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

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 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.

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 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 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 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.

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 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 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!

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.

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

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: