2022

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

Here’s what happened

This week was full of stories from RTÉ so let’s start there shall we?

RTE News

RTÉ News appointed two new coraspondants this week, and we finally found out who’s going to be the new Washington correspondent.

Sean Whelan is going to be covering all things America as the new Washington corespondent, he’s replacing Brian O’Donovan. Sean has been the London correspondent for the past three years so has experience covering big stories such as Brexit. As we reported previously, Brian is now going to be covering the world of work and technology.
The less reported appointment this week was the news that Joe Mag Raollaigh is going to be the new agriculture and consumer Affairs corespondent.

Very best of luck to them both from us at Radio Land.

Read the Sean Whelan press release here

Read the Joe Mag Raollaigh press release here

A threatening Anonymous email was sent to RTÉ presenter Katie Hannon before her show last week. The email, which has been condemned by both the National Union of Journalists and the National Women’s Council, threatened Katie with personal consequences if she tried to solicit negative comments about men. There were other intimidating comments in the email too.

This really shows the hassle journalists need to put up with in order to do there job well. It’s really hard to know what to say about stories like this, all we can really say is well done to Katie for calling this behaviour out. Keep up the great work.

Read the story from The Journal here

The final big RTÉ story for this week is that the National Symphony Orchestra is moving from RTÉ to the National Concert Hall. It’s a shame that RTE’s finance’s have almost forced this outcome, but I suppose in many ways they’re going to a more suitable home.

“Today is a day of mixed emotions for us in RTÉ. On the one hand we are delighted that the NSO and Choirs will now be on a firm financial footing within the NCH allowing them to plan with confidence into the future, but on the other, we say goodbye today not just to wonderful musicians and support staff, but to colleagues and friends, many of whom have a long history in RTÉ. I have no doubt they will continue in their mission to make great orchestral music and entertain audiences everywhere, and we will of course continue to have a strong broadcasting relationship with them in their new role at the heart of Ireland’s National Concert Hall. We wish them all the very best and thank them for the music.”
Director-General of RTÉ, Dee Forbes

The move takes effect on Monday so very best of luck to everyone moving, and thank you for your services to broadcasting and music over the years

Read the story here

There are more RTÉ stories in Quick Bits, but this is Radio Land, not RTÉ Land. Let’s have a look at some other stories.

In Other News

The Broadcasting Authority Of Ireland announced there new CEO this week. Celene Craig will take up the role with immediate effect after 30 years working in media regulation. It will be interesting to see how she steers the organisation as it becomes the media commission over the next few months. Very best of luck to Celene from us at Radio Land.

Read the story here

Finally this week, Radio Nova are doing a PCR test to see how there getting on. Yes, it’s a weird world. Listeners can fill in a survey (called the radio Nova PCR Test) to provide feedback to the station.Those who do the PCR Test will be in with a chance to win tickets to see Noel Gallagher at St Anne’s Park this summer. If surveys aren’t your thing, you can also do the PCR Test by leaving a voicemail.

Do the Radio Nova PCR test here

Quick Bits

Brenda Dennehy is leaving Red FM to join the Mail Online, very best of luck to her On the big move to London

RTE were in front of the public accounts Committee this week, they reiterated the issues with the licence fee system

A community radio station in Mayo are holding a special outside broadcast in April to support the Clime for Charlie campaign

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.

This Week In Radio 15/01/2022

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

Here’s What Happened

The Online Safety and Media Regulations Bill was published this week so we’ve got some new details about the Media Commission replacing the BAI.

A lot of the coverage around this bill focuses extensively on the online safety side of the story. However, there’s also a lot in here for broadcasters. We’ve reached out to the BAI with a number of questions about the new regulator, but we haven’t heard back yet. We’ll provide more detail as everything becomes clearer. There are a few things we know for sure though

The broadcast Levy is being adjusted with the possibility that it’s being eliminated for community broadcasters. It’s currently not clear how community of interest stations will be impacted by this change. Additionally, streaming services will also pay a levy, however it’s unclear if this includes Broadcaster VOD services.
The 12 minutes of ads per hour rule is being adjusted. Details on this arnt super clear either but let’s assume there’s no change from the proposed amendment to the broadcasting act from 2019. This would mean that instead of 12 minutes an hour, broadcasters will be able to have 20% of a certain block of time contain ads. Same amount of ads in a day, but you might have 14 minutes of ads in one hour, and 10 in the next. The amount of ads on RTÉ and other services with less ads is unclear.

There really is a lot to this and being quite honest, things aren’t as clear as I would have liked. Everyone seems to be a bit excited by all the online safety stuff, with traditional broadcasters kind of left to read and interpret the whole document ourselves. I will do something much more detailed than this at some point once I can clarify everything. for now, just know that big changes are on the way.

Feel free to read all the detail’s here

Ray Foley is moving back to Today FM after 6 years with Corks Red FM. We still don’t know the details on who’s replacing Ray on RedFM breakfast, but we have got details of a schedule shake up at Today FM.

