Lots happens in the radio industry each week so here’s a summary of the week we just enjoyed.
Here’s What Happened
Broadcaster Dave Macardle has secured a temporary High Court injunction allowing him to present his show on Corks Red FM from a Dublin studio.
Dave is the host of the weekday drive time show Dave Mac’s drive, which has been a popular show on Red FM for many years.
Dave claims that it was agreed in his employment contract that he would host from the Red FM studios in Cork 2 days per week, and host from a studio in Dublin the other 3 days. However, Dave says that new management at Red FM want him to host all 5 days from the studios in Cork.
Red FM was recently purchased by Bauer Media Audio Ireland, who also own Newstalk, Today FM, Spin South West, Spin 1038, as well as Dublin station 98FM.
The case is set to return to the court on Monday. The Irish Times wrote an article covering the case in more detail so feel free to check that out below.
RTE Archives have released over 5,000 incredible recordings that they have successfully digitised from fragile acetate discs.
Acetate discs have a metal base coated with lacquer. Sound is directly cut onto them, but they are very fragile due to the layer of lacquer being extremely thin. They also naturally degrade over time, so the fact that RTÉ now have digital versions of these recordings is really quite amazing.
The project was funded by the BAI, or Coimisiún na Meán as it’s now known, and in all took over 3 years. The collection consists of full programmes and news broadcasts, as well as sound effects, inserts, performances, interviews and reports, all created for use in the production of radio programmes. It really is quite mind blowing.
From station launch’s to interviews with historically significant figures, the recordings really do paint an amazing picture and are well worth exploring.
Congratulations to everyone involved in the project. It really is great to see this audio preserved for the long run.
Finally this week, the 96FM and C103 Giving For living Radiothon is taking place. the event has been on air since Thursday, and has been raising money for cancer services in Cork.
The annual event started on Thursday, and as always is running for 3 days. The event is always very successful in cork and last year raised over €383,000 for Corks cancer services.
You can find out details of the event as well as donation information at the link below. I’d also recommend tuning in for a bit today if you get a chance as it truly is fantastic radio.
It’s wonderful to see radio being used for good like this, so best wishes to everyone involved. We’ll share the final amount over on Twitter once it’s announced.
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.
Lots happens in the radio industry each week so here’s a summary of the week we just enjoyed.
Here’s what happened
He was THE newsreader in Cork. Probably the best known radio newsreader in the county, and yesterday he was sentenced to eight years in prison.
Pearse McCarthy was a long time newsreader for 96FM and C103, filled in on the Arts House which is simulcast on both stations, and independently hosted the 4Play music podcast. But back in 2017 Gardai made a discovery
Pearse was found to be in possession of €270,000 worth of drugs for sale and supply with the drugs consisting of 2.2kg of cocaine, 2.8kg of cannabis and 950g of MDMA. Usually this is a mandatory 10 year sentence, but the judge set that aside on foot of a guilty plea by McCarthy.
McCarthy admitted that over the course of two and a half to three years in the drug dealing operation he had handled 90 to 100 kilos of drugs with a street value of up to €2m.
According to Defence barrister Jane Hyland, Pearse had addressed his addiction in the 90s and had actually counselled others with drug addictions for many years. But he relapsed later in life following the sudden death of his partner.
Pearse was sentenced to nine years with one suspended, with the judge noting that he is doing well in prison.
It’s a crazy story to think about and hopefully is something we don’t see again. It just goes to show how messy the world of drugs can be. It’s never good when the newsreader becomes the news.
Journalists from BBC Northern Ireland went on strike this week in response to local programming cuts.
The strike coincided with elections in the north, so this led to widespread impacts on many BBC NI services. BBC Radio Ulster had no news untill 9am, at which point Adam Smyth, director of BBC Northern Ireland read a bulletin.
Flagship shows such as good Morning Ulster and the Nolan Show were off air, and national coverage was used to discuss the elections. In all more than 200 journalists went on strike, so the impact was wide reaching across TV, radio, and online. There were plans for coverage of the election scrapped across all platforms, so really not great at all.
