Atlantic 252 - terrible radio?

Lucozade man

I am surprised at all the people these days that talk about atlantic 252 as if it was the golden age of radio. Atlantic 252 was a terrible radio station, It had a playlist of about 30 songs and the dj names just got really stupid Dicky bow? Wtf?

dulpit

Longwave radio, Atlantic 252 will forever remind me of either being home sick from school, or being in Galway at an adventure centre when I was in 4th year, and it was the only station that the bus could pick up.

Crap station though, you're right...

Bummer1234

I would love to half it back now...Top 10 every evening and played decent tunes all the time....Listening to it playing football with the neighbours....Whats everyone at now...Sitting on there bebo and Facebooks!!!!....

eth0_

Atlantic 252 was actually a very influential station. Nothing like it existed in Ireland at the time and it influenced 2FM and other pop stations a great deal.

Tapes

Little did the irish teens who was listening to it know that RTE owned 75% of it and pat kenny was the chairman of the board.

kippy

Tapes wrote: »

Little did the irish teens who was listening to it know that RTE owned 75% of it and pat kenny was the chairman of the board.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_252
I never knew ANY of that!

It brings back a lot of memories when I hear people speak about it.
Good times.
No matter what the quality.

DenMan

I remember they did the Euro top 20 chart and the World top 40. I thought that was brilliant. Good station but very repetitive.

Benny_Cake

I have very fond memories of it in the early 90s,but in later years it seemed to be all R&B, all the time. At it's peak it was a very influential station, particularly in a time of less choice in stations, it seems to have had a huge impact in rural areas where 2FM would have been the only other choice.

Liam Byrne

Woeful playlist and the "is it English or Irish" question combined always put me off it.

Nova Europe or Radio Luxemburg beat the pants off it any day.

Declan A Walsh

My first car had only MW and LW Radio and no tape facility - never mind CD player! Atlantic 252 was a Godsend at the time as I could pick it up anywhere in the country - sadly Century Radio was not great for picking up on MW.

As others have said, it was a very influential station. I accept that over time it became very repetitive. Then, I changed car and that was the problem solved!

Here are just some of the people (and you should certainly recognoise some of these names) who did stints on Atlantic 252:
Brian McColl (Nails Mahoney)
Liam Coburn (Batman Gomez)
Rick O'Shea
Enda Caldwell
Mark Byrne
Al Dunne
Paul Kavanagh
Steve Hayes (Hollywood Haze)
Henry Condon (Henry Owen)
Derek Flood
Dusty Rhodes
Simon Bates (possibly syndicated)
Dickie Bow
Cliff Walker
Pizzaman
Bam-Bam
Cousin Brucie
Jo King
Jeff Graham
Charlie Wolf
Andrew Turner
Kevin Palmer
"Magic" Marc Henry
Mark Noble
Tony West
Mark King
Robin Banks
Mary Ellen O'Brien
Desparate Dan

GSF

It was great radio if you were a teenager. You werent meant to listen to it 24x7 and it would upset serious radio critics but it was sure better than 2FM or any other the other limited alernatives of the early 90's.

Autosport

Ah that brings back some great memories, i loved the fact that they played RnB music

squonk

I remember it from being home sick and school trips when it was alway on on the bus. I remember they played Celine Dion like crazy, but it was one of her first singles and it wasn't a bad song, before she lost all cred! If you listened to it all the time you'd go mad but an hour or two here and there made for great radio. I don't think the current crop of younger people actually could imagine what it was like when 2FM was the only option you had in rural areas. Now thanks to the internet there's such a wealth of choice.

splendid101

Don't see why the Irish teens listening would have given a riddler's who owned it or was on the board.

I remember listening when Gangster's Paradise was played what seemed to be every 15-20 minutes. Great!

Autosport

splendid101 wrote: »

Don't see why the Irish teens listening would have given a riddler's who owned it or was on the board.

I remember listening when Gangster's Paradise was played what seemed to be every 15-20 minutes. Great!

Classic tune

dulpit

Oh dear...

Kensington

Tapes wrote: »

Little did the irish teens who was listening to it know that RTE owned 75% of it and pat kenny was the chairman of the board.

The wonders of clever marketing eh!

I'd imagine the majority of Spin 1038's listenership today don't realise it's the exact same people running Spin as is running the "boring old stations" like Newstalk or Today FM.

Liam Byrne

Autosport wrote: »

Classic tune

Maybe, but every 20 mins ?

