Jim Carroll (Irish Times) vs John Clarke (2fm head)

MemEmee

Jim Carroll wrote this is his blog. But it's the comment at the bottom that's most amazing and bizarre.

http://www.ireland.com/blogs/ontherecord/

Livin’ the life, lovin’ the (non-Irish) music
Filed under: Media — Jim Carroll @ 9:52 am

You are an Irish radio station called 2FM. Better still, you are an Irish radio station called 2FM with a public broadcasting remit. OK, you do your best to forget about the public broadcasting remit because it’s a bit of a drag, but annoying feckers keep bringing it up. Public broadcasting remit means you have certain obligations to your public. They are the ones paying some of your bills when they buy a TV licence every year. You need to make nice with them.

Anyway, you are an Irish radio station called 2FM and it is time for you to do a big TV advertising campaign to highlight the fact that you are fresh, groovy, relevant and all the rest of it. You pay a copywriter or a work experience kid to come up with a terrible slogan (“livin’ the life, lovin’ the music” - they don’t like the letter G for some reason in 2FM). It then takes two attempts to get the ad right (the first one looked as cheap as chips so you went off and spent some more euros on animation). The ad is broadcast. You sit back and wait for the JNLR figures to reflect the success of the campaign.

But the one thing you didnt get right was the music, the song to go with the ad. You’d think a radio station would get this right, wouldn’t you? But, no.

Remember the first paragraph? Irish radio station? Public broadcasting remit? So why the hell is the generic and bland tune soundtracking this huge advertising campaign by the Irish national pop station by a UK-based band called Vega4? Do we not have enough generic and bland bands of our own?

Imagine what such exposure would have done to any number of Irish bands. Imagine how 2FM could have said “hey bitches, we don’t just live the life and love the music but we LOVE Irish music. We rock! We rule! Yahoo!” Imagine how we could have spent the five minutes spent on this blog post on something else.

You’ve gotta love 2FM. Well, someone has to.



Comments »


1 So much for the caustic pen of the paper of record.
FYI. Vega 4 are as Irish as U2.Vega4 is four individuals with wildly different backgrounds. They are Irishmen Johnny McDaid (Vocals, Guitar) and Gavin Fox (Bass), Canadian Bryan McLellan (drums) and New Zealander Bruce Gainsford (guitar). It’s only May 07,So Im sure I can expect 2 more negative ‘OFF THE RECORD/DISCOTEQUE’ pieces in keeping with the annaul 4 ‘PUT DOWNS’ we have come to expect from the Paper of Record. Thanks for the mentions. with love Rafael Benitez
Comment by john clarke | May 16, 2007 at 2:18 pm



2 john - thanks for the clarification. as you point out, they are 50 per cent irish, though their Myspace site and biog lists them as a “UK band”.

however, I (and probably everyone else) am puzzled by the following comment:

“it’s only May 07,So Im sure I can expect 2 more negative ‘OFF THE RECORD/DISCOTEQUE’ pieces in keeping with the annaul 4 ‘PUT DOWNS’ we have come to expect from the Paper of Record”

I think it might be only fair for you to elaborate on this and especially the “annaul 4 ‘PUT DOWNS’ we have come to expect” remark. I mean, is there someone counting something (besides the JNLR people)?

Over to you John…..
Comment by Jim Carroll | May 16, 2007 at 2:32 pm


3 Excuse my ignore, but who is John Clarke?
Comment by EJ | May 16, 2007 at 4:23 pm

_feedback_

Think it's a bit too bizarre MemEmee.... Really don't think that could really be john clarke.

MemEmee

Well Jim Carroll seems to think it is. So much so that he posted a response. I assume he saw the email address of the person who posted, or else checked it out.

Isn't 2fm a bizarre station!

catch--22

Are U2 only half irish now then?

2Fm have always disapointed me TBH. I really can't understand why people like Gerry Ryan are still employed there!

monkeyfudge

I'm pretty sure that 2fm is fully funded by commercial revenue and the license fee doesn't pay for any of it.

catch--22

monkeyfudge wrote:

I'm pretty sure that 2fm is fully funded by commercial revenue and the license fee doesn't pay for any of it.

I think that they do take some of the licence fee...but not much of it!

monkeyfudge

They don't get any of it. Neither do Aertel, RTÉ Guide or www.rte.ie

catch--22

monkeyfudge wrote:

They don't get any of it. Neither do Aertel, RTÉ Guide or www.rte.ie

Ahh! Thanks for that! I wonder where radio 1 spend all the money. I would have expected them to bring in much more in advertising than 2fm!

crybaby

2FM has a lot of problems as a radio station but I really think that the music they pick for their advertising campaign is fairly low on the agenda

mike65

catch--22 wrote:

Are U2 only half irish now then?

They were always 50% Irish - Adam and The (H)edge are English and Welsh born.

Mike.

Radio Mad.

monkeyfudge wrote:

They don't get any of it. Neither do Aertel, RTÉ Guide or www.rte.ie

It should be remembered, though, that RTE Radio 1 news reports (public service material paid for through the tv licence fee) are used on RTE 2FM. That to me constitutes use of the licence fee to fund part of 2FMs output

grumpytrousers

ach - it's 'use of the license' in the loosest sense of the word; if 2fm didn't take jim fahy talking rubbish for their bulletin, the cost to the RTE network of getting him there and to report would still be the same, and as far as the license payer goes, there's no additional cost to them of the same bit of tape/mp3 being used by the sister station.

furthermore, IF 2fm were to send their own mini jim fahy out into 'the field' to do reportage, then that would cost them money and they'd have to pay for that, which would up their operating costs and force them THEN to probably have to stick the RTE authority for, um, license fee funding...

perversely, the piggy backing sorta works out...

tomorrow, i shall be
a) attempting to prove that black is white
b) mostly avoiding zebra crossings...

Slicklink

At least the common myth about 2fm being tied to the licence fee has been rectified here. Pity Jim Carroll couldnt get that simple bit of research right in his rant about 2fm QUOTE “They are the ones paying some of your bills when they buy a TV licence every year” .

2fm is actually profitable without licence fee monies which is just as well as the statutory set up means they couldnt receive any sheckels from the licence fee anyhow. When it comes down to sharing resources such as a report from sister station then we really might as well be saying that use of the radio canteen by 2fm Djs and Radio 1 presenters is not on! This does not constitute any significant investment from the licence fee for fecks sake.

Anyway back to the article I thought it was a bit nit picking by Jim Carroll that a 100% Irish Band wasn’t used as backing for the advert. Does it really matter how many in the band are Irish or that it is an Irish band at all ? I think the point of the advert was meant to sum up the 2fm sound ?

I think there might be some confusion from the writer of the article vis a vis what the output of 2fm is and that of the output of the station on which he presents his own programme. two completely different formats.

windowcleaner

i think the real issue with this blog post is that the Head of 2FM attacked a journalist over his paranoid beliefs that there was an agenda from The Irish Times against him. Its interesting that as that blog post went on, more and more people started commenting on 2FM's output and Clarke without Clarke ever coming back to defend himself, leaving it to Mark McCabe to give the 2FM story.

John Clarke has been a disaster at 2FM and it is time he was sacked.

grumpytrousers

windowcleaner wrote:

John Clarke has been a disaster at 2FM and it is time he was sacked.

if only for that shocking show he does on a sunday morning, i'd agree with you...christ how much sappy seventies over produced strings laden Philly crud can one man play. Irelands biggest jukebox? Perhaps. If you're in Ireland biggest gay-bar