The whole thing follows cutbacks to Radio Foyle’s morning show, as well as other changes at BBC NI. It’s a shame to see journalists being forced to strike in the face of cuts, but we can only hope that it has some impact.
Coverage is returning to normal today, but ultimately there are no winners here. Fair play to the journalists for fighting for what they believe in though, you can’t knock that.
Finally this week just a quick note about Radio Land. You can now follow us on LinkedIn.
I’m hoping to slowly evolve Radio Land’s social presence over the next while, and this is the start of that. Radio Land is now available across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
It’s mad to think that Radio Land turns Three in a few months. I’m now in a position where I can focus more attention on the project again, and I look forward to the sites future.
As always if you have feedback about Radio Land or would simply like to get in touch, check out the Contact us page.
Thank you so much for supporting Radio Land. I hope you’ve found the site of benefit at some stage👍
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.
Lots happens in the radio industry each week so here’s a summary of the week we just enjoyed.
Here’s what happened
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it’s JNLR time once again. It’s time to take a look at who’s up and who’s down in the latest round of radio figures.
The good news is that no stations have had any catastrophe this time round, and RTÉ in particular will be satisfied knowing that their disaster of a book from last time seems to be behind them. Some shows certainly are doing better than others though, so let’s get into the details and see where people stand.
Radio 1 did better than last time
Overall the news is good for Radio 1. It’s certainly not worth a fireworks display or anything, but not bad at all.
Morning Ireland is up 4,000 and now has 437,000 tuning in each morning. They lost 18,000 in the last book so still a bit of recovery needed, but an increase is an increase at the end of the day.
The most talked about man in Ireland, also known as Ryan Tubridy, has an audience of 335,000 tuning in each morning. That’s an increase of 4,000. Tubridy will be interesting to watch over the next while as his time hosting the Late Late Show comes to an end. On one hand TV viewers might miss him and tune in on radio instead, or the lack of TV time might reduce the relevance of the show hurting it’s listenership. Fascinating times ahead.
327,000 tune into Claire Byrne each day. That’s a nice boost of 6,000.
This is where the good news ends for a while. TheLouise Duffy Show has dropped 9,000 to 213,000. How much of that loss is as a result of Ronan moving on to RTÉ Gold is hard to know, but it’s certainly not ideal to be losing listeners in your first book.
News At One has 299,000 falling under the 300,000 mark. It’s a loss of 11,000 from last time which really ain’t great.
LiveLine also fell and now sits at 306,000. That’s down 4,000.
A much needed boost came for Ray Darcy, as he gained 4,000 to reach 181,000 listeners. He could still do with gaining a few more but it’s certainly an improvement.
214,000 tune in to Drive Time on Radio 1, that’s up 6,000. not bad at all.
Generally it’s not a bad performance. The shows with longer run times and consequently more ad breaks all gained listeners which is good news for the station. The Ray Darcy slot still needs serious improvement, but it’s not dropping even more listeners which is something.
“The increase in the listenership across the morning and late afternoon is very welcome. It’s a tribute to the focus and commitment of our teams and we will continue to refine our output. Weekend programmes have always fluctuated – but the position of so many of those programmes in the top ten underlines our continuing pre-eminence and connection with the audience. This was a good book.”
Peter Woods, Head of RTÉ Radio
It will be interesting to see if all the changes on telly impact radio numbers in the next few books. Time will tell.
They’ll be dancing at 2FM, mostly
Last time we spoke about 2FM, it’s presenters were all dancing their hearts out on Dancing with the stars. Some presenters benefited from that, but it’s not universal.
135,000 people now tune in to 2FM breakfast each morning. That’s up 6,000. The show got good promotion when Carl won Dancing with the stars, so we’ll need to wait and see if it’s a sustained boost.
Jennifer Zamparelli is down 1,000 and now has 133,000 tuning in. Only a small drop so no need for panic just yet.
