whatever they want, hire whoever they want, run the station however they want. I genuinely get why Dan Healy is so excited by that.
Time will tell if they can make it work, but we’ll just need to wait and see. Bring on next Friday.
Watch the Claire Byrne interview here
The cash machine was in overdrive this week as the team at Bauer had a guaranteed €100,000 up for grabs.
No matter what you think of the cash Machine, there’s no denying that it’s good business for Bauer and can give you great radio moments at times. yesterdays winner had just baught a house and received the keys Thursday, but had no money to do it up. He now has €100,000 to solve that problem.
In work during the week a colleague mentioned that Today FM had €100,000 to give away. No other radio competition can create that buzz. When 2FM shared a TikTok of someone winning €5,000 on their Autotune fortune it was being called a tiny amount and getting compared to the Cash Machine in the comments.
The reality is smaller players can’t compete. Increasingly Irish consumers are exposed to large giveaways, so smaller money is seeming less and less significant. With huge money from Mr Beast on YouTube to TikToks of Heart UKs Make Me A Millionaire, prizes of €5k, €10k, or even €20k don’t excite audiences any more.
It’s a fascinating change, and one we’ll probably see more of in the coming years.
Check out the video of yesterdays Cash Machine win here
Finally for now a fascinating story from the international radio world, specifically from the BBC.
Both BBC Radio 2 and BBC 6 music are leaving x and Facebook behind, ending posts on both platforms. The two stations are instead going to focus on content for TikTok and Instagram.
The accounts will remain open and users can still tag them if they want to reach the studio, but all new posting will stop.
This is a fascinating story to me. Is it time to move on from older social networks? Will we see more of that in the next few months? BBC does have a big presence on these platforms, but the primary accounts over on X are BBC News for example. Traditionally it was the case that every station had a presence on all the main platforms, but this new selective approach does seem interesting.
We’ll need to wait and see how this evolves in the next few months and years, but this likely isn’t limited to just the uk market.
Let us know over on our X, do you think we’ll see Irish stations leaving the platform? Just search Radio Land Ireland.
Quick Bits
Mark McCabe is joining the weekend schedule at 98FM
Moncrieff has been on air for 20 years
Pamela Joyce has spoken about leaving Today FM
Waterford Wispers report that 2FM is to become just a late night slot on RTE Gold
The justice media awards shortlist was announced this week
Ryan Tubridy was back hosting his show in Dublin from the Q102 studios
Radio Nova are airing a documentary on a Scottish band
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.