RTE Radio 1 on 252!

former legend

Mr. Rabbit wrote: »

Not everyone has the internet, or satellite TV/Radio.

It's available on Saorview.

munchkin_utd

Mr. Rabbit wrote: »

I wonder if there will be an outcry from listeners in the North who cannot receive RTE Radio One on any other frequency other than Long Wave ?<snip>

what happened to the plan to have it broadcast along the TV channels on the mini mux ?

According to the DCMS in a letter dated 11/10/11, the mini mux will carry RTÉ1, RTÉ2 & TG4 with the possible addition of RTÉ radio services later.

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1555478
and UK government statement :
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/78558/Letter_PRabbitte-EVaizey_11OCT2011.pdf

Radio na Gaeltachta is already broadcast on the MiniMux by the way, so possibly the "addition of radio services" has already taken place ??
http://www.ukfree.tv/txdetail.php?a=IH350527

Mr. Rabbit

former legend wrote: »

It's available on Saorview.

Yes, but there is no reception of Saorview in much of east and South Belfast, and in east and north Antrim where there are strong nationalist communities.

AwaitYourReply

former legend wrote: »

It's available on Saorview.

The services have been broadcast on the Irish DTT services on Saorview Channel 201 which is fine but you are restricted to staying in the same room as your TV Set at home! Some people need to realise that there are people in various parts of Ireland (usually rural areas) that have difficulty hearing the channel because the FM and DAB signals are either unavailable or very unreliable and I am not talking about one or two remote areas - when I say rural areas the FM signal can drop in/out so much so that it becomes virtually impossible to follow even along main primary roads such as Cork City to Limerick City. You will probably find that the Broadband Internet and Mobile Phone signal strengths are also an issue in these same areas, I suspect. LW/MW signals often get through where FM cuts out so this is cutting off a vital service for some listeners.

DAB (or Digital Audio Broadcasts) was only rolled out to some in certain urban regions of Ireland (i.e.) Dublin and the North-East, Cork City & Limerick City and that's it. It is not possible to receive DAB in other large urban areas such as: Galway City, Waterford City, Kilkenny, Sligo, Athlone and so on

Are we all seriously suggesting that if we can get it on a TV set thru Saorview/UPC/Sky Digital/Online that it is satisfactory replacement. It's the national station and should be possible to hear on the move as it has always been - most of the listeners you are alienating are not from the Internet/Mobile generation if they want to hear these services while on the road as people often do at the weekend.

Our Senior Citizens especially in parts of rural Ireland will be most affected particularly if they used the service on the move. Now they must turn on TV set and stay there to hear the current LW 252kHz feed which was much more user-friendly for both senior citizens and those who regularly travel up and down the country's roads. This change will also result in some commuters and/or drivers on certain routes from often losing the RTÉ Radio One FM signal for parts of their journey. Up to now they had the ability to re-tune to LW 252kHz and before this they would have re-tuned to MW 567+729 kHz. This option will now end for these people. Unfortunately the broadcast feeds on Saorview/UPC/Sky/Internet/Mobile may not be feasible or always an option in certain parts for those listeners who especially like to hear their favourite radio programmes whilst on the go.

Mr. Rabbit

with the possible addition of RTÉ radio services later.

R NaG is already on the NI mux. There may be space for at least one more radio station, I would imagine. This would at least partially solve the problem with reception in parts of greater Belfast.

They probably could find space on all Freeview transmitters as well.

The NI local DAB mux carrying Radio One, Radio Two, R.NaG, and Lyric FM in DAB+ surely would be feasible ?

and what about Clermont Cairn ? Digital Radio services are completely unreceivable at this location yet, Saorview and analogue radio are perfect (apart from Lyric FM due to Carnmoney Hill).

DAB from CC seems to be in a similar situation to Saorview pre ASO. Maybe they could improve reception for Northern listeners in this respect ?

Mr. Rabbit

Our Senior Citizens especially in parts of rural Ireland will be most
affected particularly if they used the service on the move.

Many elderly people don't have either the internet or satellite TV and still listen to AM radio.

former legend

At the end of the day, it's public money being used to fund a service that only has a handful of listeners, the vast majority of whom will be able to access the service in an alternative way. That's not a good use of RTE resources and it's a no-brainer in the end. The same arguments arose during the digital TV switchover when a lot more people were affected and the sky didn't fall in.