Tracey Clifford had a 7,000 listener drop and now has 109,000. She really needs to reverse course at this stage as she’s been losing listeners consistently for a while now. She was down 4,000 in February, and down 7,000 in November. Combined that’s a loss of 18,000 in the last 3 books. Certainly not ideal.
The 2 Johnnies had a lovely boost and are now up 11,000 to 130,000 listeners. My dentist made the switch from Today FM recently,, so now you can suffer through an extraction while being entertained by the Parish Quiz. How bad.
The 2 johnnies have had a really good boost, but I’d be getting a bit concerned about Tracey. Does she need a co host? A new format? If it doesn’t improve in the next book or two it will be time to look at a more drastic change.
“Overall 2FM, has performed well. This is the first time that we have a full 12-month view of the 2 Johnnies since they joined the station in February last year. Their daily reach ( IPSOS MRBI/JNLR 2023-1) has grown by 11,000 adults since the last survey and with significant growth every quarter hour from 3pm. Doireann, Donncha and Carl also continue to grow from survey to survey. Their daily reach has increased by 21,000 from this time last year from 114,00 to 135,000.The new weekend schedule has bedded in quickly and we will have a clearer picture of how that is performing in the next survey. I want to thank everyone at 2FM, both on and off air for their creativity and hard work. Most importantly I want to thank our audience ,who despite the changing audio environment and irrespective of what device is used to listen, they know there is nothing better than live radio.”
Dan Healy, Head of RTÉ Radio Strategy and RTÉ 2FM
Things are still ticking over just fine.
Some small ups and downs for Today FM
Good news continues for Today FM, as most of their shows continue to gain listeners.
Ian Dempsey now has 208,000. That’s up 5,000 from last time. Slowly but surely moving away from that 200,000 clif edge.
Dermot & Dave had a small drop of 2,000 to stand at 205,000. Nothing worth panicking about yet.
Pamela Joyce has gained 2,000 listeners and now has 136,000 tuning in. She’s well ahead of Tracey Clifford for now, but you can never truely relax in this game.
Ray Foley continues to smash it. He’s got 3,000 new listeners and now has 163,000 each day. Not bad at all.
Matt Cooper’s down 4,000 and now sits at 168,000. Still a respectable audience but worth watching. He gained 8,000 back in February so should be grand.
The German bosses will be quite happy with this I would think. No crazy jumps, but more importantly no major losses.
“I’m incredibly proud of the Today FM team. We believe we have some of the finest talent here on-air and behind the scenes and today, our listeners have reinforced this. Together we are taking Today FM to new levels of success. One of the exciting aspects of our team is we have highly experienced professionals working together with the next generation of stars coming through. Our audience is at the heart of what we do and we have a lot of fun along the way doing it”
Fyona Smith, Managing Editor Today FM
Today FM are continueing to perform well so no need for concern.
Newstalk is doing okay, although they did have a few losses. Lots of shows staying still here too which is fair enough I guess.
Breakfast has dropped 3,000 and now has 149,000 listeners.
Pat Kenny stays at 174,000 which is still as respectable as it was last time
Lunchtime live hasn’t received a boost from Boylan it seems, it’s also stayed still with 106,000 listeners
It’s a 2,000 jump for Moncrieff with 98,000 listeners. So close to the 100,000
The hard shoulder took a hard fall of 7,000 to 152,000 listeners. Not ideal, but we’ve certainly seen worse.
Could be better and could be worse. There’s nothing wrong with staying still, so I wouldn’t be issueing a breaking news alert just yet.
Overall
Not a bad day for radio all things considered.
You can read more details on these results by clicking the links below, and we’ll be back to do it all again in 3 months time.
Wireless Radio Ireland, which is ultimately part of News Corp, made a loss of €2.58 million before tax, according to new accounts.
The group, which owns FM104 and Q102 in Dublin, 96FM and C103 in cork, live 95 in Limerick among others, has had a large reduction of staff, but it’s staff costs still went up.
240 people used to work for the company, but that number has now dropped to 201. It’s unclear where most of these jobs were cut, but the station has shown more interest in networking in recent times. Despite the lower staff count, staff costs are up from €10.56 million to €10.99 million, which is interesting to see.
