Little Irish music on radio

BLITZ_Molloy

I found out about Nialler9 recently and I'm starting to realise how little I know about new homegrown music outside of hiphop (being an aspiring artist, never would have discovered there was a scene otherwise).

I recall reading a while back that Ray Darcys show is one of the few slots that's actually increasing it's listenership in recent years while all of RTE's shows are losing tons, and failing to attract any young people. Now I'm not a huge fan of RD's presentation skills but fair ****s to him he plays alot of independant and Irish music which is a rare thing in the timeslot he has.

How come a private station is playing more new Irish music than one funded by our government? All they ever push is the same old U2, Van Morrison and Joe Dolan stuff and they don't really need the money or the exposure at this point.

As Nialler says there's alot of Irish music out there that isn't just generic indie rock and singer songwriter fare. Most of the genres have a few quality acts. Thing is you never get to hear them unless you listen to niche shows at strange hours of the day.

SxE Punk

See my sig. My show plays the best in homegrown metal, punk and rock(sometimes, if its good), its only a shame we have limited availability outside of Dublin 15.

lordgoat

If you don't stand for someything, you'll fall for anything. Harder than you think - PE no?

petals

I thought every station was meant to play a certain amount of irish. Also there's loops there cos Shayne Ward counts as irish cos his parents are irish even though he's from england or sumthin. Girls Aloud count as Irish cos Nadine coyle is from the north!
Also what do people have against Westlife? Very few dj's seem to want to play westlife

edanto

At a guess, I'd say that they're playing the music that they think will keep people listening - maybe it's what they think the audience want.

Other factors - the peope that decide what music is played are probably fuddy duddies that have life sentences permanent contracts at RTE and maybe they're committing that awful crime of old people trying to think young.

But as to what you can do about it - call the station every now and again using a variety of voices and tell them what you think! Get your friends to call - hell maybe write in a letter or two. They log all that stuff.

You could be sure that if they got a thousand phone calls to reception asking them to play more of a particular type of music they'd pay attention.

Bren_M.Records

The problem as I see it (from my very limited amount of experience) is mainstream radio between 7am and 7pm.
Thats where bands are made or broke, obviously there are exceptions to this rule but in general to kick on you really need the support of the daytime jocks.
If they (or in some cases their researchers) arent "feeling you" then basically your ****ed!
Least thats been my experience!

curly.bert

Most stations have a BCI requirement to play a certain amount of Irish music, usually 30% per hour. Unfortunately as Petals said, a lot of acts are grandfathered in to qualify as Irish music (e.g. Shane Ward) and plenty of the old reliables are playlisted to make up the numbers (U2, Sinead O'Connor). As a result, the most exciting but not very well known acts don't get the daytime exposure they deserve - Fight Like Apes and Dark Room Notes I'm looking at you!

There are plenty of niche Irish music show, such as my own and SxE Punk's. I'm lucky enough to be scheduled at a pretty decent time AND to get two shows a week. However, most shows aren't as lucky and often get relegated to the Sunday graveyard shift.

The only way this will change is if the listeners text and email into radio stations and demand to hear new Irish music during peak hours - 7am to 7pm. I've just been through the CDs that came in this week and most of them are infinitely better than the latest ****e from Soulja Boy, Enrique Iglaseas, Nickleback, etc ....

Jip

Phantom FM plays alot of fantastic Irish music from some great bands, stuff you'd never hear anywhere else and they deserve alot of phrase for that.

catch--22

Jip wrote: »

Phantom FM plays alot of fantastic Irish music from some great bands, stuff you'd never hear anywhere else and they deserve alot of phrase for that.

Thanks JP. You would be surprised how many quality Irish bands/singers there are out there at the moment (DRN, FLAPES, Kinetics, Cathy Davey, Red Kid) so it's not too hard for us to populate our A list with them!

_feedback_

BLITZ_Molloy wrote: »

.

All they ever push is the same old U2, Van Morrison and Joe Dolan stuff and they don't really need the money or the exposure at this point.

Don't think Joe Dolan needs the money or the exposure at this point, for sure.

BianoBoy

Jip wrote: »

Phantom FM plays alot of fantastic Irish music from some great bands, stuff you'd never hear anywhere else and they deserve alot of phrase for that.

I'm surprised it took 8 replies before anybody even mentioned PhantomFM. It's the only radiostation woth listening to these days (unless, of course, you like listening to the same 4 or 5 xfactoresque songs over and over and over and over and over, like a monkey with a minature cymbal...... sorry, went off o a tangent there).
They (phantom) are the only station who actually play up and coming Irish music and give bands the exposure they wouldn't get from any of the commercial stations.

Aidan Lynch brings you all that’s good and great from the local music scene every Tuesdays 8– 10pm on Icon, With interviews and in studio sessions from established and up and coming artists from the thriving Irish and local scene, Icon showcases some of the best talent the country has to offer.

Tune in to Icon, the first port of call for all new Irish music at Phantom 105.2 and find out where you can catch it live with an All Irish Live Guide and special Entertainment News.

:D:cool:

judas101

Jip wrote: »

Phantom FM plays alot of fantastic Irish music from some great bands, stuff you'd never hear anywhere else and they deserve alot of phrase for that.

+1

phantom is great. discovered loads of great bands on there. Hooray for Humans, Betamax Format, Sickboy and so on.

give it a blast

curly.bert

Phantom are a great station who play some brilliant music and deserve all those kudos. Alas, tis Dublin-only

There's been a number of initiatives over the past few years to get Irish content up on radio stations, most notably the "Fairplay for Airplay." Best thing listeners can do though is to text/email stations looking to hear new Irish music. If the brass feel there's a demand out there, you can be sure they'll respond!

S.I.R

depends on the bands your talking about ?? in an hour over the pace of say... 9 stations you hear the coronas 40 times , blizzards once or twice , tons of u2 ( which should be banned ) , never hear enough thin lizzy though

BLITZ_Molloy

That's another point of annoyance with me. There were EU regulations put into place a decade ago that meant Ireland would jump to digital TV/radio and we'd get a much larger selection of stations. But the government/RTE or whoever is in charge is dragging their heels.

MarkN

curly.bert wrote: »

Most stations have a BCI requirement to play a certain amount of Irish music, usually 30% per hour.

It's not based on an hour.

The BCI's regulations don't help anyone - radio station or breaking artist. If a station can play U2s hits or the new song from "Declan Walsh" who is really 'great' - who is Joe Public going to want to hear?

Unfortunately small breaking Irish bands don't pull in big listenership figures but plenty of stations do their best to help out new artists with specialist shows and daytime plays where it's possible but commercial radio is a business and JNLRs are one of the cogs heavily involved.

The Blizzards and Coronas have been mentioned in this thread, they’re lesser known Irish bands but people are still moaning!!