Ian Dempsey is getting an extra hour, 6:00 to 9:00
Pamela Joyce is getting her own lunchtime show on the station, 12:00 to 2:00
Ray will take over at 2, for 2 and a half hours. His RedFM slot was 3 hours. he’ll be on air from 2:00 until 4:30
Paula MacSweeney switches early mornings for evenings as she now broadcasts between 7:00 and 10:00
Finally, Fergal D’Arcy is leaving the station

Best of luck to all the movers on Today FM. I’m really looking forward to seeing Red FM’s moves on the cork breakfast market.

Read that story here

Finally this week, the manager of Athlone Community Radio, Irena Djak Cvetkovic, is now in the running for a place on Westmeath County Council. Jamie Moranpreviously held a seat on the council but that became available following his resignation. Irena has previously served as a local councillor in her home country of Serbia but has been living in ireland for the last 20 years.

Read that story here

Quick bits

There have been significant updates in the story regarding Wexford County Councel , all details are here

Ciaran Cunningham was announced as the CEO of Radiocentre Ireland recently, he began work this week

Red FM gave away €200 each hour yesterday to celebrate 20 years on air

Newstalk has a new business editer

Albert Fitzgerald has left his role as managing director of Tindle

Former RTÉ broadcaster Jim Fahy has passed away

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.

This Week In Radio 8/1/2022

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

Here’s what happened

The standards in public office commission has issued a report this week related to the chief executive of Wexford County Council allegedly putting pressure on South East Radio.

According to the Irish Times, the report found that Tom Enright put “unwarranted” pressure on a local radio station when he threatened to withdraw council advertising during a dispute over coverage

Mr Enright however has said he believed the findings were “flawed and disproportionate” and he was taking legal advice.

I’m unfortunately not going to be able to include all the details of this story here, but I would highly recomend the Irish Times article linked below as they have gone into fantastic detail.

While the dispute is and should be the main focus of this story, it has also led to some interesting financial numbers being seen in public.

In an email to south east radio, Mr Enright wrote: “Wexford County Council is currently reviewing our commercial relationship with you. We have spent over €160K with SE Radio in the past 18 months, he also said that this is “A lot of money to a radio station that facilitates inaccurate and damaging commentary on positive initiatives that the council and others are trying to achieve in order to make Wexford a better place.”
According to the head of south east radio, the council spent a total of around €63,000 on advertising in 2019
That number was down to about €46,000 in 2020, despite the pandemic

These are interesting numbers for sure so make of them what you will. As I said I can’t provide as much detail here as the Irish Times so I’d really recommend you read their work on this story.

Read the story from the Irish Times here

Waterford’s WLR has announced that their Christmas Appeal has raised a massive €101,349 for St Vincent De Paul in the county. This is great news and something we should hopefully see more of in the coming weeks as Christmas FM announce how much they’ve raised.

Well done to the many stations who raised money over Christmas, it really makes a massive difference.

Read the story here

Finally this week, RTÉ have announced the shortlist for their Choice Music prize album of the year. The winner will be announced live from an event at Vicar St, Dublin, with the event also airing live on 2FM

Tickets for the event on the 3rd of March can be purchased now through Ticketmaster

Check out the shortlist here

Quick Bits

Radio Nova has started playing Vinyl

There was a great article in the Farmers Journal this week on how media has evolved

Tara Duggan has left her role as head of news at Classic Hits and is moving to a new job with Bauer

2FM have aired a 4 part documentary on dance music in Ireland

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.

This Week In Radio 1/1/2022

Because we took a break last week, here’s a summary of stories from the time we were away📻

Here’s what happened

RedFM’s Izzy Showbizzy announced in an Instagram post that she’s stepping down from her evening slot on the station. Izzy will remain with RedFM as a presenter on the weekend schedule but she’s exploring other media opportunities now as well.

It was such a hard decision to make but my work life, like the rest of us, has changed ALOT in the past year which has opened up new opportunities in all medias, all of which I will be pursuing. I’ll also be joining The ECHO team and getting involved with my fitness career. So basically, what I’m trying to say is (if you’re still with me is) that I’m trying to do it ALL!! 😂😂and why not?
Izzy’s’post on Instagram (@izzy_showbizzy)

Very best of luck to Izzy for the future from us here at Radio Land.

Check out the Instagram post here

RTE made a few radio announcements this week so here’s a handy list of what’s happening over the next while. More detail on all this can be found in a press release linked below.

Joe Duffy has got a new number. Like many stations LiveLine is switching to a 0818 number. the new number to talk to Joe is 0818 715 815
A six part health and well-being series hosted by Anna Geary on RTÉ Radio 1 starts January 9th. The new show is called supercharged.
2FM rising is back for 2022, a new set of artist’s will take part in the project from the 17th of January.
The RTÉ Choice music prize is also making a return in 2022

Lot’s of other stuff was announced as well across TV, Radio and player so feel free to check out the press release linked below.