The business mentioned strong digital growth, and they say they’re investing more in this area going forward.
There are more detailed financial details linked below, so go check that out if your interested. It’s ultimately a shame seeing numbers backing up staff cuts in radio, but unfortunately that’s the way it goes.
Hopefully radio will find itself on healthy ground in the years to come.
Usually when the minister for finance goes on a radio show, he gets asked some difficult questions by the presenter. But sometimes, politicians fight back.
Yesterday the minister for finance Michael McGrath joined Mick Mulcahy on Red FM to answer some questions. Ordinarily this would be of no relevance to Radio Land readers, but when the minister questions the presenter about the Cash Machine, it suddenly becomes more interesting.
On Thursday a cork couple from the minister’s constituency won over €40,000 on the Cash Machine. This lead to Mick attempting to get a declaration from the minister, but the endeavour didn’t go according to plan.
It is a beautiful radio moment, so allow me to share the experience with you.
Mick started as all good presenter should. He informed the minister that the following question was “just for fun”. Despite Mick’s efforts, the minister was expecting an interviewer ready for war, so he wasn’t exactly ready for fun.
Mick proceeds to point out the success the ministers constituents had on the Cash Machine the day before, and asked the minister to confirm that these winnings are tax free. This would have been grand, except the minister wasn’t sure. In order to answer the question effectively the minister needed more information about this Cash Machine thing.
The minister spoke about lotteries, leading Mick to expertly retort that “it’s a game of skill”. It was an intervention worthy of a lawyer from Mick, but Michael came back for more.
Who is the operator? Asked the minister, to which Mick responded “The GoLoud Network of Radio Stations. Mick was now on shaky ground as it’s actually Bauer Media Audio Ireland.
Before things could get any worse Mick came clean saying he just wanted a Sound Byte. The Minister proceeded to confirm that Lottery winnings are usually tax free, as long as the lottery is registered. For good measure the minister offered to look into it for Mick, at which point Nick promptly moved on to less interesting questions.
It was truly a great performance from both candidates, and it really raised some interesting questions. Is the Cash Machine a lottery? Or is it as Mick said “a game of skill”. Go vote on our Instagram story now.
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.
Lots happens in the radio industry each week so here’s a summary of the week we just enjoyed.
Here’s What Happened
The IMRO Awards are back for 2023.
Applications opened this week, so radio stations can start making submissions via the awards website now.
The event is once again returning to the Lyrath Estate Hotel in Kilkenny, with the ceremony taking place on Friday October 6th. The IMRO Awards are probably the wildest night in Irelands radio calendar, so now we know the all important date.
‘It comes around so quickly, however, now is the time for stations to showcase their best output and get their entries in for the IMRO Radio Awards. We look forward to continuing the strong participation of the last number of years and would like to thank IMRO for its continued support of the awards.”
Chris Doyle, Chairperson of the IMRO Radio Awards
It’s always fantastic to see talented radio people get recognised at these events, and of course we also look forward to providing our summary of proceedings the morning after the night before.
Nominations close at 5pm on June 29th, so get those applications in. Best of luck to those entering from us at Radio Land.
Who the hell is going to host the Late Late Show? RTE seem to be running out of options as their biggest names are ruling themselves out.
Claire Byrne had been favourite to get the gig, but she ruled herself out on Wednesday as she wanted to focus on her family and radio show. Sarah McInerney followed soon after, saying that she was looking forward to all the upcoming political stuff on Drive time and Prime Time.
It’s hard to know who RTÉ will pick now, but it really is going to be exciting. Patrick Kielty, kathrin Thomas, and Jennifer Zamparelli are all names linked to the role, with Tommy Tiernan also still in the running.
Who do you think should take over the show? Let us know over on our Instagram story.
Finally this week, some good and bad news depending on how you look at it.
Reporters without borders have published their annual World Press Freedom Index, and it contained some good news for Ireland. We now have the second best press freedom score, with Norway maintaining the top spot.