Declan A Walsh

The best think about Atlantic 252 is that, provided you had long wave on your radio (and many did in 1989 and the early '90s), you could pick it up practically anywhere in the country. The worst thing, which became more prevalent as time went on, was the repitition of songs over a short period of time.

During the first year or so, Atlantic 252 used to have a classic rock show on Sunday afternoons, playing the sort of stuff you would now hear on Radio Nova. That was great for general rock fans. That did not last, though. Paul Kavanagh was one of the presenters of the rock show. I think Al Dunne did a stint too and possibly Mary Ellen O'Brien.

Don't forget it was also training ground for a number of Irish broadcasters. There were of course British presenters too, as the station was aimed mainly towards the English market, even though it actually broadcast from Co. Meath.

By the way, the other main owner of Atlantic 252 was Radio Tara, who were the owners of Radio Luxembourg. One of its early presenters, Jeff Graham, went off to be PD with Radio Luxembourg and was to oversee the latter's move away from Medium Wave and to be exclusively on the Astra satellite platform.

KrazeeEyezKilla

splendid101 wrote: »

I remember listening when Gangster's Paradise was played what seemed to be every 15-20 minutes. Great!

I remember my brother spent a whole Sunday listening waiting for it to come on so he could tape it but it didn't come until about midnight, this was right at the point when it was No.1 any other day it would have on about ten times. The Rhythm & Dance direction improved things little bit towards the end as endless Garage music was better than the likes of Westlife but it too late at that point.

The replacement sports station TeamTalk 252 was awful. Their coverage of the 2002 World Cup was incredibly amateurish. I remember listening to a phone-in the night after Irelands win over Saudi Arabia and all the callers were taking the p!ss and deliberately acting the bollix.

mike65

I remember that, they were sat in front of the telly with a "crowd" track mixed in with the mic channels. Anyone who's seen Escape to Victory will have an idea of how it must have sounded (and looked in the studio).

Fuzzy Clam

Declan A Walsh wrote: »

By the way, the other main owner of Atlantic 252 was Radio Tara, who were the owners of Radio Luxembourg.

Eh???

baalthor

It was controversial at the time. There was no legal independent radio in Ireland when it started so there were questions about why 252 was allowed to operate.
There were also complaints from other countries about unfair competition and signal interference, allegedly it was blocking Radio Algeria at one point !

Fuzzy Clam

baalthor wrote: »

It was controversial at the time. There was no legal independent radio in Ireland when it started so there were questions about why 252 was allowed to operate.
There were also complaints from other countries about unfair competition and signal interference, allegedly it was blocking Radio Algeria at one point !

Dublin's Capital Radio was already on air a couple of months.IIRC. The framework was also in place for more licenced stations.

I don't remember any controversy at all.

mike65

I do, the residents of Clarkestown were convinced they were going to be barbecue by the transmitter. There was some fuss from local stations in the UK esp the NW where the signal would be strongest as they reckoned ad revenues might suffer. 252 also demanded its Djs stand up which must have caused some disquiet among the more portly/older voices.

Fuzzy Clam

mike65 wrote: »

I do, the residents of Clarkestown were convinced they were going to be barbecue by the transmitter.

Ah yes, i remember that.
Having met some of the locals in a pub near there, I think they may have had a point....

Declan A Walsh

Declan A Walsh wrote: »

By the way, the other main owner of Atlantic 252 was Radio Tara, who were the owners of Radio Luxembourg. One of its early presenters, Jeff Graham, went off to be PD with Radio Luxembourg and was to oversee the latter's move away from Medium Wave and to be exclusively on the Astra satellite platform.

Fuzzy Clam wrote: »

Eh???

Sorry, I got a bit confused there! Radio Tara was the name of the company which owned Atlantic 252. This was a joint venture between RTE and RTL, with RTE having the larger share of ownership. RTL were also the owners of Radio Luxembourg - not Radio Tara. Sorry about that!

splendid101

KrazeeEyezKilla wrote: »

I remember my brother spent a whole Sunday listening waiting for it to come on so he could tape it but it didn't come until about midnight

Yeah, I recorded Gangster's Paradise off the Station using my sister's toy recorder with the big chunky microphones on either side.

Other song's which were always being played at that time were some Simply Red number and the one about missing someone like the "desert misses the rain". I hated that song.

kippy

splendid101 wrote: »

Yeah, I recorded Gangster's Paradise off the Station using my sister's toy recorder with the big chunky microphones on either side.