Check it out here

Finally this week, 2FM is giving away a holiday to Zante in Greece. The competition is taking place on Instagram in association with TUI.

It’s been interesting to see the rise of competitions on social media in 2021 and we can only hope this helps bring in some extra cash for stations in 2022.

Check out the Instagram post here

Quick Bits

All wireless Group stations are giving away €1000 on Instagram. I can’t tell if it’s one prize or a prize for each station, but here are the links to the posts anyway. Live95 C103 Q102 FM104 96FM

Doireann Garrihy has described the latest JNLR figures for 2FM breakfast as a kick up the arse

Marty Morrissey paid tribute to his mother on Radio 1 this morning following her death in a car accident 3 weeks ago

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.

The Big Radio Land Review Of The Year

It’s nearly 2022. How did that happen so fast? It feels like 2021 went like a rocket but Believe it or not, a lot of radio stuff happened this year.

In this post we’ll take a look back at the biggest radio stories from each month of the year and reflect on what a crazy time it’s been for our little industry.

Let’s begin with January, anyone fancy a bit of networking?

A new year and a new networked show, 96FM and Live95 began networking there evening show back in January. When reporting on the story at the time all we had was a job listing but Shane bucks quickly brought the networked show to reality,

Read that story here

It’s February, or should I say Februar, that’s February in German

It feels like forever ago but bauers deal to buy Communicorp was done in February this year. This is still an ongoing story as we will likely see more changes in 2022, but it all began back in February of this year.

Read that story here

The third month was March, you know by swapping around those letters you can make the word charm?

Classic hits and Nova announced in March that they would be swapping breakfast shows. Classic hits listeners universally didn’t approve of this and things went quiet for a while, but the swap took effect in April and has remained since.

Read the story here

In April it was decided that Dublin no longer talks

The 98FM show Dublin Talks was replaced with a music show this month. the shows presenter’s Adrian Kennedy and Jeremy Dixon have since moved on to new projects. We’ll still need to wait and see if Bauer make more of these decisions in 2022, but its certainly an interesting one to watch.

Read this story here

We also lost RTÉ on DAB this month. This put an end to legal DAB in Ireland.

You can find that story right here

Nobody was making money in may

Wireless group announced a loss of €7 million in may, with their accounts giving us a few interesting insights. All we can really do is hope that stuff stabilises financially in the next while as it’s a tough time for the industry.

2FM also prepared to launch their new breakfast show back in may, crazy to think it’s been on air for months already.

You can read both those stories here

We’re very very sorry, but it’s june

FM104 apologised in june after making fun of a child in their kids in the car segment. an important reminder to treat others like you’d like to be treated.

That story can be found here

It’s July, and nobodies watching the road!

AA Roadwatch ended traffic reports for radio in July. it’s a shame that such a valuable public service was discontinued as it seems now many more stations are just relying on listeners for traffic updates. Call or text when safe to do so I suppose.

Surely this is an area some insurance company or car manufacturer could help out with? It’s insane that some stations are now without traffic updates, what a world.

Read that story here

RTE gave us some staff pay info back in august

We got some really interesting numbers back in august about staff pay at RTÉ. It’ll be interesting to see if those wages hold in the years to come as budget cuts sadly seem inevitable.

Read that story here

Let’s be happy for one month at least

We had a nice happy radio story back in September, I’m not going to be able to do it justice here so I’ll just direct you to our post about it at the time.

Here’s a happy radio story

It was a month of awards and rebrands in October

We started October with another online IMRO Awards. Lots of stations and presenters got recognised so you can see all the details on that with the link below.

All your IMRO info is right here

October also saw the announcement that Choose Radio was to become Radiocentre. We have yet to see any big news from Radiocentre since rebranding so this is certainly worth keeping an eye on in the new year.

We learn all about Radiocentre here

It was made clear how tough it’s been for stations in November

In November, The Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media was told by John Purcell just how hard the pandemic has been on radio stations.

He said among other things that some stations were at times just a week away from shutting down. A scary thought considering how important radio is to people during the pandemic.

This really shows just how important funding from the likes of sound and vision can be in keeping stations on air.

You can read all about it and watch it here

Finally came December, the month of Christmas, but more importantly JNLR numbers

It took a while but they finally came. We got new JNLR numbers in December after a long pandemic induced break. it wasn’t a great time for RTÉ but in general most stations seemed happy.

I’ll personally be really interested to see how networked shows perform in 2022 as well as seeing if 2FM make any changes following their drop in listeners. So much to look forward to.

Get all your JNLR details here

What a year it’s been

Thank you so much for checking out Radio Land in 2021. Radio is always changing and we hope to continue informing you in the new year.

We would really appreciate if you gave us a follow on Twitter or a like on Facebook. This really helps us out a lot and helps you stay up to date with the radio industry.

We’ll be back with a regular post tomorrow so we hope you’ll join us then for another year in radio📻