Changes at 2fm

flazio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120282778#Comment_120282778

12-3 on a weekend is hardly primetime radio to be fair. You know what you have to do to receive RTE Gold so off with you.

Blathnid Tracey on mornings surprised me a bit, I would have thought Shannon Keenan would have been a more bright and perky personality for the weekend morning listeners. Not that I don't rate Tracey but, doesn't really strike me as a breakfast radio presenter.

RoTelly

RTE seem to have this thing that if something is working in podcasting we most follow.

ford fiesta

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120282769#Comment_120282769

why did they leave out 12 - 2 on Saturdays ?

Lost Ormond

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120283244#Comment_120283244

Accidently left out a 1 on the tweet...

ford fiesta

is Mr Spring still on the line up ?

Declan A Walsh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120283293#Comment_120283293

I think so. I don't think they showed his Saturday nighttime slot in the schedule shown there.

flazio

Beta De Silva also confirmed he's got the New Music Show permanently.

radiotrickster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120283011#Comment_120283011

Every time I’ve heard Shannon Keenan I’ve felt like I was listening to a student who just started doing college radio. She has very poor radio skills.

2FM have some cover presenters who have built up decent radio experience outside the station (Conor Halpin, Jamie Maguire) so it’s interesting to see them overlooked for the likes of Roz Purcell

Trampas

Blathnaid just announced she’s expecting so a strange decision. She’ll be only in and be gone for as long some time.

Never mind if you like her or not

flazio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120285077#Comment_120285077

Which is why weekend breakfast is the perfect place to hone up and get better, small audience, very few harsh critics up at that hour. You don't just say to someone, "if you're not perfect out of the box, you've no business getting paid by public money". We're a quarter of the way through the 21st century, the era of the pirate talent is over.

Carl Mullan took 2FM off the air the first morning he did weekend breakfast, simply because he turned on the wrong studio, the head of 2FM got awoken by an automatic alarm when it happened and just laughed it off. (So Carl tells it anyway)

It looks like Dave Fanning only learned during the week that his show was taken off the air. Isn't it strange that nothing was ever said about Chris and Ciara getting axed? It's as if their show never existed, Chris Greene has kept an extremely low profile the past 12 months.

sligono1

I was never a fan of Dave but that's down to my music taste but you cannot question he was a genius at what he done.

But the last few years his show felt outa place tbh.

2fm seems a typical RTE operation that just wastes tax payers money Dan Healy and Dee Forbes are to thank for that if they worked for me they would be in my office often over their choices and decisions.

like Roz to get a job on on 2fm u need to be tiktoker a podcaster or youtuber no ability in broadcasting that's no problem

radiotrickster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120285196#Comment_120285196

It’s a national station. People shouldn’t be put on if they’re not already halfway decent. The majority of cover people from RTE seem to come through their digital stations so they should be developing them into high-quality presenters so by the time they get an opportunity on 2FM, they can fit straight in.

That’s what Communicorp did with FRQfm where they took people who wanted to be presenters and developed them until they got work in commercial stations. Presenters who work all over the country now did the grafting to get up to a standard where they could be put on FM. RTE’s FM stations shouldn’t be a training area when that’s what the digital stations can provide

I mentioned this before but from listening to all the young weekend presenters over the past few years it seems that they get no Coaching whatsoever from the pd Paul Russell , Considering that Russell's background is Producing the Gerry Ryan and Tubridy show, the reality is he probably hasn't a clue how to program a CHR station in the 2020s.

Is the roadcaster not a regular thing on 2fm anymore? I remember in the 00s and into the 2010s weekend afternoons shows were almost always out in the roadcaster but I never hear it mentioned anymore when I normally get to listen at weekends

TheDavester

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120286275#Comment_120286275

or former model like Roz, Laura Fox

onemoreopinion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120287125#Comment_120287125

I've always thought it felt very rough around the edges. I don't remember it ever being like that before but it feels like no presenter gets any training in there. It should be a national platform people strive to get on after experience not something you throw students onto to make mistakes.

I am out of the demographic but it feels very much like a station run by old men trying to move goalposts and pretend they know what young people are after. What did Dan Healy do before 2fm?

iseegirls

Tara Kumar filled in very well as cover for Jack Saunders on BBC Radio 1 Future Artists this week. Feels like she could easily slot in there for him or Clara Amfo over the coming months as cover.

TheBMG

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120341515#Comment_120341515

Dan Healy has a bit of pedigree in fairness. His original background is sales with both the Irish Times and 98FM. He later became CEO of 98FM, then Newstalk. Was involved with setting up iRadio as well.

radiotrickster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120341515#Comment_120341515

It really does sound like the presenters are left to their own devices.

I wonder if they ever aircheck themselves too though? There’s a lot to be said for taking ownership of your development and keeping yourself on top of your game

cena

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120287977#Comment_120287977

Not used like it used to be.

flazio

Roadcaster got put on bricks for two years because obviously you don't want people gathering around the thing during a pandemic, its been used a few times since, mainly by Breakfast but it has had a livery refresh so that it can now be used by any RTÉ radio station, not just 2fm. Seems like the other RTÉ outside broadcast radio studios have been decommissioned leaving just the Roadcaster. I have no idea if any of the other stations have used it though.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120343710#Comment_120343710

I think the roadcaster had definitely died off at weekends as far back as 2017 or 18 except for music festival weekends. Back in the 90s/00s and early 10s, you had Lorcan Murray(90s)/Enda Murphy(00s)/Ruth Scott & Paddy McKenna(10s) broadcasting from the Roadcaster pretty much on a weekly basis. Those were the days it had lots of listeners tho and I guess businesses were willing to pay them big money to park outside for a Saturday afternoon.

flazio

I'd love to know what in the world the schedulers were thinking about this morning's roster.

As I'm sure you're all aware Jennifer Zamberlli and Doireann Garrihy were the hosts of RTÈ's version of Strictly Come Dancing and Carl Mullen was one of the contestants, made to the final, won the thing, deservedly or not, debate for a whole other forum. Now as you would expect, end of the series, there's going to be a wrap party, media photos etc etc, going to be a late one. You would think 2fm rota drawer would have expected that Doireann and Carl would need at least an extra hour to recover, if not the whole morning off, but no they were supposed to be on air at 6 this morning, and of course they didn't show up until some time after 7. (My factory shift started at 6:45 and Today fm is on low in the background on the floor so anyone familiar with that station will know how tired I am of hearing Madcon - Begging). Donnacha O'Callaghan was the only voice on air and "producer Grace" was in charge of the buttons. Car crash doesn't come close to describing it. Story time with Donnacha on his own was horrible and the 6:30 news and traffic was a disaster. The readers kept getting faded down and the music beds kept getting turned up before being stopped abruptly. Then after the headlines, the next sting didn't play and just as the dead air autoplay started to save them, on comes Donnacha trying to apologise and get something playing.

It was horrible to listen to and they would have known for months that this morning was coming. Even if Carl had been knocked out earlier on he'd still be turning up for the final with the rest of the contestants and attending the afters. Year and a half ago, Carl's wife went into labour while Doireann was away on holidays (again odd rota decision as they would have known the rough window as to when Carl would need to drop everything) Laura Fox steps in, show goes on. How did they not have Laura or Emma or Shannon on standby this morning?

And then as if to rub it in, Jen Z gets to take her later morning show off and Aifric O Connell is ready to fill in.

Whatever you might think of the presenters involved, that is some sh1tty way to treat Carl, Doireann and the breakfast show listeners.

RoTelly

@flazio I'd assume cynically that Doireann was given to show to bust the Breakfast audience, while Carl was in the final for the same reason. It is crazy to think that Donnachca has learnt nothing, how long has he been with 2fm?

flazio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120380187#Comment_120380187

Presume you mean boost. I reckon she was all they could find and they saw how well the Tess Daly/Claudia Winkleman pairing was working over in the UK. I've never watched either version of the show myself. What's supposed to just be a bit of dancing craic can get nasty as time goes on.

As for Dunners, I'm convinced he was drafted in for all those sponsored roadcaster outings to be the selfie magnet for the crowds while Doireann and Carl get on with the radio show, of course that's never materialised and who knows why he's still around but, he's harmless enough, I can take him or leave him.

Lord Nelson

Must be about time they had another name change in the hope of breathing some more oxygen into the station. Been on life support for years, if it were a dog it would have been euthanised a long time ago.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120381512#Comment_120381512

Was never really sure why when RTÉ went on their corp branding exercise back in 2003/2004 RTÉ 2fm didn't revert to RTÉ Radio 2.

its_steve116

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120384818#Comment_120384818

They went back to all capitals (2FM) in 2016 though.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120384818#Comment_120384818

Because they still cosidered 2fm to be a very strong brand at the time whereas all the "N2" era stuff on the television channel had faded away by 2004. Nowadays in this app and smartspeaker age, it's a wonder that some brightspark hasn't changed the name to "RTE 2 Music" or "RTE #2"