RTÉ Radio Cork

DMC

A blast from the past, RTÉ Radio Cork. When and how did it close? I know its audience dwindled when the ILR's got going, but exactly when was the plug pulled? There is very little info on the web about this.

What triggered this memory was hearing Alf McCarthy doing a schools quiz last week on RTÉ Radio 1.

Solair

It's a gone few years ago now. It's a shame really as the service was never developed to a level where it could really be viable.

RTE Radio Cork basically carried programming on 89.1FM in Cork City (in the actual valley that contains the city) only. It wasn't really available in the county at all other than on MW which wasn't great.

If it was going to be a success, it should have been drastically expanded as a proper regional service on FM.

RTE's comittment to regional broadcasting has always been extremely poor.

Ulsterman 1690

In fairness the failure to develop the service was as much down to sucessive governments (who placed restrictions on the stations operating hours) as RTE themselves.

Back in the seventies RTE wanted to extend the local service (initially to Dublin, and Limerick/Shannon and eventually countrywide) but sucessive governmnets piddled around on the issue of broadcasting development. The (expensive) studios that were built for the Limerick service were never used (bar for the odd programme on National radio) while the proposed Dublin station became a national service (Radio 2/"2FM")

rlogue

Were those studios in Limerick the same ones that are now used for Lyric FM?

Ulsterman 1690

Strangely enough no.

When Lyric launched they got a brand new custom built studio.

While this might on the face of it sound wasteful I suspect some of the equipment in the other studio had become outdated and obsolete

Im not sure if they still have the other studio (I believe it had/has limited TV facilities too) or if they relocated the lot over to the Lyric studio.

Watty could probably tell you

1huge1

I remember a few years back being able to hear rte cork here in south east Limerick but that was on MW and the quality was poor

Im actually in a great location when it comes to radio station
get all the stations from cork city and county, topp stations, Limerick city and county obviously, some kerry and clare and the odd waterford station

watty

I had a tour of the new Lyric studios. It is a complete broadcasting station and 100% digital with clustered storage and real time high speed link for unlimited real time playout or copy from Donnybrook.

The old place was about 1/10th or less of size. There is also TV facilities in Lyric FM.

It can operate 100% self contained separate from RTE with all depts of support, admin & management as well as actual studios.

Solair

Wasn't that a move by RTÉ to do a BBC style regional service thus addressing the need for anyone else to operate local radio. At the time they were locked into a battle with the then pirate local FM stations.

rlogue

Yes - back in the late 70s RTE were determined to hold onto their broadcasting monopoly and wanted to control local radio, thinking that an RTE run community radio service in place would stymie the pirates.

Ulsterman 1690

In retrospect it might have been a better idea to let RTE develop a network of (mainly talk based) local stations (along the lines of BBC local radio) with (mainly music based) commercial stations operating alongside free from that ridiculous 20 percent news quota.

Unfortunately though Irish politicians are afflicted with a phobia of "wall to wall music" coupled with an egomaniacal love of the sound of their own voices :rolleyes:

lawhec

I do stand to be corrected on this, but is the Irish Republic the only country in Western Europe with at least a population of 1 million whose public radio broadcasting is on a national basis only (i.e. no regional or local PBS, or even opt-outs from nationals)?

Ulsterman 1690

You could be right. In Germany most PSB is on a regional basis. The Netherlands and Denmark (both IIRC around half the land area of Ireland) have regional optouts on their eqivalents of RTE R1/BBC R4
France Italy and Spain have as well not sure about Norway/Sweden/Finland, Austria or Portugal though

Belgian and Swiss broadcasting is split more on lingustic/ethnic than regional lines as far as I know

Solair

Personally, I think RTÉ's current setup makes little or no sense. I don't understand why it's operating what is a fully commerical music service i.e. 2FM yet failing to provide decent talk-based service. Radio 1's content leaves a lot to be desired.

The ideal setup for RTE (in my opinion) would be:

RTE Radio 1 - BBC Radio 4 style all talk - this could have a national service on MW/LW and regional opt outs on FM.
RTE Radio 2 - Arts/Culture and alternative music only. Not 2FM style chart stuff that any 2bit commercial operation could do.
RTE Radio 3 - Radio na Gaeltachta
RTE Radio 4 - A modified Lyric FM with a complete focus on classical and perhaps traditional music.

I think the Current 2FM should be sold off as a going concern and the money used to re-invest in launching a new public service station.

jb91

Were they ever considering a bilingual station in the style of BBC R1? I think I might have heard about it a few years ago on TG4...?

L1011

Solair wrote:

Personally, I think RTÉ's current setup makes little or no sense. I don't understand why it's operating what is a fully commerical music service i.e. 2FM yet failing to provide decent talk-based service. Radio 1's content leaves a lot to be desired.

