30 Years of "Legal" Independent Radio

Losty Dublin

Over the coming weeks and months, Irish broadcasters and anoraks are beginning to mark the 30th anniversary of their first broadcasts. It may be a good time to look at who came on and when, and in what form as well.

• Capital 104.4 FM was the first to make the air legally, coming on air from a temporary premises in the St. Stephens' Green centre on the 20th of July.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FETnecUbBk8
  
  
  After a bright start, the station struggled to bring in ad revenue in spite of an initially impressive listenership and soon faced the chop. Some boardroom and shareholder changed and the station rebranded twice, firstly to Rock 104 and then FM104.
  
  Slowly but surely the station tweaked it's on air product and gained it's foothold before finally becoming a CHR focussed station, a formula that led to FM 104 becoming the dominant station in the Dublin market.
  
  
• A few days later saw longtime pirate and smalltime businessman Paul Claffey lead a consortium of local newspapers, a creamery and the local diocese to win a licence for Mayo; Mid West Radio came on air on Monday 24th July and was the first station outside of Dublin to make it on air, broadcasting from studios in Ballyhaunis.
  
  https://www.rte.ie/archives/2019/0704/1060194-midwest-radio-mayo/
  
  Before long MWR also acquired the licence for a second region of Sligo, Leitrim and south Donegal, after it's initial franchisee pulled out without having even come on air. In no time MWR became and still are one of the best listened to stations in the country; it's sister NWR fared even better until it lost it's licence in 2004. In more recent times MWR has even expanded into TV while it's Tunein and App appease their Diaspora.
  
  Today, MWR have worked hard to keep the focus on home affairs with a strong emphasis on local and community broadcasting and a large bias of Country and Irish music on their playlist, a formula that has served them well since day 1. Albeit this is to the chagrin of a lot of radio buffs across the country and to some the station sounds dated in many respects but their JNLR reports are almost the strongest of all stations and they can be heard in shops across the west, and not just in Mayo.

Who was next onto the air from hereon in?

thejuggler

I believe it was radio south in Cork. Early August 1989. After poor audience figures it relaunched as 96fm in July 1990.

ford fiesta

In the clip that was Adrian Eames (moved on to RTE Sport) who presented the first show on MWR in Ballyhaunis.

Interesting to see that MWR used Technics 1210 turntables (not EMT's or some other broadcast studio standard) back then ..

Losty Dublin

ford fiesta wrote: »

In the clip that was Adrian Eames (moved on to RTE Sport) who presented the first show on MWR in Ballyhaunis.

Interesting to see that MWR used Technics 1210 turntables (not EMT's or some other broadcast studio standard) back then ..

More than likely it's what they used when it was the old Radio Ballyhaunis. A lot of the incumbents availed of top quality specialist broadcasting equipment from the super pirates that they replaced; carts and mixing desks especially.

ford fiesta

Losty Dublin wrote: »

More than likely it's what they used when it was the old Radio Ballyhaunis. A lot of the incumbents availed of top quality specialist broadcasting equipment from the super pirates that they replaced; carts and mixing desks especially.

It was called Mid West Radio in its pirate days..and always based in Ballyhaunis (apart from smaller studios/sales offices in Ballina and Castlebar not very often used and probably no longer used)

Is it the only pirate (and with the same people involved) that kept its original name directly after going legal?

Harry Palmr

WLR has always been WLR, started September 8th 1989 and Des Whelan has been part of the furniture for it's existence.

JoeA3

In Galway, I remember Radio West coming on air not long after MWR. It got off to a very poor start. Listenership figures were dreadful, half the county couldn’t get it due to poor reception, programming was all over the place. Rather than take the MWR approach of “country and Irish” it’s playlist was more classic hits format.

