New BBC Radio1 website

mickd

Was having a browse through this. Now this is a station that knows its target audience

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/

compare and contrast to this

http://www.rte.ie/2fm/

Mossy Monk

both are good enough imo

DMC

Actually, I preferred the old look of the BBC Radio 1 site. I notice the term "chart" is missing from before.

Wertz

DMC wrote:

Actually, I preferred the old look of the BBC Radio 1 site. I notice the term "chart" is missing from before.

I have to concur...the more minimalist approach does nothing for me and has semingly less info than the old site...I've also noticed that pages are less frequently updated and that certain practices like live updates of a show's playlist have fallen by the wayside (perhaps temporarily)...

This on top of a (IMO) pointless reshuffle of the schedule and the adoption of this "In new music we trust" malarkey is a little offputting...I mean R1 has always ben about new music, and some of the weeknight shows seem to be less adventurous than the bigger slots they've replaced.
A certain air of dumbing down pervades...still a mile ahead of anything else on the airwaves, even on global terms (and certainly on local ones), though....and I'm sure some of the new stuff will grow on me...


[edit]
However the juxtaposition of the 2FM site to the R1 site is almost laughable given that the target demographic are apparently of the same ages...

superdudeman007

2fm has been doomed for years - look at the number of DJs that were there when they opened "Radio 2" that are still there now - Larry Gogan, Marty Whelan, Dave Fanning (Until last month), Gerry Ryan. And there's that Avril Hoare show. This is meant to be the national youth station but the busiest parts of the schedule are filled up with the kind of DJs our grandparents listened to!

2fm is meant to be a popular music station aimed at young people, so why is Marty Whelan doing the breakfast show??? He's neither popular nor music nor young!

I arrive home at 7/8 and Avril Hoare is on with her news thing. Why???!!!

Weekends - I'd be lucky to hear one new song in an hour.

And what's with the TV ad??? "Livin the life - Lovin the music" - Sounds like something from at least ten years ago (Oh no - I've been hit by some empty boxes!!!)

J.R.HARTLEY

superdudeman007 wrote:

This is meant to be the national youth station but the busiest parts of the schedule are filled up with the kind of DJs our grandparents listened to!

the sad thing is that while your right, you forgot to mention that our Youth station would have no listeners without them, which is the whole irony of the sad sorry story

Mossy Monk

superdudeman007 wrote:

Weekends - I'd be lucky to hear one new song in an hour.

perhaps for good reason. there may be a load of bollocks being released at the moment that no one wants to hear

this thing you have against older presenters, what is that about? they entertain people. that's what they are supposed to do. just because you don't like them doesn't mean no one else does either. why not change the channel to something else. look at that, i solved your problem

superdudeman007

But how many students choose 2fm over spin/fm104/ballinabackarseofnowhere fm???

Tune in 2fm for about an hour on a Sunday. Then tune in to BBC Radio 1 (you can get it online or if you remove the card from a sky box its channel 0101). No comparison between the two "Youth stations".

Also, Radio 1 have loads of crap like Ronan Collins, John Creedon and "RATTLEBAG" on air at the same time as 2fm's older DJs. Why??? They're more or less the same thing.

Mossy Monk

2FM isnt a students radio station

Wertz

Perhaps superdudeman007 would have been better off using the term "youth" rather than "student"....and in that respect he's right....2fm is far too middle of the road commercial pop/chat to be considered youth in the eyes of that youth, of which students make up a sizable proportion.

I think if you asked anyone at RTÉ what 2FM was, they'd tell you it was youth oriented programming...that may well have been true when they launched but has been becoming less and less true over the passing years.

mickd

I remember 20 years ago when the pirates were being closed down by the government. This was at the request of RTE beacuse 2fm was losing revenue and audience big time. Despite the fact that this country has changed considerably since then some things have remained the same.

superdudeman007

Mossy Monk wrote:

2FM isnt a students radio station

It's hardly intended as a pensioners' station either yet Marty Whelan and Gerry Ryan have been there since day 1. It's meant to be Ireland's answer to BBC R1. How many times do I have to type the same point - "Livin the Life - Lovin the Music" just doesn't cut it! Especially when Avril Hoare, Gerry Ryan and those sports shows dont have any music !

mickd wrote:

I remember 20 years ago when the pirates were being closed down by the government.

That's exactly why 2fm was set up - so there would be a youth station tht wouldn't be shut down!! OK, I'll call it a popular station. But it can only boast being the country's favourite because it's one of four stations that everyone in the country is guaranteed to get - 2fm may be crap but Radio 1 and Lyric are hardly stiff competition, let alone RnaG. Most people can get Today FM but it should just decide what kind of station it is and stick with it.

superdudeman007

Oh yeah, forgot newstalk. But it's really only a clone of Radio 1 with catchier jingles and no Ronan Collins.

DMC

2fm has always had this issue with being too old or too mixed up.

I remember the early days when all music programmes were moved effectively from Radio 1 to the then Radio 2. "Toss the feathers" with Marian Richardson (now series producer of Today with Pat Kenny and ex-Bosco) and "Keep it country" with (Senator) Pascal Mooney come to mind.
The pirates grew from strength to strength because RTÉ made decisions like this.

2fm needs a shake-up, everyone understands that.
But I've always said... 2fm will not change unless Gerry Ryan is moved out somewhere else. It will take the testicular fortitude for someone in RTÉ (or ideally, from outside) to move Gerry Ryan, but you simply can't leave a 18-35 aimed radio station static for 20 years or more. You need to get someone with a clear vision, and a good sweeping arm, and let them have a free reign.
Sadly this won't happen so long as the JNLR's show us that Gerry Ryan still gets listeners, but it doesn't breakdown as to what age groups listen. I suspect that his audience is getting old with him.

Someone in RTÉ will have to go down that Road to Damascus some day soon.

superdudeman007

Wasn't there also talk about an all day Irish language popular music station a while back?

Why don't they base 2fm on BBC Radio 2 (ie keep Gerry, Marty, Dave, Avril and the rest), put Ronan Collins, John Creedon and all the other musical crap from Radio One on 2fm and just open a new bilingual youth station (As always, hello to the RTE Sales people monitoring Boards. I'll know if you steal my idea).

Then we'd have:
Radio 1 All talk, news, sport, current affairs
2fm/Radio 2/Whatever Marty, Gerry, Avril, Dave, All the music shows from Radio 1
Lyric and RnaG Mostly the same but with Anocht FM dropped from RnaG

And a proper youth station:

Radio 3/<Catchy name here> All the good DJs from 2fm, less RTE Branding, less news/talk, Chart Show, Chris Moyles Style Breakfast Show, Anocht FM's shows from RnaG, etc.

Maybe the idea of shows in Irish seems like it would be unpopular, but 99% of the songs played on Anocht FM (Night time RnaG) are in English anyway. If you turn on RnaG on a Saturday night and ignore the DJs and hourly 2 minute news breaks, it's almost the same as 2fm.

DMC

Aha, with your brilliant master plan, you have forgotten one little piece..

Find space on the FM band for another national network.

Wertz

Surely an impetus to begin DAB....although that's putting the cart before the horse in the sense that RTÉ will never launch another station....I'm afraifd our fate lies with visionary commercial entities...and since TodayFM is the shark in the fish pond in that regard, it's even less likely to happen than DAB...

superdudeman007

DMC wrote:

Aha, with your brilliant master plan, you have forgotten one little piece..

Find space on the FM band for another national network.

Well it's not like we'd miss 2fm or anything...

DMC

But you advocate its place on the band.... good logic there..:rolleyes:

superdudeman007