The ideal setup for RTE (in my opinion) would be:

RTE Radio 1 - BBC Radio 4 style all talk - this could have a national service on MW/LW and regional opt outs on FM.
RTE Radio 2 - Arts/Culture and alternative music only. Not 2FM style chart stuff that any 2bit commercial operation could do.
RTE Radio 3 - Radio na Gaeltachta
RTE Radio 4 - A modified Lyric FM with a complete focus on classical and perhaps traditional music.

I think the Current 2FM should be sold off as a going concern and the money used to re-invest in launching a new public service station.

This would require divining a 5th (well 6th - or 7th if you include Newstalk AND TodayFM) national FM network - not possible unless you drop the regional content concept and run one network purely AM/DAB

Ulsterman 1690

The regional optouts on FM could be done without requiring extra bandwidth if the "regions" were based on transmitter service area rather than county/provincial boundries.

For example "Northwest" Truskmore/Holywell Hill (and relays)
"West" Maghera (and relays)
"Southwest" Mullaghanish (and relays -Possibly with a Cork city subsplit on Spurhill and its relays)
"Southeast" Mt Leinster (and relays)
"East" Kippure/Three Rock (possibly with a subsplit between Dublin and Kildare/Wicklow)
"Northeast" Claremont
"Midland" Cairnhill

L1011

Yes, but he's still proposing having 7 national services rather than the 6 we have now: The 4 proposed RTEs, a sold-off 2FM as private, Today and Newstalk.

Big Tone

Ulsterman1690 is correct in his analysis when he states that successive governments were to blame for the death of RTE Cork in 2000.

The station was rebranded 89FM (on 89.2mHz) back in 1989 when the new local stations were about to begin RTE were ahead of the posse. RTE Cork Local Radio, as it had previously been known as, was launched back in the 70s to cater to the growing second city population served the city well with its popular Corkabout and Drivetime programmes and was completely local in every sense.

At present Cork is poorly served radio-wise. 96FM is a music driven station with its 20% news/current affairs build around The Opinion Line (Mon-Fri 9am-noon) and its local news service (which is switched to INN from 7pm) and Red FM is another music driven station who's 20% is filled with Cork Talks Back (Sun-Thurs 9pm-midnight) and also have a local news service. One wonders if the obligatory 20% output was not part of the licence would these stations even bother with the above!? Somehow music would eventually take precedence, afterall it is the cheaper option.

Now with the era of DAB+ etc and RTE making nice profits with index-linked TV Licence price hikes, increased ad revenue etc maybe its time to take another look at the possibilites to launch a digital version of RTE Cork, which would cater to the people of the city and county, local people and our new foreign nationals, to help them integrate more into the local population and to at last have a station that is by the people, for the people.

Zaphod

jb91 wrote:

Were they ever considering a bilingual station in the style of BBC R1? I think I might have heard about it a few years ago on TG4...?

Yes, although I didn't see any mention of it in the current programme for government posted on the Green Party website.

Support for Irish-language radio station for young people
Lorna Siggins, Western Correspondent

The Irish-language radio station, Raidio na Gaeltachta, could soon be complemented by a "RnaG 2" if the results of a new survey are implemented.

The survey, which was co-funded by the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) and Foras na Gaeilge, found there was 75 per cent support among respondents for an Irish-language radio station for young people.

Entitled "Turning On and Tuning In to Irish Language Radio in the 21st Century", the telephone survey of a representative sample of 1,000 people and a further 200 Gaeltacht residents was carried out by MORI Ireland.

Some 3.4 per cent of respondents said they listened to Irish-language radio daily, and 25 per cent of those surveyed reported that they listened to Irish-language radio on "some" basis.

The Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Mr O Cuiv, said this was "a clear endorsement of the excellent work that Raidio na Gaeltachta has been doing since its foundation" and support for "the growing levels of Irish-language programming on commercial and community radio stations".

However, the survey made it clear that a one-size-fits-all approach was no longer feasible, he added.

The need for Irish-language radio for the 15-35 age group was originally outlined in a report submitted by Coiste Comhairleach na nOg (the Millennium Youth Advisory Committee) in March 2001 to the Minister of State in the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands at the time, Ms Mary Coughlan.

"We have to face up to the reality that, if Irish is to thrive and grow, we must provide a broad range of services to Irish-language speakers all over Ireland," Mr O Cuiv said yesterday.

"Although there will always be resistance from certain quarters regarding improvements to Irish-language services for the public, today's survey shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Irish public supports the work that the Government is doing in this regard."

"Eighty-nine per cent of those surveyed feel that promoting the Irish language is important either to them personally, or to the country as a whole, or both," the Minister noted.

He said he would discuss the the survey with the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Mr Dempsey, with the BCI and with RTE and Raidio na Gaeltachta.