I think around late 92 / early 93 they totally rebooted and launched as Galway Bay FM. They seemed to fare a lot better from then on and it’s still going strong by all accounts.

ford fiesta

The pirate Radio West was Mullingar based though I don't think it could be heard in a lot of the "west"....maybe on Medium Wave

In Mayo the main pirates in 1988 were Mid West, IRM and Twin County Radio

Galway had a few too though

Losty Dublin

ford fiesta wrote: »

It was called Mid West Radio in its pirate days..and always based in Ballyhaunis (apart from smaller studios/sales offices in Ballina and Castlebar not very often used and probably no longer used)

It was called Mid West yeah, though it was referred to by people towards the west of the county as Ballyhaunis given it's local bias in news and other matters, and my fuzzy memory

ford fiesta

Pre legal and post legal..some folk in the West used to actually refer to Mid-West Radio, as Radio West ...and some still do !! (as stated above, a different/separate station in pirate and legal days)

To confuse things further Paul Claffey has admitted in the past, that he didn't even know the Clare / Limerick area was called The Mid-West region and proceeded to call the Mayo pirate radio station "Mid-West Radio".

I wonder did he ever try and use the station name "Radio West", when Galway Bay FM dropped this name in early 90s?? It would have been a less confusing name for a Mayo / North Galway / South Sligo radio station !!

Jonny Owens

A lot of people who post about radio online have always mocked MWR and Claffey but it's truly a gem in broadcasting. In this day in age it's wonderful to have a radio station that's completely unplaylisted.

Declan A Walsh

ford fiesta wrote: »

It was called Mid West Radio in its pirate days..and always based in Ballyhaunis (apart from smaller studios/sales offices in Ballina and Castlebar not very often used and probably no longer used)

Is it the only pirate (and with the same people involved) that kept its original name directly after going legal?

No, Phantom went from being a pirate (1997 - 2003) to a temporary licenced station (2003 and 2004) to a permanently licensed station (from 2006). It did, of course, get renamed in March 2014 to TX FM and close down in October 2016. And it did start with more or less the same personnel when it went legal.

ford fiesta

Correct Declan though I was referring only to the 1988 closedowns / 1989 legals era for name changes...

Infoanon

Mid West should have been the first on air but iirc their link frequencies were withheld until Capital launched.

The story goes that Ray Burke wanted a Dublin station to be first on air.

thejuggler

Were all stations using vinyl for music playout in 1989 or did some go with CD only from the outset?
Minidisk was popular for jingles, promos etc for the second half of the 90s. I assume automation and hard drive playout didn't become the norm until the early-mid 00s
When did the use of Carts for adverts etc die out?

Infoanon

thejuggler wrote: »

Were all stations using vinyl for music playout in 1989 or did some go with CD only from the outset?
Minidisk was popular for jingles, promos etc for the second half of the 90s. I assume automation and hard drive playout didn't become the norm until the early-mid 00s
When did the use of Carts for adverts etc die out?

Carts iirc

L1011

thejuggler wrote: »

Were all stations using vinyl for music playout in 1989 or did some go with CD only from the outset?
Minidisk was popular for jingles, promos etc for the second half of the 90s. I assume automation and hard drive playout didn't become the norm until the early-mid 00s
When did the use of Carts for adverts etc die out?

Vinyl would have been very, very rarely used for many reasons - handling complexities, wear, etc. You'd have turntable(s) but most music was played off cart of CD and then minidisc.

Carts for ad/liner/bed use were the first thing to be replaced by PCs really - storage costs made full playout expensive (though totally possible) but programmes like WaveCart and Stinger were well established by the mid 1990s.

Windows 3.0 having semi sensible audio support is what really started the move to computerised playout and editing.

This is what some of the main software offerings were when the Internet Archive first got their pages; both are much older though

http://web.archive.org/web/19961019093748/http://www.bsiusa.com/
http://web.archive.org/web/19980530040825/http://www.rcsworks.com/public/products.htm

ford fiesta

Dublin stations would have used carts and cd in 1989

Locals outside dublin would have used vinyl heavily up until mid 90s, as well as cd and cart.

If you listen to Century FMs first day, vinyl was used a fair bit. Think atlantic 252 had a turntable in studio,but mostly used carts

thejuggler

Radio South FM in Cork launched at midday on Thursday 10th August 1989 30 years ago this week from studios at Whites Cross (formerly the home of ERI)

Listen to the launch here.

https://youtu.be/uXrPeAsk-oM

It relaunched less than a year later as 96FM.
Ironically the first presenter now works for their rivals 96FM.

Neil sounded quite different back then.

ford fiesta

I don't think RTE ever used carts for music playout??

Losty Dublin

Galway got it's first legal radio station this week 30 years ago with the opening of Radio West. In spite of a strong involvement of local Pirate broadcasters and management things went badly wrong and the station hit the wall less than a year later; an investment of money and copying expertise from 98FM was what kept the station on air.

I have it in my head that Horizon went on air in late September 1989, can anybody hit up up with a date?

ford fiesta

where was Radio West's studios located in Galway (later Galway Bay FM) ? Was it the current location on the Sandy Road?

Losty Dublin

ford fiesta wrote: »

where was Radio West's studios located in Galway (later Galway Bay FM) ? Was it the current location on the Sandy Road?

I believe so, yeah.

AwaitYourReply

thejuggler wrote: »

Radio South FM in Cork launched at midday on Thursday 10th August 1989 30 years ago this week from studios at Whites Cross (formerly the home of ERI)

Listen to the launch here.

https://youtu.be/uXrPeAsk-oM

It relaunched less than a year later as 96FM.
Ironically the first presenter now works for their rivals 96FM.

Neil sounded quite different back then.

Radio South > Hits & Memories 96FM > Cork's 96FM (aimed at Cork City & surrounding areas)
County Sound 103FM (which serves North & West Cork) was later renamed C103fm and is a sister station of Cork's 96FM
Cork 96FM subsequently transferred from it's former studio H.Q. at White's Cross and moved into the former Christian Brother's College school premises on Wellington Road (Patrick's Place) in the city.

The rival station for Cork's 96FM is Cork's RedFM which did not launch until January 2002 some 13 years after Radio South>Cork's 96FM. Neil Prendeville had remained on Cork's 96FM for a number of years while Cork's RedFM had commenced although; it did take Cork's RedFM quite a while to gain audience share in the early years of it's existence. The younger Cork City station Redfm would be based out in Curraheen, Bishopstown and used originally have a live late night talk show first called "Cork Talks Back with Charlie Wolf" and later Victor Barry took over the same slot but it never took much audience share away from Cork's 96FM (i.e.) until Neil Prendeville arrived. Neil was then competing with P.J.Coogan on The Opinion Line on Cork's 96FM.

The late "Henry Owens" of Atlantic 252 (real name: Henry Condon from Cork) was involved in the early days of Cork's RedFM. When the station launched Cork hospital radio station CUHfm was required to switch frequency to make way for RedFM on 106fm.

Meanwhile, the imminent arrival of this 2nd radio station for Cork City back in the early 2000's also resulted in one casualty namely; RTÉ Radio Cork on Cork 89FM (RTÉ Cork Local Radio) as it closed down mainly due to it's restricted hours of broadcasting as it was difficult for it to compete on a level playing field with it's new commercial rivals now broadcasting 24/7 in the city.

Losty Dublin

LM FM hit the 3-0 this week. Formerly owned by a range of local shareholders, the station is renowned as one that has stuck largely to its roots and locally biased output even after being taken over by UTV/Wireless in 2005.

Infoanon

Losty Dublin wrote: »

LM FM hit the 3-0 this week. Formerly owned by a range of local shareholders, the station is renowned as one that has stuck largely to its roots and locally biased output even after being taken over by UTV/Wireless in 2005.

I remember when they came on ,crystal clear signal in Dublin which also managed to wipe the BBC Radio 1 relay on NTL which in those days was on 96.0

Losty Dublin

This day in 1989 saw the launch of the ill fated national broadcaster, Century Radio. While the broadcasted output of the station was good it's behind the scenes story was far worse than one could imagine. Ministerial bribes, trade union issues, unpaid wages, boardroom wars, relaunches and interference from RTÉ over unpaid broadcast fees for it's incomplete transmission network all added to the stations woes before it's sudden end in November 1991.

https://www.rte.ie/archives/2014/0904/641347-century-radio-goes-on-air/

Of course, the fact that RTÉ got this wee baby on the road 4 days earlier didn't exactly help either, did it?

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

Infoanon

The national station was only available in Dublin,Cork and Limerick, it's AM frequency of 1143 was inaudible at night and of average quality during the day .... old Sunshine TX and site btw

It was also widely rumoured that the Cork FM tx was running off the exciter for months.