Other song's which were always being played at that time were some Simply Red number and the one about missing someone like the "desert misses the rain". I hated that song.

Fairground - I absolutely detested that song as well and have since grown to detest anything Simply Red.
I remember recording on the aul tapedeck so much music off of A252. Those two tunes you mention bring back so many memories of back in the day! Good times....

brianwalshcork

Atlantic 252 was all I could get on the radio on the tractor :-(

TRSJ

kippy wrote: »

Fairground - I absolutely detested that song as well and have since grown to detest anything Simply Red.

you and me both. It turned me off simply red for life.

TRSJ

But I loved the station in the early days even with high rotation. Charlie wolf and Andrew turner in the morning were great together.

TontoMurphy

"desert misses the rain"

Think it was Everything But The Girl - Missing.

kippy

TontoMurphy wrote: »

"desert misses the rain"

Think it was Everything But The Girl - Missing.

Ah yes you are correct.......

Song contamination both utterly awful songs have managed to contaminate my brain....

irishh_bob

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Woeful playlist and the "is it English or Irish" question combined always put me off it.

Nova Europe or Radio Luxemburg beat the pants off it any day.

it also spawned rick o shea or ricochet as he was known as at atlantic 252 :rolleyes:

still , it had its advantages , reception could be recieved anywhere in the country , manys the load of silage and hay which were drawn in on farms with only seven seconds ( by nenah cherry and that senegaleese guy ) playing on atlantic for entertainment , good times

Welsh Megaman

Ah, the early 90's!

*puts on Global Hypercolour t-shirt and wears jeans back-to-front a la Kris Kross*

Charlie Wolf in the Morning was my favourite show.

Welsh Megaman

TRSJ wrote: »

you and me both. It turned me off simply red for life.

'Stars' by Simply Red and 'You' by Ten Sharp have also been ingrained into my head thanks to Atlantic.

TRSJ

I recall 252 starting off more chr but moving more ac in the early 90s and back chr again mid 90s followed by rhythmic format in the latter days of the station. Would that by right? It definitely seemed to soften a little bit after the first year or two on air. Classic rock sunday was a great show they had yes. Think it was 6 hours of all classic rock.

ibFoxer

Just threw this into the search for a laugh

Grew up listening to this and in later years Midlands 103 with R-R-R-Roy Jennings.

Good times

Aidric

Just found this old RTE News report about the stations opening on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhFgd9uK15k

orourkeda

Aidric wrote: »

Just found this old RTE News report about the stations opening on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhFgd9uK15k

The bit about the complaints was funny.

Big Tone

Hi rotation of Top 40 chart and lousy Long Wave audio quality. The former I could forgive to a certain extent, I can understand how youngsters love hearing the same chart songs over and over but the latter was why I couldn't listen, that dreadful dull audio of LW, they should've put it on FM but that was never a runner.

eth0_

Big Tone wrote: »

the latter was why I couldn't listen, that dreadful dull audio of LW, they should've put it on FM but that was never a runner.

They wanted to cover a huge land mass on a small budget and LW was perfect for that. It's not THAT long ago since most radio broadcast on medium wave, which isn't much better in terms of audio quality.

Declan A Walsh

When Atlantic 252 started back in 1989, a lot of radio sets and car radios had Long Wave. It also had the advantages that the signal was strong enough that it could be picked up in most of Ireland and did not require re-tuning as would happen with both Medium Wave and FM.

But possibly the biggest advantage for the people behnd Atlantic 252 was that the station, although transmitted from Meath, could be picked up by its main target market over in the U.K., which would not have happened had it been on FM.

Remember that Atlantic 252 was the first national music station alternative to 2FM at the time. It just got in there before Century Radio, which had transmission issues around Ireland and had to be re-tuned.

When I bought my first car in the early '90s, I had a radio with only MW and LW. It is hard to believe that now! Atlantic 252 was by far the easiest station to pick up.

By the mid nineties of course, at home there were a number of FM alternatives and likewise when I changed my car - pirates and legal. As time went on, more stations got licences. At that stage, LW was being used less and less. I think by 2000 it was a very rare occasion indeed that I would listen to Atlantic.

Things had also moved along in the U.K. market - Virgin Radio, Classic FM and so on. By the time Atlantic 252 quietly called it a day, most radio listeners had long moved on. There was of course a tinge of sadness and nostalgia after the closedown, as always happens for such events.