AwaitYourReply

former legend wrote: »

It's available on Saorview.

former legend wrote: »

At the end of the day, it's public money being used to fund a service that only has a handful of listeners, the vast majority of whom will be able to access the service in an alternative way. That's not a good use of RTE resources and it's a no-brainer in the end. The same arguments arose during the digital TV switchover when a lot more people were affected and the sky didn't fall in.

Actually the sky did fall in because only around 2% of the population were unable to receive SaorView (Irish DTT service) in the usual way so; this was the only reason why RTÉ was forced to set up SaorSat separately - while it was also only a very small minority in this situation as well at the time but RTÉ thru RTENL (now renamed 2rn) had to facilitate this cohort of the population. RTÉ could not say to them - well it is not cost effective for us to provide 100% of the population with full reception coverage so buy your own Sky Digital TV subscription and you will then have access to the RTÉ One, RTÉ Two, TV3, TG4 etc; services via satellite dish feeds. There was a precedent set down here in my view.

SPDUB

Well RTE have their campaign to shut down 252 underway as this morning they overrode the start of Morning Ireland to broadcast a shutdown message .

former legend

AwaitYourReply wrote: »

Actually the sky did fall in because only around 2% of the population were unable to receive SaorView (Irish DTT service) in the usual way so; this was the only reason why RTÉ was forced to set up SaorSat separately - while it was also only a very small minority in this situation as well at the time but RTÉ thru RTENL (now renamed 2rn) had to facilitate this cohort of the population. RTÉ could not say to them - well it is not cost effective for us to provide 100% of the population with full reception coverage so buy your own Sky Digital TV subscription and you will then have access to the RTÉ One, RTÉ Two, TV3, TG4 etc; services via satellite dish feeds. There was a precedent set down here in my view.

Not really a precedent; you can't really compare TV to Radio 1 LW, so while they may have had to put in place a fall-back for TV, there just isn't the same need to do so for the LW service.

AwaitYourReply

SPDUB wrote: »

Well RTE have their campaign to shut down 252 underway as this morning they overrode the start of Morning Ireland to broadcast a shutdown message .

This is no surprise. They are hellbent on doing this - How to irritate your audience and alienate certain loyal cohorts who tuned-in. The difference these days is that RTÉ are no longer the only legally approved show in town in Irish Radio or TV or competition from multi-channel land at home and abroad.

Independent and/or Local Community Radio broadcasters may decide to fill the void as many local radio stations can dedicate generous periods reading out local death notices. They can hear it with ease loud and clear on FM in their local rural regions often unlike RTÉ on FM at present. They can also hear it in the car while on the move. It comes as no surprise that Local Independent Radio is alive and strong in this country all these years after it took over after the pirates were shut down. RTÉ can be too Dublin4 orientated at times and needs to remember it is the national broadcaster for all the people.

AwaitYourReply

former legend wrote: »

Not really a precedent; you can't really compare TV to Radio 1 LW, so while they may have had to put in place a fall-back for TV, there just isn't the same need to do so for the LW service.

When you consider the complex special arrangements they had to put in place for the SaorSat digital satellite service for just 2% of the population when the service was already available via an Irish Sky Digital subscription package, i definitely think it was a very clear precedent being put down. It must not have been a cheap fix either I imagine. They were switching off analogue terrestrial in favour of digital terrestrial for TV.

In the current situation they are switching off programmes currently carried in analogue format on the national radio channel and telling them to tune-in to digital but it is not available for this cohort of people unless they subscribe to UPC/SKY or have Broadband Internet and are computer savy or they can tune in on Saorview but will be restricted to staying in same room with TV set on! It is messy and complicated for senior citizens.

There are better ways to carry this service in my view even when they switch off LW. They seem to be doing their best to downgrade this line of programming for years given the way they shifted the same programming yet again rather than re-arranging some of the other small niche minority radio services operated by RTÉ on FM. Services like RnaG, lyric fm need to be examined a bit more closely in terms of the length of hours broadcast on FM each day. How cost effective are they versus their audience numbers hour by hour?

former legend

AwaitYourReply wrote: »

When you consider the complex special arrangements they had to put in place for the SaorSat digital satellite service for just 2% of the population when the service was already available via an Irish Sky Digital subscription package, i definitely think it was a very clear precedent being put down. It must not have been a cheap fix either I imagine. They were switching off analogue terrestrial in favour of digital terrestrial for TV.

In the current situation they are switching off programmes currently carried in analogue format on the national radio channel and telling them to tune-in to digital but it is not available for this cohort of people unless they subscribe to UPC/SKY or have Broadband Internet and are computer savy or they can tune in on Saorview but will be restricted to staying in same room with TV set on! It is messy and complicated for senior citizens.

