Dan Healy has been a total failure as head of 2fm

Dr golden 2

7 years in the job, listenership down to 5% and 6 million euro of licence fee money required to keep the station going each year.

Tork

The remit was to move to a younger audience. That market is saturated anyway and many use other sources for their music.

The station costs far too much to run for what it is but that's an RTE-wide problem.

Dr golden 2

Tork wrote: »

The station costs far too much to run for what it is but that's an RTE-wide problem.

12 presenters on at weekends compared to 5 on Today FM

radiotrickster

Dr golden 2 wrote: »

12 presenters on at weekends compared to 5 on Today FM

You’d have to wonder how much a weekend presenter earns doing a show on 2FM and if they have other jobs or if it’s a decent income for part-timers.

bmorrissey

Dr golden 2 wrote: »

12 presenters on at weekends compared to 5 on Today FM

12 presenters? Thats a mess

Losty Dublin

Dr golden 2 wrote: »

12 presenters on at weekends compared to 5 on Today FM

Or perhaps Today FM has too few presenters and less different programming on. Bad and all as people say 2FM is, and I certainly am no fan of the station, but they do have a good amount of different programming over the weekend, especially throughout the night. Yes it's not my thing and some of it is bought in but I'm a 40+ listener and now who they are chasing for the Book.

By comparison Today FM has lost a lot of their original non CHR based off peak programming in recent years, an area that the station was always noticeably stronger than others. Worryingly, they haven't been seen to have made efforts to replace them with suitably strong shows to attract listeners in off peak. The loss of Kelly Anne Byrne has taken away big time from Saturday and Sunday's on the station, and at a time when radio has shown stronger listenship figures in comparison to recent years.

Dr golden 2

Losty Dublin wrote: »

Or perhaps Today FM has too few presenters and less different programming on. Bad and all as people say 2FM is, and I certainly am no fan of the station, but they do have a good amount of different programming over the weekend, especially throughout the night. Yes it's not my thing and some of it is bought in but I'm a 40+ listener and now who they are chasing for the Book.

By comparison Today FM has lost a lot of their original non CHR based off peak programming in recent years, an area that the station was always noticeably stronger than others. Worryingly, they haven't been seen to have made efforts to replace them with suitably strong shows to attract listeners in off peak. The loss of Kelly Anne Byrne has taken away big time from Saturday and Sunday's on the station, and at a time when radio has shown stronger listenship figures in comparison to recent years.

I agree with some of what you say but most of the weekend lineup on 2fm isn't specialist stuff at all, for example they have 2 presenters (Carl & Afric) on 7 to 9am at the weekend, is there really an audience for 2 eejits laughing at their own jokes that early at the weekend?

Tork

Dr golden 2 wrote: »

I agree with some of what you say but most of the weekend lineup on 2fm isn't specialist stuff at all, for example they have 2 presenters (Carl & Afric) on 7 to 9am at the weekend, is there really an audience for 2 eejits laughing at their own jokes that early at the weekend?

I remember Poparama when I was growing up. That had people like Teresa Lowe and Peter Collins (?) being eejits who laughed at their own jokes.

marno21

Still no identity and questionable shows shoehorned into the schedule.

Imagine this was BBC Radio 1 we were talking about. A sports show weekdays at 6pm slap bang in the middle of drive? Dave Fanning twice on the weekends?

It has improved but it still hasn't decided exactly what it wants to be. Is it a youth music station? Or a youth station in general?

There are still 2 counties in Ireland with no youth service (Cork and Wicklow) but the rest of Ireland there may be a market saturation issue with the regional stations. Perhaps RTE Gold on FM may be meritorious.

Declan A Walsh

marno21 wrote: »

Still no identity and questionable shows shoehorned into the schedule.

Imagine this was BBC Radio 1 we were talking about. A sports show weekdays at 6pm slap bang in the middle of drive? Dave Fanning twice on the weekends?

It has improved but it still hasn't decided exactly what it wants to be. Is it a youth music station? Or a youth station in general?

There are still 2 counties in Ireland with no youth service (Cork and Wicklow) but the rest of Ireland there may be a market saturation issue with the regional stations. Perhaps RTE Gold on FM may be meritorious.

I thought Red FM was a youth-oriented service.

marno21

It may have been licenced as one but it's competing for the same market as 96FM now. Comparing the playlists of RedFM vs 96FM and RedFM vs Spin/Beat/iRadio shows that RedFM is targeting an older age demographic than the youth stations. RedFM would be more akin to FM104 than Spin.

Declan A Walsh

marno21 wrote: »

It may have been licenced as one but it's competing for the same market as 96FM now. Comparing the playlists of RedFM vs 96FM and RedFM vs Spin/Beat/iRadio shows that RedFM is targeting an older age demographic than the youth stations. RedFM would be more akin to FM104 than Spin.

I know someone in their twenties who listens to Spin 1038 in the car first, but switches to FM104 if they don't like what is on Spin! In other words, they don't distinguish, age wise, between FM104 and Spin. Incidentally, their third choice is 98FM. Occasionally, they have listened to Q102 or Today FM depending on the song. A very very odd time, they stopped at Radio Nova if it was a recent Coldplay song. It's song-driven for that listener. Interestingly, they have never really listened to 2FM.

Losty Dublin

Dr golden 2 wrote: »

I agree with some of what you say but most of the weekend lineup on 2fm isn't specialist stuff at all, for example they have 2 presenters (Carl & Afric) on 7 to 9am at the weekend, is there really an audience for 2 eejits laughing at their own jokes that early at the weekend?

I didn't say that most of it is specialist; just that there is some specialist output on the station each weekend and I'm thinking about the dance mixes and the Hip Hop shows here.

I can't comment on Carl and Afric or their jokes per se but at least it's live jokes and live laughs; some stations are happy to play reruns of their weekday breakfast shows in the same time slot

L1011

They go dance-RnB-dance on Saturday evenings, ensuring the dance audience have switched off entirely at after Jenny Greene and most don't come back for Mr Spring

Possibly the most stupid scheduling decision ever made.

RandomViewer

Wee girl puts it on in the car, hardly any music and multiple presenters talking about nothing to fill airtime,

RINO87

L1011 wrote: »

They go dance-RnB-dance on Saturday evenings, ensuring the dance audience have switched off entirely at after Jenny Greene and most don't come back for Mr Spring

Possibly the most stupid scheduling decision ever made.

100% agree. Cannot stand mo k's show - nothing against the presenter but it's just not my thing. Electric Disco and Mr. Springs shows are, but Mo K's show has me gone as far as I can get from 2fm at that point

marno21

Declan A Walsh wrote: »

I know someone in their twenties who listens to Spin 1038 in the car first, but switches to FM104 if they don't like what is on Spin! In other words, they don't distinguish, age wise, between FM104 and Spin. Incidentally, their third choice is 98FM. Occasionally, they have listened to Q102 or Today FM depending on the song. A very very odd time, they stopped at Radio Nova if it was a recent Coldplay song. It's song-driven for that listener. Interestingly, they have never really listened to 2FM.

I also do this. I’m slap bang in the middle of Spin’s target audience and when I’m Dublin I flick between Spin/FM104/98/Q102

My point though is that if you look at the music played throughout the day you’d find at least 50% of Spin’s music is less than a year old and it plays a wide range of new music with the odd old song thrown in. Songs older than 2010 are rare. Similar to Capital in the UK

Contrast that with 104 or 98 who play a small selection of new music on heavy rotation, with a lot of big hits from the late 80s through to the recent hits - more like Heart in the UK.

Both 96 and Red are more akin to a Heart type station than a Capital type station I would say. It’s surprising this is the way things are in Cork given we have 3 local stations and the multi city station - and 2 religious stations.

siblers

marno21 wrote: »

I also do this. I’m slap bang in the middle of Spin’s target audience and when I’m Dublin I flick between Spin/FM104/98/Q102

My point though is that if you look at the music played throughout the day you’d find at least 50% of Spin’s music is less than a year old and it plays a wide range of new music with the odd old song thrown in. Songs older than 2010 are rare. Similar to Capital in the UK

Contrast that with 104 or 98 who play a small selection of new music on heavy rotation, with a lot of big hits from the late 80s through to the recent hits - more like Heart in the UK.

Both 96 and Red are more akin to a Heart type station than a Capital type station I would say. It’s surprising this is the way things are in Cork given we have 3 local stations and the multi city station - and 2 religious stations.

The music on Red FM is awful, it's pretty much the exact same ****e you find on Today FM or 2FM or Spin , the vast, vast majority of their playlists are made up of current chart music.

There's a very small bit more variety on 96 FM where they do play some older stuff but it's always fairly generic older stuff. I find both stations to be pretty dreadful

irs

It's debatable whether chasing the saturated youth market was what RTE should have been doing but if they were going to do that they should have at least going all out with. It was bad enough having the likes of Tubridy around in the early years but it's ridiculous that Fanning is still there and that still a sports show dumped in the schedule that could easily fit on Radio 1 if they cut away an hour of the station's usual waffle. I think lot of the problems are more to do with RTE than Healy who probably has his hands tied.

JeffKenna

irs wrote: »

It's debatable whether chasing the saturated youth market was what RTE should have been doing but if they were going to do that they should have at least going all out with. It was bad enough having the likes of Tubridy around in the early years but it's ridiculous that Fanning is still there and that still a sports show dumped in the schedule that could easily fit on Radio 1 if they cut away an hour of the station's usual waffle. I think lot of the problems are more to do with RTE than Healy who probably has his hands tied.

The sports show is the only thing on 2fm I might flick on!

Rubberchikken

What young person listens to 2fm fgs.
Most have other better choices at their disposal.
Rte as an entity is a disaster and a joke. 2fm should have been put out of it's misery long ago.

Rte is a retirement village for the overpaid

Lord Nelson

To be fair to Dan Healy (if one can be), you'd need to be a virtual miracle worker to do anything with 2FM or whatever it's called this week. Unfortunately it's almost impossible to make savings as you're dealing with instutionalised larceny where it's overstaffed and (some) presenters earning multiples of the normal rate for their trade. Might be worth paying over the odds for the Terry Wogan's or Gay Byrnes of this world given what they brought to the gig but most of what's out in Montrose wouldn't survive in the real world. Suppose all they can do is have yet another pointless relaunch/revamp. Better off shutting it down or selling it off although the only value in it are the transmitter sites, the rest could be ditched.

KReid

2FM has always been a bit of a mess though, it benefitted from being a national station and an ability to attract the best talent, the issue now is that the best talent isnt a presenter anymore, it's a social media celeb. I don't understand why Radio Programmers think that listeners want to listen to someone who has lots of social media followers rather than an actual presenter. Even some of the radio talent on the station is poor. I think there are some good radio heads in there, I reckon it's near impossible to get anything over the line in that place though.

When you listen now, there is clearly still a lot of money available, lot of sponsorship still on, big competitions etc.. If that license was in the hands of a commercial owner with those resources it would be far more successful.

marno21

Dave Treacy was on BBC Radio 1 filling in for Pete Tong and Danny Howard on New Years Day. Absolutely fantastic job he did.

It baffles me how 2FM don't have him fronting a mainstream/up and coming commercial dance show on the weekends. Something like Pete Tong's show on Radio 1.

2FM really missed a trick not embracing the popularity of dance music among their target audience in recent years. BBC Radio 1 nailed it.

iseegirls

marno21 wrote: »

Dave Treacy was on BBC Radio 1 filling in for Pete Tong and Danny Howard on New Years Day. Absolutely fantastic job he did.

Only started listening to BBC Radio 1 in the last few months when I got Google Nest in. Great channel, has a few minor annoyances like any channel, but they certainly pump out the music on certain shows - and I do like songs nicely mixed together. I doubt many at 2FM know how to properly mix and fade 2 songs together.

Going on NYD, I listened to some of James Cusack at midday, and have listened to most of it through Sounds later on. Top quality mainstream dance songs, expertly played, with minor talk inbetween. 82 songs in 4 hours.

Theres nothing in comparison to 2FM with that during daytime

Darc19

He's constricted by the rules and regulations of a national broadcaster.

The only solution is to sell it off and allow it thrive as an independent station

end of the road

Darc19 wrote: »

He's constricted by the rules and regulations of a national broadcaster.

The only solution is to sell it off and allow it thrive as an independent station

the thing is that this would not be a solution for a couple of reasons.
1. what exactly would be sold off? transmission network? stupid idea, removes a network that could provide a new rte service, one of the digital services perhapse that would equal something different which while would have a small audience would still be catering to a niche not provided for elsewhere.
the branding? can't see anyone interested in that.
studio space and staff will likely remain with rte.
2. it would be offering nothing new and would ultimately only offer very very limited content, as the groups who might buy it (the uk majors) generally operate on offering limited filler content and very limited playlists, so i can't see it thriving that way either.

Jank1

Under employment legislation an new owner would have to keep on absolute wasters like Michael Cahill on the same pay. When they tried to sell the RTE guide, a few publishers wanted to buy the name but nobody wanted to be saddled with all the staff

end of the road

in what way is michael cahill a waster exactly?
he may not appeal to everyone but he is actually a decent enough presenter.