I suppose Atlantic 252 served a purpose and was a product of its time. It was also a great experience for many deejays, many of whom got their first legal commercial radio break with this radio station.

Firetrap

Atlantic 252 came along during the era where there wasn't all that much choice when it came to radio stations. A lot of the pirates went off the air at the end of 1988 and the local stations which gradually replaced them didn't necessarily appeal to teenagers. Unless they were into céili or Country & Irish :mad: So really there was only 2FM and later on, Century. Even now, if I hear Steely Dan, Fogelberg or Michael McDonald somewhere, it transports me back to late 80s 2FM :eek:

This song always reminds me of Atlantic 252. I can't remember if they played it much once the station went on air but it certainly featured in the test transmissions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPuXvpkOLmM

Big Tone

eth0_ wrote: »

They wanted to cover a huge land mass on a small budget and LW was perfect for that. It's not THAT long ago since most radio broadcast on medium wave, which isn't much better in terms of audio quality.

£7 million budget in 1989 could not be considered small and dont forget the costs of running a 500kW LW transmitter (which was cut to 100kW @6pm ever evening to save money) not to mention all the other overheads like salaries etc

But it was a poor choice of frequency anyway as Radio Algeria is on the same frequency but with 1500kW of power 24/7 which made listening to Atlantic252 almost inaudible in the south of Ireland. 261 or 270 would have been far better choices especially the latter.

Greg Parke

Big Tone it was on a £3 million budget to launch but far exceeded that to £12 million but 1992 because of the time it took to break even. I would be happy to send you a link to some info written by me.




I have not read all responses to this thread but even the thread name made me laugh. I was a jock on Atlantic 252 (rhythm and dance days) and there was no repetition under John O Haras management.

There was in the 90’s under different management with a very, very tight playlist. Thats because Atlantic was targeting a two hour listener (people on the move). It guaranteed to massive hit every time someone tuned in.

Many stations have tried and ‘’STILL’’ try to duplicate what we did only to fail or sound tacky. There will NEVER be another Atlantic 252 and I doubt there will be jocks as creative and so incredibly slick on air again. Thats because they were encouraged unlike today where money rules all airtime. Even so, Atlantic was the most successful commercial radio station of its kind in UK and Irish broadcasting history. We had listeners all over Europe outside our target area.





The very title of this thread is repugnant and ignorant. Unless you work in the industry and understand how it works then I would suggest you research it more before making foolhardy comments.



My public page on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/greg.parke

JP Liz V1

Simon Bates love story was always good sometimes quite sad

eth0_

Greg Parke wrote: »

There will NEVER be another Atlantic 252 and I doubt there will be jocks as creative and so incredibly slick on air again.

I loved Atlantic 252 for the first couple of years, before it lost its way.

BUT...it is possible to be TOO slick. I work in the radio industry (as a producer) and I would find it soul destroying to work in a station like Atlantic 252 as it was in the final couple of years. It must have paid pretty well to keep DJ's who were seemingly barred from showing their personality on air or saying much, other than "...that was song X from band Y and here's another great hit...".

I still think Atlantic 252 was a pioneering station. It gave people in Ireland something to listen to other than local radio and RTE, after all!

Greg Parke

It was good for people in Ireland even though they were not the main target audience. There is no such thing as too slick. If you seen some American air-check videos (even of AC let alone hot AC or CHR) you would see why radio here has gone back in time in that and many ways.

Less is more and 4 links an hour was fine with personality injected at strategic times of the day via some shows for the final two years. Although outside breakfast the station mostly always had a tight link clock and studio white board to sell, sell, sell. How the station developed and sounded at various points in its life was down to different people put at the helm and also format changes.

paddylonglegs

ha ha, what a phenomenon 252 was. Always assured that you were gonna hear top 40 tunes (great when your 11). have great memories of it alright but the repetitiveness of the songs grated after a while - they wouldn't get away with it nowadays however (Although spin1038 manage to).

Top memory tunes:
- Gansta's Paradise
- Inner Circle - Sweat "Girl I want to make you sweat, sweat til you can't sweat no more"
- Aswad - Shine "Ooo ah, ooooooo ah"
- K7 - Come baby come
- Outhere Brothers - Boom Boom Boom
- Snap - Rhythm is a dancer
- Vanilla Ice - Ice Ice Baby

Chooooooons