Radio Caroline, 50 years old on RTE Gold from 1pm

Losty Dublin · 28-03-2014 2:18am #1

Today in 1964 saw the launch of Radio Caroline.

The station was set up by musical promotor Ronan O'Rahilly who, after failing to get airtime for his acts on either the BBC or pop stations such as Radio Luxembourg, decided to set up a unlicensed radio station on board a convered ship to help give his acts exposure. The station exploded in popularity beyond his wildest dreams and until 1967 and new broadcasting acts came into being, it was THE station to listen to. Even beyond then, the station had a colourful history of radio, culminating in the early hours of November 20 1991 when it's then home, the Ross Revenge lost anchor and ran aground off the Kent Coast.

To her, both radio listener and staff alike owe the station and her staff an enormous debt of gratitude.

And for the anoraks, this is a tape of very first link which was made by Simon Dee.

http://www.offshoreechos.com/Caroline%2060/accueil.php?id=3

Phoenix3 · 30-03-2014 10:18am

Today between 11am and 7pm on RTE Gold will be all about Caroline.Should be a great listen for all Anoraks.

bbability · 30-03-2014 11:27am

Guys I've changed the thread tittle to let all the radio anoraks know there's a special show on RTE Gold today from 1pm. Looking forward to it.

[Deleted User] · 30-03-2014 6:14pm

Great evening of reminising on RTE Gold. Well done. Happy memories.

Infoanon · 30-03-2014 7:42pm

inthehat wrote: »

Great evening of reminising on RTE Gold. Well done. Happy memories.

Really enjoyed that - such a pity Gold is not the 4th national FM station, albeit the 4th most popular RTE station, even an opt out on 92.9 !

ford fiesta · 30-03-2014 9:51pm

RTE Gold is a popular station that should be on FM nationally. Doesn't have to be live, maybe for 6 hours per day. Not many people like listening to new music.

yiddo59 · 30-03-2014 9:59pm

I assume RTE Gold doesn;t have a listenback service so anyone record this by any chance?

Jason_ · 30-03-2014 10:00pm

ford fiesta wrote: »

RTE Gold is a popular station that should be on FM nationally. Doesn't have to be live, maybe for 6 hours per day. Not many people like listening to new music.

RTE Gold is Popular ? Its listenership is probably below 500. 4fm tried the classic gold format for the over 45s in their early days, They had almost no listeners and ran up losses of 12 million euro.

byte · 30-03-2014 10:19pm

yiddo59 wrote: »

I assume RTE Gold doesn;t have a listenback service so anyone record this by any chance?

Yeah, I could not find any Catch Up material for Gold at all.

Shame, as I only caught the first ten minutes of the show, as I've no DAB (or available service, if I even had a DAB radio) in the car

So if somebody could stick it up on Soundcloud, that'd be great!

Infoanon · 30-03-2014 10:27pm

Jason_ wrote: »

RTE Gold is Popular ? Its listenership is probably below 500. 4fm tried the classic gold format for the over 45s and ran up losses of 12 million euro.

Its the 4th most popular RTE station despite being limited to DAB and online.

4FM was not a classic gold format, it made promises in its application that could not be delivered economically thus the losses.

Jason_ · 30-03-2014 10:53pm

Infoanon wrote: »

Its the 4th most popular RTE station despite being limited to DAB and online.

Source ?

Infoanon · 31-03-2014 6:57pm

Jason_ wrote: »

Source ?

RTE staff interview - its been discussed before on various threads.

Any source for your less than 500 figure - it would make a certain FM network very expensive per listener

bbability · 31-03-2014 8:11pm

Jason_ wrote: »

Source ?

Source?

Where's your source for the post above?

4fm have a licences to broadcast to the 45 plus bracket. How they broadcast to the over 45s is entirely up to the owners/shareholders and management at the station. It's not funded with public money. RTE is and therefore should broadcast a public station that provides a service to the needs of the public. There is no music output on RTE Analogue radio aimed at the 35 plus music wise since Mr Healy pulled the plug of music pre 1990 on 2fm.

However I believe this has actually turned a few heads and ears to the digital era in the last few weeks who probably would have never looked further than the FM radio in the car/home or workplace.

Moving the Jukebox to RTE Gold might be a blessing in disguise for RTE and it's ageing listenership.

RTÉ Pulse: Dave · 31-03-2014 8:41pm

Hi all,
plenty of programmes now available on-demand on RTÉ Gold via the RTÉ Radio player which is available online or via the app.

Sundays (30th of March) schedule may be of particular interest given the anniversary that it was.

Via Radio player

apple

Android

Dave

Infoanon · 31-03-2014 9:29pm

bbability wrote: »

Moving the Jukebox to RTE Gold might be a blessing in disguise for RTE and it's ageing listenership.

A bit of promotion for RTE Gold would not go a miss either, I heard some Larry Gogan voice overs today - wonder could the powers that be, be persuaded to put Larry on live ?

DublinKev · 31-03-2014 9:30pm

Thanks so much for that info Dave, I had no idea that the digital stations had a demand service on the RTE Radio Player. Settling down to listen to John Clarke and all the Radio Caroline programming from yesterday, which looks fantastic.

For the first time I think I'm going to start getting some value from my Apple TV!

byte · 31-03-2014 10:15pm

Thanks Dave.

