RTE Gold discussion thread

Ursus Horribilis

Well, it is an oldies station. Some of us still use Bebo

George Sunsnow

Aye but the kids have MySpace ...

Andy From Sligo

Ursus Horribilis wrote: »

You could argue that RTE should be spending more on their stations and on spreading DAB nationwide. If you look across the water, the BBC runs six national stations on varying platforms. 2fm is the only one that has a solid identify. Radio 1 is a mongrel cross between BBC Radios 2-5.

RTE Gold is the poor relation of the RTE family (as is 2XM) and has been little more than a glorified Spotify playlist. Would using some presenters and mixing things up really be so bad? It probably costs buttons to run. I can think of many other places where RTE is spending its money badly.

In an ideal world we'd have DAB nationwide and a better selection of radio stations. Neither has happened so I'm happy that Gold, imperfect as it is, is on the air.

Now your talking - I wish we did have a nationwide DAB service across Ireland. I have 3 DAB Radios in the house .. thank God they still have FM radio on them, cannot get a bean of a DAB signal on them at all! - stupid in this day and age, FM is so shussy and out of tune a lot of the time.

gamecube

Ursus Horribilis wrote: »

Thank you for your kind words.

The thing is, the private sector isn't catering for this market. I live outside Dublin so there are no commercial stations which cater for my age group (late 30s). 2FM and Today FM now target a younger demographic and I find them mostly unlistenable. IRadio, Beat and Spin are for a young audience too. The local radio stations vary wildly in what they play. If you live in some areas you'll be served up hearty doses of Declan Nerney and Dickie Rock if you tune in. Or chat shows with local news.

You could argue that RTE Gold is providing a public service for a demographic that the commercial stations have little interest in. One of the things I noticed about Will Leahy's show this morning was people mentioning how they're tuning in. When you're needing to use Sairview or an App to tune into a radio station, you're not in the mainstream.

Spot on, if you live outside Dublin you have a very poor choice of Radio stations

I really enjoyed Rick O'Shea's show today on RTE Gold, you just dont get that kind of playlist anywhere else on radio (2fm- today fm- or local stations)

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

What a disappointment. Gone is the enjoyable clutter free DJ free music in the mornings. Time to seek out a new breakfast time station.

ford fiesta

Keenan Faint Lake wrote: »

What a disappointment. Gone is the enjoyable clutter free DJ free music in the mornings. Time to seek out a new breakfast time station.

Maybe they should set up an RTE Gold 2 with just music !!

Loughc

ford fiesta wrote: »

Maybe they should set up an RTE Gold 2 with just music !!

Or if people just want to listen to just use music they can always just use Spotify or Apple Music.

I for one am happy with the direction they’re going with Rté Gold.

EIREAROEIRE

i loved listening to those two lads best of luck to them

Andy From Sligo

haha this carry on with the radio stations like this reminds me how the uk BBC went with the stations I grew up listening to Radio 1 and then they shifted the Radio 1 DJ's to Radio 2 as the DJ's got older (and as the listeners got older) and then Radio went all bassline, hop hop and rapping - totally not the radio 1 i grew up listening to.

Now Ireland is doing something similar but RTE Radio 2 is getting more hip hop rap cutting edge, the RTE Radio 1 is more chat and the older DJ's RTE seems to be moving them over to Gold - am very surprised they have kept Larry Gogan on 2FM to be honest, but he (rightly so) seems to be an institution on 2FM.indeed the other week on 2FM they put Stephen Byrne in Larry Gogans afternoon Sunday slot and he had to keep reassuring people that "larry will indeed be on this afternoon still - dont worry!"

gamecube

Is Dave Fanning the next guy to join the RTE Gold lineup or does his connection to U2 save him?

splinter65

Ursus Horribilis wrote: »

No I don't. The local station plays country and western ****e

I know exactly where you are. Irish country and western ****e too. Hours and hours and hours of that ****e punctuated by that insanely grinning voice.
Nightmare.

Andy From Sligo

splinter65 wrote: »

I know exactly where you are. Irish country and western ****e too. Hours and hours and hours of that ****e punctuated by that insanely grinning voice.
Nightmare.

sounds like my location too ...

MikeyTaylor

gamecube wrote: »

Is Dave Fanning the next guy to join the RTE Gold lineup or does his connection to U2 save him?

He's replacing Michelle Doherty on TV3's revival of Night Shift in the New Year. :-)

Only joking at the moment, but who knows? :-)

MikeyTaylor

ford fiesta wrote: »

Maybe they should set up an RTE Gold 2 with just music !!

How about calling it RTÉ Silver? :-)

Andy From Sligo

MikeyTaylor wrote: »

How about calling it RTÉ Silver? :-)

RTE Silver Rinse Brigade ...