A lot of money was spent on equipment but its reliance on RTE to provide the network was arguably the reason for their downfall.

Losty Dublin

Infoanon wrote: »

The national station was only available in Dublin,Cork and Limerick, it's AM frequency of 1143 was inaudible at night and of average quality during the day .... old Sunshine TX and site btw

It was also widely rumoured that the Cork FM tx was running off the exciter for months.

A lot of money was spent on equipment but its reliance on RTE to provide the network was arguably the reason for their downfall.

I had heard that about the Cork TX as well. 1143 was supposedly to have been running on very low power as well and with a less than stellar aerial rig as well.

So the story goes about the lack of coverage, RTÉ agreed to supply, rent, maintain and link an FM network to Century but both networks couldn't agree on RTÉ's rate of £1,000,000+pa or Century's rate of £100,000. In an effort to break the deadlock Minister Burke was asked to adjudicate; he quickly decided on a fee of £30,000pa :eek:

Knowing full well what had gone on RTÉ decided to not supply most of the agreed transmission network to Century, secure in the knowledge that neither Century or Burke could squeal on them over the matter. To try and put Montrose into their corner, the infamous advertisement cap came into being; again RTÉ ignored it knowing full well that they had both the moral and upper hand in the matter.

Over time Century only ever added coverage in Sligo and Mayo along with a power boost in Dublin, both utilising old transmission equipment loaned from Capital FM, the UK station who had bought into the station.

thejuggler

Losty Dublin wrote: »

I had heard that about the Cork TX as well. 1143 was supposedly to have been running on very low power as well and with a less than stellar aerial rig as well.

Interesting. I was lead to believe that the 1143 in Cork was the old ERI 1305 mw rig based at the 96fm (then radio south) site at holly hill. Signal was good in Cork then but I had a line of sight to the transmitter. On FM I listened on 101.8 (Mullaghanish I think) The Cork city frequency never seemed as strong.

Losty Dublin

Yesterday saw the 31st birthday of the launch of Capital/Rock/FM104

http://radiowaves.fm/ire/blog/1989/07/20/capital-radio-july-20th-1989/?fbclid=IwAR0bpYE4yTRD6NsTqXAPgdk9p_d6Gw9liJzwAwJFfBpTF6It8zK9wa5jSTs

By this stage in 1990 almost all of the new stations had made it on air.

Declan A Walsh

Losty Dublin wrote: »

Yesterday saw the 31st birthday of the launch of Capital/Rock/FM104

http://radiowaves.fm/ire/blog/1989/07/20/capital-radio-july-20th-1989/?fbclid=IwAR0bpYE4yTRD6NsTqXAPgdk9p_d6Gw9liJzwAwJFfBpTF6It8zK9wa5jSTs

By this stage in 1990 almost all of the new stations had made it on air.

That's a thought! Which local stations launched for the first time in 1990, making this year their 30th anniversary? Leave out the relaunched/renamed stations that originally started in 1989.

ford fiesta

Declan A Walsh wrote: »

That's a thought! Which local stations launched for the first time in 1990, making this year their 30th anniversary? Leave out the relaunched/renamed stations that originally started in 1989.

Paul Claffey and Co.'s North West Radio (NWR) in Sligo launched around October 1990. Lost this licence to Ocean FM in 2004.

This was the sister station of Mid West Radio (Mayo) that had launched (after being a pirate for 4/5 years) in July 1989.

Antenna

Declan A Walsh wrote: »

launched for the first time in 1990, making this year their 30th anniversary?

Also Radio Kerry which was launched (by Charles Haughey) 30 years ago:

https://www.radiokerry.ie/radio-kerry-celebrates-30-years-air-july-14th-2020/

More Music

A behind the scenes look at Radio Kerry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm36xsJ8TE8&feature=youtu.be

Bard

Declan A Walsh wrote: »

That's a thought! Which local stations launched for the first time in 1990, making this year their 30th anniversary? Leave out the relaunched/renamed stations that originally started in 1989.

Midlands 103 (originally 'Midlands Radio 3' and opt-out 'Midlands Gold') hit the big 3-0 in March of this year.