Lots happens in the radio industry each week so here’s a summary of the week we just enjoyed.
Here’s What Happened

It’s December already , which means that Irelands Christmas station is back once again. Christmas FM is now broadcasting across Ireland on FM.
The station returned on Tuesday with broadcast partners including Coca Cola and Tayto. Interestingly when asking our smart speaker to play Christmas FM yesterday we instead got News Corps 96Mas, but saying Open Christmas FM gave us the correct station. There’s also competition from Bauer with GoLoud Christmas, so the station will be competing against rivals with much larger budgets.
Instead of one charity partner, the station is instead raising money for the Magic Of Christmas Appeal, introduced for the first time last year. This Appeal supports a number of charities, in much the same way as RTE’s toy show Appeal.
The extensive list of frequencies for the station are below. Why not tune in and get into the Christmas mood.
- Cavan 92.8 FM
- Clare 105.2 FM
- Cork City, Part County 106.7 FM
- Cork North, Part County 87.7 FM
- Drogheda & Dundalk 104.2 FM
- Dublin City & County 105.2 FM
- Galway City 87.9 FM
- Kildare North 88.1 FM
- Kilkenny City 104.3 FM
- Letterkenny 106.2 FM
- Limerick City 105.5 FM
- Longford 99.8 FM
- Sligo Town 95.0 FM
- South East 103.8 FM
- Tralee/Killarney 105.0 FM
- Waterford City 105.9 FM
- Wicklow – Bray area 99.5 FM
- Wicklow – Wicklow Town 106.6 FM
Best of luck to everyone involved from us at radio land.

The IBI has called on politicians to reform the funding system for public service broadcasting, saying these reforms need to be about more than just RTE. They are asking for funding supports for local news and current affairs, claiming disruption by unregulated online and social media platforms has made local news and current affairs unsustainable.
The Local Democracy Reporting Scheme is stuck going through EU state aid approval, so something needs to be done in the meantime. Rte recently got funding supports following large scale licence fee evasion, but the IBI say a package of measures for independent radio also needs to be agreed upon without delay.
Supporting local journalism makes a ton of sense. It’s important that any money in a scheme like this benefits listeners and not just the shareholders, but safeguards could be put in place to ensure this.
It’s an important topic and one that certainly needs more societal discussion. Hopefully we’ll see independent radio producing more public service content in the coming years.

More budget cuts have been announced at RTE, with significant changes to TV Schedules and the creation of a podcasting unit postponed
RTE will have significant expenses next year as a result of the olympics and local/European elections, so they had to cut costs in order to be able to afford these events. Here are some of the biggest cuts.
- Fair City is going to reduce transmission to 3 episodes a week instead of 4, while a third season of game show The Money List won’t be produced next year. RTE will not produce a Sunday night summer factual series, or a Saturday night entertainment series for spring.
- Budgets for acquired programming will be cut, as will budgets in news and sport.
- A planned brand refresh has been postponed, as has the creation of podcasting and short form content units.
- A number of other cost cutting measures, including a voluntary exit scheme will take place.
It’s a shame in many ways as RTE know they need units for podcasting and short form content, but they simply can’t afford it. We can only hope things go better for RTE in 2024.
Quick Bits
Marc O’Driscoll has joined Morning Ireland
Dave Mac is covering shows on Classic Hits Radio over Christmas
New digital advertising options are available at RnaG
David Tighe is leaving Bauer in Northern Ireland
2FM presenter Doireann Garrihy has got engaged
The RTE Concert orchestra is looking for a sponsor
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.