Found the Radio Caroline stuff by just searching Caroline (within the radio player)

http://www.rte.ie/radio/radioplayer/rteradiowebpage.html#!rii=22%3A10267692%3A17008%3A30%2D03%2D2014%3A

DublinKev · 01-04-2014 1:38am

Dave, really enjoyed listening back to some of Sunday's Caroline retro programmes.

One (small) point though. The audio on the playback is very variable, predominantly very low and then when the presenters come in or jingles are played, much louder. Particularly bad on Ireland's Biggest Jukebox.

Overall though great radio and a fantastic facility to have available. Thanks.

ford fiesta · 01-04-2014 2:02am

Is RTE Gold the only position John Clarke has in RTE now? Is he producing any shows on Radio 1 or 2FM? It only takes one man to run a station!!

Jason_ · 01-04-2014 7:29am

ford fiesta wrote: »

Is RTE Gold the only position John Clarke has in RTE now? Is he producing any shows on Radio 1 or 2FM? It only takes one man to run a station!!

I haven't heard his name mentioned on 2fm since he did the last jukebox on the station. Could he be Will Leahy's producer at the weekend i wonder ?

ford fiesta · 06-04-2014 10:55pm

Seems that there are some programmes added to the Gold schedule after the jukebox on Sunday's, like Will Leahy's '2FM years' and John Clarke's 'classic charts'. They are recorded though a step in the right direction, well done to John.

bbability · 06-04-2014 11:41pm

RTE Gold.. It's like the Ryanair version of low budget radio.

mike65 · 18-04-2014 10:04am

Pat Kenny is covering the 50th on his programme (Newstalk) this morning. I'll bump this when it starts.

Jason_ · 18-04-2014 10:14am

Could people in Ireland even hear radio Caroline ? 20kw on medium wave from across the water couldn't have been very audible in much of Ireland surely ?

Infoanon · 18-04-2014 10:22am

Jason_ wrote: »

Could people in Ireland even hear radio Caroline ? 20kw on medium wave from across the water couldn't have been very audible in much of Ireland surely ?

Caroline North would have been loud and clear on the East Coast

mike65 · 18-04-2014 11:34am

Its on on a moment.

Declan A Walsh · 18-04-2014 12:26pm

Even if most of us could not pick up Radio Caroline, it is worth marking the occasion. It is not an exaggeration to say that this station and the other pirate ships that followed it changed the face of radio both in the U.K. and Ireland.

In the U.K., as a result of Caroline and other off-shore pirates, BBC Radio 1 came about with its pop music diet. These developments also led to commercial radio in the U..K. and one or two land pirates there such as Kiss FM, which eventually became fully licensed.

in Ireland, many radio enthusiasts were inspired by the off-shore pirates to set up pirate stations here. This led to Ireland's first legal pop station 2FM (or RTE Radio 2 as it was), taking some pirate presenters with them. Then, individuals connected to offshore pirates, especially Caroline, came to Ireland and the era of the "Superpirate" had arrived - people like Robbie Robertson, Chris Cary, Tom Hardy and Tony Allen. Eventually, long after the U.K., licensed commercial radio in various forms came to Ireland. Many of the older music presenters on Irish radio had started on pirate stations. One or two had gone to Radio Caroline to get the full experience. Some commercial (and indeed community) stations here had actually started life as pirates.

I happened to hear most of the discussion on Newstalk about a forthcoming documentary (this Monday I believe) about the 50th anniversary of Radio Caroline. It was very interesting, especially the subterfuge that went on to test a ship in Greenore, Co. Louth, as part of the preparations for Radio Caroline's launch!

Losty Dublin · 18-04-2014 12:44pm

Jason_ wrote: »

Could people in Ireland even hear radio Caroline ? 20kw on medium wave from across the water couldn't have been very audible in much of Ireland surely ?

There was three factors working in Caroline's favour that helped it work on MW.

Back then there was very little else on air to interfere with your radio signal. RTE had 2 rigs on MW, one of which was on in Cork, while there was just 3 BBC stations; even then they had just a handful of transmission sites. With a good well earthed aerial rig, a stable TX and a clear channel (Caroline had new high end transistor based transmitters which were more efficient and carried better audio.), a station could carry a long way.

As well, music programming was easier to listen to than talk radio. Caroline took on listeners who could listen in their workplace or at home and get on with doing other things. This was unheard of for BBC or RTE stations who, like TV, commanded you to be in the same room as the radio. When the transistor radio came onto the market, people could actually carry the station with them or hear it in cars or shops.

Lastly, for music output you the options were limited to the odd show on RTE, BBC or Luxembourg. Back then, even 208 carried a lot of talk/drama output and it's signal was patchy so it wasn't much competition to the more stable signal of 199.

As to hearing it in Ireland, it was very loud and very popular here given the position of the North TX site. Reputedly the ship could see the lights of Dublin and the station had a sales office here at one stage.

Fuzzy Clam · 18-04-2014 1:58pm

Losty Dublin wrote: »

(Caroline had new high end transistor based transmitters which were more efficient and carried better audio.

Caroline's transmitters were valve.

Losty Dublin · 18-04-2014 2:31pm

Fuzzy Clam wrote: »

Caroline's transmitters were valve.

North's rig was a newer RCA unit and was mainly solid state based.

Fuzzy Clam · 18-04-2014 3:05pm

Losty Dublin wrote: »

North's rig was a newer RCA unit and was mainly solid state based.

If you're referring to the Ampliphase transmitter then it was valve. I doubt there were any high power SS rigs in existence back then anywhere.

Radio Caroline, 50 years old on RTE Gold from 1pm

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