What's the difference between FM104 & Spin1038 ?

No difference .Both chasing an audience that has long gone to the smartphone never to return.

JNLR would say otherwise

Spin has been gradually moving towards being like FM104 over years, adopting similar tag lines and programming.

Spin is very repetitive and this isn’t helped by the hourly push for the cash machine, which is often a 2 minute link at the top of the hour. They also play very long ad breaks, often 6 minutes long. This means in the second half of each hour had about 12 minutes of ads. This also means that the time from the ad beak before news and the end of the link for the cash machine is sometimes up to 12 minutes long. This is a long gap in music for a music station.

In my view this will catch up with them over time.

They l exceed 10 minutes per hour during the day. Maybe they have a derogation for this. It’s just 3 ad breaks split between 2.

maybe fm104 should do the same tbh

It would open them up to a serious reprimand from the regulator so I doubt it exceeded the 10 minute rule. Are you counting promos as ad minutes too?

Either way fm104 are way behind spin in the jnlr. It's a shadow of its former self.

Yes I’m including promos - so the total break is often 6 mins. For most people promos and ads are the same. It’s a very long break for a CHR station.

They aren’t way ahead from the most recent JNLR e.g weekly listeners:

Spin: 258k

FM104: 252k

I’m not trying to spin it; I don’t really mind either way tbh. You have selected spins main demographic rather than overall; of course they will be ahead and have been for many years for these. You could just as easily say FM104 is creaming spin in other age categories.

I think FM104 should consider moving to 2 ad breaks also for their more music drivers shows.

You are right but they have always focused on the 25-45 as it’s more lucrative.

Whatever happened to Dave Kelly and his departure from FM104? Did he leave voluntarily or was he pushed?

His exit seems to have sparked somewhat of an exodus of a number of long term on-air and production staff from FM104 with a very noticeable decline in the whole sound of the station.

Dave Kelly went on to be a programming consultant for Radio Nova and Classic Hits. Quite a few of his former work colleagues from FM104 are on those stations too.

These days, undoubtedly, there is not much difference during weekdays in the musical content between Spin1038 and FM104. Originally, FM104 (and its previous incarnations as Rock104 and Capital Radio) were aiming for the 20s-30s age bracket, and, when it arrived on the scene, Spin was aiming for the teenagers to early '20s market. Now they are overlapping considerably. It has to be said, though, that there are various overlaps between all the commercial stations serving the Dublin market.

What distinguishes the two stations now largely is their style of delivery.

I would disagree about the musical content not having much difference. It's mostly pop music on both but listen to both stations for an hour and they're worlds apart. Fm104 sounds duller and like less thought goes into it. There have been a couple of occasions where heard two songs with Ariana Grande in the space of an hour and both of them were years old so it wasn't because one was new.

Spin seem to focus on newer music so the station doesn't sound identical to this time last year but FM104 for the most part would as there's less changes to the playlist.

The imaging makes a big difference too though and Fm104s segueing almost always sounds rougher than anything that goes out on Spin. I would presume this is a presenter issue but its an issue for a lot of them.

It's been working for them for quite a while now. They're the number most listened to station as you pointed out already. You should compare are hour of each station and you'll see what you're saying about their music being 75-80% the same is nonsense. Fm104 is loose and stale.

That’s not correct as the format was quite/very different back then. I remember it well.

Also, the extra long ad breaks is a more recent development. It’s an unusual thing to defend. Past success doesn’t guarantee future success, particularly in a changing sector.

I’m not.

I think they should consider it for some shows, but with shorter ad breaks, not 6 minutes long like Spin.

No other station does it. I suspect it’s because it’s not such a good commercial proposition. Any station could do it if they wish but who wants 6 minute breaks in their programming.

Also, I’ve heard Steve K get through 10 songs in a row in 22 mins. A little over 2 mins per song.

It’s all a bit of a clever trick really. They certainly have made it work for them in fairness.