This is great news, but Ireland isn’t without its issues. the main thing mentioned as far as ireland is concerned was the lack of funding for public service broadcasters and local newspapers.
Denis O’Brien leaving the Irish media business was seen as a good thing, after his stakes in INM and Communicorp were sold to mediahuis And Bauer respectively. Ireland had been criticised for having too few media owners in the past, so this makes sense.
While it’s good news overall for Ireland, the picture around the world isn’t great.
Things aren’t good at all actually, with 31 countries deemed to be in a “very serious situation”. Thats up 10 from 2 years ago so we’re not moving in the right direction at all. That’s not good for obvious reasons.
Between misinformation and AI, there are lots of concerns facing media at the moment. I’d highly recommend reading the article linked below as it gives a great overview of the situation.
Hopefully we can see things get better over the next while, but it could be a rocky road ahead.
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.
Lots happens in the radio industry each week so here’s a summary of the week we just enjoyed.
Here’s What Happened
Everyone knows how important ads are for the radio industry. If we don’t have brands wanting to advertise, then the whole radio industry falls apart. Sure Bauer might still make a few Bob off the cash machine, but it’s certainly not enough to keep the lights on.
Thankfully, Radiocentre Ireland revealed this week that the radio advertising market is continuing to grow. they released some fascinating figures for q1 2023 showing that everything is still operating as planned.
We had €30.8m in spot revenue, that’s an increase of 6% from the same period last year. It’s good to see the main supply of revenue is continuing to grow.
Branded content such as outside broadcasts and sponsorships was the only category to see a drop. The drop was only 1% and the category still brought in €6.4m, but it’s going to be worth keeping an eye on this in the coming months.
Digital revenue resulted in the biggest growth. This important segment grew by a huge 49% to €1.7m, which is great to see as it will be very important over the next few months and years. The industry is changeing and getting ready for a more digital future, so this growth is a good sign for the long term viability of radio.
Ultimately this is just 3 months, but it’s still good news. For a lot in radio we might not think about these details day to day, but it’s critically important for this to continue if the radio industry wants to compete in the evolving media landscape.
Broadcaster Dave Cronin hosted his last show on Beat 102 103 yesterday, after announcing he’s leaving the station.
Dave has been a presenter on Beat since 2012, and has hosted a number of shows on the station during that time. Most recently he’s been the presenter of Beat At Work, which is the stations mid morning show. He is also a continuity announcer for Virgin Media Television.
In really exciting news for Dave he’s now heading over to make his mark on the UK, which is a big step up from the humble south east of Ireland. it’s unclear if he will remain at VMTV, but his Instagram announcement only refers to Beat.
Very best of luck to Dave from us at Radio Land, hopefully we’ll be hearing you on a station in the UK really soon.
Ray Darcy is looking for a brand to go running with him.
Run With Ray is looking for a sponsor. This on air event encourages Radio 1 listeners to get out for a run which is great for people’s mental and physical health.
The sponsorship is over 6 weeks, with a week of outside broadcasts at the end where the show will hit the road to run with listeners across the country.
It’s not the only campaign like this on the Ray Darcy Radio Show as the programme usually acts as a companion to the popular operation transformation TV series. Operation transformation didn’t have a sponsor for its 2023 run, but it’s been a cash machine for RTÉ in the past. The department of health sponsored two past seasons of the show at a cost of €561,000. While this would be expected for an event across TV, Radio and Online, the run with Ray series will be much cheaper as it’s for the most part a radio only campaign.
RTE are looking for a fee of €25,000 to sponsor Run with Ray, which is a much lower bar to entry compared to a huge show like operation transformation. Full details of the sponsorship can be found below.
It’s great to see radio helping to try keep people healthy, the benefits of something like this are potentially huge, so hopefully we’ll see a brand support the initiative.
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.
Transparency
A previous version of this article had the wrong air date for the Dawn Chorus. This has now been fixed. Thanks to Brian Greene for flagging the mistake.