George Sunsnow

gamecube wrote: »

Spot on, if you live outside Dublin you have a very poor choice of Radio stations

I really enjoyed Rick O'Shea's show today on RTE Gold, you just dont get that kind of playlist anywhere else on radio (2fm- today fm- or local stations)

RTÉ’s dab from kippure can be picked up handily down here in Arklow as can many UK dab channels from preseli wales
Fm is poor though
No 4FM for example,no Nova,just Southeast,beat and east coast
The latter often has transmitter problems
Tonight for example ,just noise on 104.4 and 102.9 and can be like that for days when it happens
It’s as if no one notices and it’s only fixed when someone’s passing by

Andy From Sligo

Last time I was in UK a couple of years back we hired a car and it had a DAB/FM Radio in it, and DAB is very well served in the UK, and it was nice to listen with a strong clear signal. Even with the radio in the car tuned to FM there was none of this weak signal shushing, mono then stereo then mono malarkey , all radio stations were Chrystal clear , no dead spots or anything... so why cant we have it like that in Ireland - there are loads of spots where FM on the car radio comes across weak spots, and this is right out in the open, i'm not talking about driving under bridges or in valleys. I just wonder if we have a good network on strong transmitters and relays in Ireland as they have in the UK?- it doesnt feel like it most of the time when you are driving around here in a lot of places....

Ursus Horribilis

We seemed seem to do things in a half arsed way. It's the same with mobile phone networks and with broadband. I listened to Will Leahy on my phone while driving this morning and the signal dropped out a few times.

Andy From Sligo

interesting that, so to listen to RTE Gold in Car, you would think nationwide we would be able to get it nationwide on FM or listen nationwide on a DAB car radio (thats if the car has a DAB Radio fitted - I think a lot of the newer carsare fitting DAB/FM radios into the dash as standard for a few years now) - so theres no RTE Gold nationwide (or is there? pretty sure there isnt) so then even if you have a DAB car radio the DAB signal is not nationwide even these days.... so then I suppose you have to stream by 3G/4G RTE Gold on your mobile phone and then if you want to hear it through car radio speakers then hook it up by lead or bluetooth (if your car radio has bluetooth) and then I suppose you are charged more for streaming the radio station over 3g/4G data plan arent ye?

Lot of faffing about. - If they just relayed the DAB signal from the main transmitters across Ireland through the relay transmitters where the fm dishes are (or whatever way we get FM radio from the towers/transmitters) then it would be a lot simpler for listeners.

The only nationwide broadcast is via Saorview which isn’t ideal. Otherwise you need internet streaming.

reg114

Will bemoaning the fact there are no ad breaks and has asked listeners to whatsapp in proof they are listening and he'll plug their business.

Blaithnaid ni cofey made an appearance too, so you're going to get a procession of rte heads dropping by for sure.

Playing new music albeit from the Corrs today, but they shouldn't be playing new music.

They’ve played quite a fair bit of new music this morning and had a couple of “comedy” segments such as someone supposedly trying to call Liveline. If that keeps up I won’t be sticking around, I don’t understand why morning radio shows always try to be funny.

reg114

Karsini wrote: »

They’ve played quite a fair bit of new music this morning and had a couple of “comedy” segments such as someone supposedly trying to call Liveline. If that keeps up I won’t be sticking around, I don’t understand why morning radio shows always try to be funny.

Think Will is realising the limitations of not having many listeners and no ads. Very very little music from the 60s or 70s, a couple from the 80s but most of the music so far is aimed at someone who could more easily listen to sunshine, nova or 4fm without having to jump thru digital loops !!!!

Phat Dick

I'm fed up of Leahy and O`Shea constantly saying rte gold has a "zero budget" are they volunteers working for free?:rolleyes:

John Clarke said the same - "no budget, no prize"

Andy From Sligo

Karsini wrote: »

The only nationwide broadcast is via Saorview which isn’t ideal. Otherwise you need internet streaming.

I havent looked yet , but is it in the line-up in the radio station list on the SKY Digibox as well? - I know RTE1 & 2FM are on there , I think lyric FM as well

George Sunsnow

Cripes on a bike but that was woeful
Country and western now
Glad I pay the license monthly and not in one lump sum

Hello Spotify

Gold and the other Rtè digital stations aren’t on Sky, only Rtè 1, 2fm, lyric and the Gaelic one!

Andy From Sligo

zorro2566 wrote: »

Gold and the other Rtè digital stations aren’t on Sky, only Rtè 1, 2fm, lyric and the Gaelic one!

oh what a bummer!

prodsc

Karsini wrote: »

The only nationwide broadcast is via Saorview which isn’t ideal. Otherwise you need internet streaming.

I get it on Eir tv!