There are better ways to carry this service in my view even when they switch off LW. They seem to be doing their best to downgrade this line of programming for years given the way they shifted the same programming yet again rather than re-arranging some of the other small niche minority radio services operated by RTÉ on FM. Services like RnaG, lyric fm need to be examined a bit more closely in terms of the length of hours broadcast on FM each day. How cost effective are they versus their audience numbers hour by hour?

What line of programming? What exactly would people miss if it went off the air? (apart from mass)

AwaitYourReply

former legend wrote: »

What line of programming? What exactly would people miss if it went off the air? (apart from mass)

You can often find sports broadcast on there like Republic of Ireland live soccer matches especially when not covered live on Free-To-Air television, horse-racing, religious services and that's just off the top of my head.

You also find that there are some people that used rely on the service all the time as their FM was not an option. Sometimes the LW service used only differ to FM when the alternate programmes came on like the Sunday morning religious programmes or a match on mid-week.

I'm not sure if the feed will be identical to Radio One Extra feeds when LW 252kHz is switched off altogether. If this was to occur then these listeners without FM reception in certain areas could have great fun trying to hear any Radio One programmes as they normally go out live. I'm sticking up for our senior citizens who are not tech savy or great and internet/mobile and all this stuff. Also think of drivers/commuters who want Radio One and FM/DAB coverage is very erratic up/down country's roads. Saorview/Sky/UPC is not practical for them if they wanna listen on the move regularly.

Cork_chick_94

I don't agree that elderly people in rural republic of Ireland are dependent on LW, Sure the most popular radio stations in rural ireland for elderly people is the local radio staion (Midwest. Highland. Clare Fm etc) which have been FM only since they launched 25? years ago.

former legend

AwaitYourReply wrote: »

You can often find sports broadcast on there like Republic of Ireland live soccer matches especially when not covered live on Free-To-Air television, horse-racing, religious services and that's just off the top of my head.

You also find that there are some people that used rely on the service all the time as their FM was not an option. Sometimes the LW service used only differ to FM when the alternate programmes came on like the Sunday morning religious programmes or a match on mid-week.

I'm not sure if the feed will be identical to Radio One Extra feeds when LW 252kHz is switched off altogether. If this was to occur then these listeners without FM reception in certain areas could have great fun trying to hear any Radio One programmes as they normally go out live. I'm sticking up for our senior citizens who are not tech savy or great and internet/mobile and all this stuff. Also think of drivers/commuters who want Radio One and FM/DAB coverage is very erratic up/down country's roads. Saorview/Sky/UPC is not practical for them if they wanna listen on the move regularly.

The live soccer is always on 2fm now.

Whatever way you slice it, it's a service for a tiny number of people at a time when RTE is very hard up for cash. I'm surprised it's lasted as long as it has tbh.

end of the road

former legend wrote: »

At the end of the day, it's public money being used to fund a service that only has a handful of listeners, the vast majority of whom will be able to access the service in an alternative way. That's not a good use of RTE resources and it's a no-brainer in the end. The same arguments arose during the digital TV switchover when a lot more people were affected and the sky didn't fall in.

not those listening via LW who are most likely elderly or have issues with fm coverage. so its not a no brainer at all until coverage via other means is almost. and accessing the service is easy. its public money so its even more important to use it to make sure everybody has easy access and full reception of RTE services. doing so is good use of public money

Cork_chick_94

I heard a gombeen sounding country fella from RTE talking about this on RTE 1 the other day, he was talking as if LW was only launched as a fill in service for FM black spots in ireland. Well i remember when RTE launched this service, they were very much plugging the fact that it was for listeners in the uk and beyond.they used to make a big deal about it on all ireland final weekends at the start.

SPDUB

AwaitYourReply wrote: »

You also find that there are some people that used rely on the service all the time as their FM was not an option..

While not my only option the reason I heard the announcement this morning was because the LW signal is the only one which is steady because I move around a lot where I work and even a mono FM signal breaks up a lot

AwaitYourReply

Cork_chick_94 wrote: »

I don't agree that elderly people in rural republic of Ireland are dependent on LW, Sure the most popular radio stations in rural ireland for elderly people is the local radio staion (Midwest. Highland. Clare Fm etc) which have been FM only since they launched 25? years ago.

i appreciate that then Independent Radio Stations first licensed here in the Republic by the then IRTC were more or less all given spectrum on the FM wavelength (former national independent channel: Century Radio had both FM and 1143kHz MW) but my concern is not about LW listeners being re-directed to FM services. The current LW 252kHz service feed is going to be Digital Only.

