Vintage 2FM Discussion Thread

It was class back in the 90's to see this thing rocking in to town! I remember my ma picking me up early from school to go see Larry Gogan open a local supermarket!!

The "2fm is mine" tagline…I had a hand me down desk-bed type thing that we picked up off distant relations, it was covered in those stickers, red 2fm heart logo on a lime green background.

Here's an interesting schedule from November 1992.

Seems there was an interim period on 2FM Saturday nights where there was no Dance Show.

I always thought Mickey Mac took directly over from Simon Young, without any break of the show. Mickey started his dance show in spring 1993.

Those 1am to 7am overnights were some shift - 6 hours of live radio for a presenter !!

I think Tony was filling in for John Kenny on the saturday hotline here, of course Tony had the long running weeknight hotline too. A good few of the big weekday presenters also had a weekend show - Gareth, Ian and Larry (Larry always did the charts at the weekend).

Aidan Leonard would have been with the station around 5 months at this stage, taking over from Lorcan Murray's weekend nights. Suzanne Duffy was also a new name on the schedule (both were Century Radio - though were they casualties of the closure? ).

I don't remember that Sunday morning "Local Radio" show with Mickey Mac?? Not sure why he wasn't presenting his long running afternoon oldies show around this time, maybe he had finished it at that stage?? but seems Peter Collins and Simon Young were in that slot - both would have finished up their 2 years on The Beatbox with Ian taking over in Sept 1992.

Was Aidan with 2FM before he joined permanently in Early - Mid 1992 ?? I believe this may have been discussed here before....

I think Suzanne Duffy started on RTE tv (Network 2) in the latter years of her time on 2FM, around 1997, not beforehand.

But yes Aidan and Suzanne were 1992 recruits to 2FM (open to correction on suzanne but not before late 1991)

Very interesting reading from the RTE Guide from 40 years ago. I could not help notice while reading the Radio 1 Programme Schedule as well as the Radio 2 Programme schedule and the notes in regards the radio frequencies that RTE Radio 1 was being broadcast on. RTE had 2 national VHF (FM) networks for RTE Radio and Raidio Na Gaeltachta. In the west of Ireland the frequencies were 94.1 and 97.0. When Radio 2 launched it had the 94.1 frequency and what became Radio 1 and Raidio Na Gaeltachta shared the other network, 97.0 from Maghera. I remember RTE advertising that they had launched a third VHF (FM) network around 1984. Mullaghanish and Maghera must have been the first of the main transmitters to gain the third VHF (FM) network. When launched from Maghera, RTE Radio 1 was and is 88.8, RTE Radio 2 was and is 91.0 and Raidio Na Gaeltachta was and is 93.2. Radio 1 did not need to share VHF(FM) in the South West and West of Ireland so in the Programme signpost when Raidio Na Gaeltachta came on air at 11am and at 5pm, Radio 1 was available on VHF (FM) from Mullaghanish and Maghera only and on Medium Wave nationally until the Third VHF (FM) network was rolled out. Does anyone remember or have information about the rollout of the third VHF (FM) network in Ireland. The Fifth VHF (FM) network was launched on May 1st 1999 with the launch of Lyric FM, the fourth VHF (FM) network by Radio Ireland (Today FM) on March 17th 1997. Century Radio was rolling out a national VHF (FM) network from September 4th 1989 until it closed on November 19th 1991, 33 years ago.

I see Micky Mac featured on the showbands documentry on RTE1 TV on wed night. I had not seen him on TV (the beat box / 2TV) probably since his dance music era in mid to late 90s.

He still sounds exactly the same. hard to believe he's around 73.

I would estimate him to be 73/74.

He was one of the regional presenters (Limerick) on Val Joyce's Ireland's Call at the weekends on the first schedule of Radio 2. He got his own show by around 1980.

Conor would be 45, like I mentioned above Micky is a year or 2 shy of 75.

One of the 2FM studios 2004

The Pepsi chart show to find out the movers and shakers, then put the radio speakers behind the couch and crank up the telly for the beat box in "surround sound". Happy days!

And here is the Hotline Hitlist for 9 April 1991, so these are the songs you might have heard-

I've no recollection of the Hotline ever being on Sunday nights.

Back in these times, there was a good bit of weekday presenters also doing weekend shows, or vice-vearsa - so it was common to hear presenters on 6 or 7 days each week. John Kenny and Mike Moloney were regulars on the 6 hour overnights back then. And for our younger readers, these were all live shows !

The exception to this was Gerry ryan - once he started his mon to fri talk show in mid 1988 he was never on a weekend schedule or filling in for other presenters. Indeed Gerry never even done a voiceover or an ad ! His RTE contract must have been very tight !

in 1992/1993, when Ian was at the peak of the breakfast show, he also presented a Sunday late afternoon oldies show when the Beat Box was off-air during the summer.

Surprisingly the great giveaway show was one of the longest running shows on 2FM, it ran on saturday mornings for around 10 years from 1990 and was mostly presented by Suzanne Duffy. Other presenters included Gareth O'Callaghan, Ian Dempsey, Ruth Scott and Ray D'Arcy for a few weeks too.

Yes the Goon show ran for a few years on 2FM sunday afternoons, I would say some senior producers at 2FM like bill o'donovan, kevin hough or cathal mccabe were fans and thought it was a good idea. Other comedy programmes on around this time were Scrap saturday and Jimmy's half hour (Simon Young) - I think the Jimmy show replaced the Goon show.

I've never seen this before. Or rather, I've no recollection of ever seeing it. It looks like something that would have been played a lot in schools, but I don't recall seeing it. That said, I was 10 in April 1991, so perhaps it was just for secondary schools. It's very high on the cringe meter, and even higher on the hypocrisy meter - Gerry certainly didn't practice what he preached (or rapped.)

According to the Irish chart archive (a site that badly needs an update), this entered the chart on 7 March and stayed just two weeks, peaking at number 15. It calls the song Say No to Drugs and credits it to Amanda Lawlor and Gerry Ryan.

Despite having MTV Europe at home in 1991, so many songs on the Hitlist are unknown to me, like song A This is Your Life by Banderas. A bit of digging reveals they were a British female duo, former backing singers for The Communards who went out on their own. This is Your Life reached number 16 in the UK but never entered the top 40 here. According to the UK chart archive, song J Family of Man by The Farm charted over there in May 1990, so not quite sure how an 11-month-old song made the Hitlist.

I remember the big hits, like Chesney Hawkes (unfortunately) and The Simpsons. I checked out that Banderas song, it was well worth a listen.

I've only heard the Banderas song a few times, but I do like it. I was born in 1994, by the way.

so many names on this schedule from April 1988, a few superpirate presenters pop up.

Looks like Paul Clark returned to do regional requests slot on sunday's Maxi & Co show - Paul was part of the original Radio 2 schedule and he went on to take over from Vincent Hanley mid mornings when Vincent left Radio 2 for Capital in 1981. Paul departed the station a few years later.

This is the first few weeks of Gerry Ryan's talk show 9am to 12noon which ran consistently until his passing 22 years later.

Note how the show does not mention "The Ryanline" phone number as the show initially was just settling in and it was mostly music, features and the odd caller.