Declan A Walsh

It's interesting that Don Duck arrived a week or two ago, posted a number of posts, some of which prompted questions, and then left. Since then, another user joined, with the same kind of style. Coincidence I'm sure. :pac:

marno21

Not sure if they sold the station it would have many buyers if it's loss making.

Perhaps leasing out the transmission facilities and the 90-92 on the FM band might be an idea instead.

Losty Dublin

marno21 wrote: »

Not sure if they sold the station it would have many buyers if it's loss making.

Perhaps leasing out the transmission facilities and the 90-92 on the FM band might be an idea instead.

One reason why 2FM, and indeed, RTE1, makes losses is because it doesn't push ad and sponsorship sales as aggressively as it could do. Both station's rates are considerably cheaper than Today FM as are the amount of ads carried. While their JNLR makes sales a little harder for 2FM, the same can not be said of FM1 who charge less a lot than Today FM even with some shows having multiples of the Today FM audience.

https://mediasales.rte.ie/wp-content/uploads/RTE-RATE-CARD-2021-v3.pdf

http://medialive.ie/index.php?option=com_sobipro&pid=57&sid=91:today-fm&Itemid=0

ford fiesta

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123107449#Comment_123107449

is he an RTE staffer ??

iseegirls

The demise of the station, the inability to hold onto popular(ish) presenters, and not getting rid of other presenters sooner whom were awful or did not fit a youth station, and finally not getting rid of Game On is up there.

I'd say in 5 years time - none of those main presenters that are there today will still be here, as long as Healy remains. A continual reframing of times and DJs to deflect all lowering of numbers in the listenerships through the JNLRs.

GSF

I don’t get this continuous obsession that young people aren’t interested in sport. Probably more accurate to say that radio anoraks aren’t interested in sport. I suppose Rte see Fanning a bit like BBC radio 1 saw Annie Nightingale or John Peel so age doesn’t matter.

ford fiesta

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123111872#Comment_123111872

In this interview, what he says here suggests he may have been a contractor in 2014:

“I’m 51, I have a one-year-old, I have no pension, so this better work,” he added.

2fm had ‘to be destroyed’ in order to rebuild it – The Irish Times

Chun the Unavoidable

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123111012#Comment_123111012

Of course young people are interested in sport, but have you listened to Game On? It is a very very boring and badly produced show, the stings and jingles as part of the show (eg "Rugby!!") are from the 2000 era and are very dated. It is also the only show where they seem to be mandated to call Football "association football"

RINO87

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123112936#Comment_123112936

Something about Game On alright that still sounds so amateur after all these years... the studio sounds like it's a hallway with no acoustic treatment whatsoever....presenters constantly missing cues....wrong faders open etc.

Chun the Unavoidable

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123113749#Comment_123113749

when it went to 2FM and was hosted by professionals from the sports department it was a very good show. then for some reason they removed all the sports department presenters/jounalists and replaced them with Ruby Walsh/Donnacha O'Callaghan and someone else literally over a weekend. it was a terrible decision and turned it into something like student radio. They have only in the past few months managed to get Ruby Walsh to speak into the mic, and as Rino87 says they cannot work the studio at all.

ford fiesta

Game On is very amateur sounding with no structure and not of usual RTE standard.

not sure why the show was taken away from hugh cahill. As it's the only the daily sports show on the public service (tv and radio), it should not be presented by sports people with no prior radio experience.

fair enough have the sports players, athletes in as guests/pundits on the show but not as main presenters

anytime i tune in ruby is mumbling, no proper links / introductions and i'm sure RTE would save a small fortune not having him on the show. I'm sure he isn't cheap.

it needs to be handed back to the sports presenters, who are mostly staffers - there are enough of them twiddling their thumbs anyway during the week. what are they all doing???

Expunge

Yes, Ruby may have been one of the greats as a jockey and a fine trainer but, Christ almighty, it sounds like Amateur Hour when he's on.

And there' the problem with Healy, who is/was also the Director of Radio Strategy (that may have changed with the arrival of the new Head of Audio). All he seems to think is "we need names!!!" for all these slots but there seems to be no consideration of the quality of what's going out on air.

The higher ups in RTE, not being too interested in Radio, seem to have left him to it and he has had an out-sized influence on the Public Broadcaster , despite being little better than a local radio sales rep.

Grandiose statements accompany the frequent 2FM schedule launches and the station under his stewardship continues to limp along with really poor listening figures, despite a realitvely healthy budget.

He truly is the Comical Ali of RTE.