I believe the only reason those had been listening to the LW 252kHz service were mainly the following reasons:

Unable to obtain satisfactory or reliable reception coverage on FM wave lengths
No FM reception at all in their local area
Irish expats located in Northern Ireland/Isle of Man/Great Britain/Channel Islands & Western Europe.
Those who wanted easy access to those services broadcast via LW 252kHz be they Senior Citizens who enjoyed programmes like Sunday Miscellany and so on which were shoved off FM in previous times.
Those who commute or drive regularly up/down parts of rural Ireland who want to hear RTÉ Radio One but were forced to tune-in via LW 252kHz because FM breaks down a lot in certain places. Such listeners were not necessarily interested in Sunday morning religious services or occasional sports but wanted Radio One via an alternative reliable method when FM broke down while they were on the move.

Cork_chick_94

http://www.rte.ie/archives/2014/0811/636376-radio-tara/

AwaitYourReply

Yes, I recall when Atlantic 252 was first launched as the pirate radio stations had all been forced to close down forever not long before this period. Radio Tara t/a Atlantic 252 on LW252kHz had some interesting DJ names: Dusty Rhodes, Sandy Beech, Robin Banks, Charlie Wolfe, Nails Mahoney Henry Owens. In fact Henry Owens was actually Henry Condon who had very strong Cork connections and this gent was behind the start-up and launch of Cork's RED fm 104-106mHz in 2001 which was around the time Atlantic 252 closed down and Charlie Wolfe was the original host of the live nightly talk show Cork Talks Back before Victor Barry replaced Wolfe. Henry Condon (aka Henry Owens) who headed up RED fm when it first launched around 2001 passed away some time last year if I am not mistaken.

September, 1989 was also when Ireland's very first national commercial independent station, Century Radio began broadcasting around 100mHz FM and also on 1143kHz Medium Wave. Marty Whelan jumped from RTÉ Radio 2FM to become Century Radio Breakfast Show host on weekdays and Terry Wogan also had a pre-recorded programme every Saturday morning on the same station in it's early days. Unfortunately the station was up against a strong RTÉ monopoly at the time and the station closed suddenly around November 1991. The next time Ireland had a national commercial independent station would be the launch of Radio Ireland around March 1997 and within 12-18months of launching it would be re-branded as TODAY FM which has been a great success despite a shaky start!

Mr. Rabbit

LW252kHz had some interesting DJ names

I'm sure I remember a DJ called Dickie Bird somewhere in there

Perhaps if RTE had stuck with 567 kHz they would have had far more listeners on AM.

To be honest, I couldn't quite figure out why they shut 567 kHz in favour of 252 kHz long wave. Many car radios don't have long wave now.

Mr. Rabbit

Century Radio began broadcasting around 100mHz FM and also on 1143kHz Medium
Wave.

That was always the problem with Century Radio, not just the competition from RTE. Did they ever have any other FM transmitters other than Three Rock ?

The joke was that if you parked the car halfway up a mountain somewhere you could just about receive a signal.

Mycroft H

Mr. Rabbit wrote: »

I'm sure I remember a DJ called Dickie Bird somewhere in there

Perhaps if RTE had stuck with 567 kHz they would have had far more listeners on AM.

To be honest, I couldn't quite figure out why they shut 567 kHz in favour of 252 kHz long wave. Many car radios don't have long wave now.

Long wave has a greater range.

It could be picked up in northern France at night. You'd lose medium wave on the ferry...

marno21

Mr. Rabbit wrote: »

That was always the problem with Century Radio, not just the competition from RTE. Did they ever have any other FM transmitters other than Three Rock ?

The joke was that if you parked the car halfway up a mountain somewhere you could just about receive a signal.

Weren't they on 98.4 from Maghera too?

Century were on FM in the larger cities alright but much of the country could only get it on MW.

Fuzzy Clam

Mr. Rabbit wrote: »

I'm sure I remember a DJ called Dickie Bird somewhere in there

i think it was Dickie Bow.

Fuzzy Clam

Karsini wrote: »

Century were on FM in the larger cities alright but much of the country could only get it on MW.

MW was only in Dublin I think. Maybe Cork too, not sure. Certainly not the rest of the country.
FM was just Dublin and Limerick (?).

Cork_chick_94

Why was Century radio called an national station if it was only in 3 counties ?