Talk spots on music radio stations

Andy From Sligo

Just wondering why music stations in Ireland have to do talk spots like Matt Cooper the Last word. I class TodayFM as a music station but why do they insist on putting on his show at 4.30pm each weekday why dont they carry on playing music and move him onto Newstalk Radio instead. What am I missing here , what is he on doing his slot at 4.30 on TodayFM every day and not on a talk radio station and TodayFM just carry on playing music.

Is it a very popular show in Ireland? - I turn over when it comes on - boring!

Glaceon

You can thank the BAI for that one. There's a mandatory requirement for 20% news and current affairs content in the licence. Although in Today FM's specific case, there might be some legacy Radio Ireland issues there; that was more like RTE Radio 1 but flopped badly.

Ger Roe

As Glaceon has explained, it is a requirement of the Broadcasting Act, and was introduced by Minister Ray Burke in 1988, to ensure that 'news and current affairs' were given what he determined as adequate coverage to endure that politicians had ample opportunities to have their say on air. The fear was that the new legal stations would prefer to operate like their pirate predecessors, simply playing the music that their audience wanted to hear, with minimum talk and waffle (clutter free)..... there was no way the powers that be were going to allow that to happen again.

While there have been some additional derogation granted for 'muisc driven, youth and niche services', there is less scope for stations like Today FM.

From BAI document 'Licensing Regulatory Measures'.

"In the case of national and local broad-format radio services on the FM band, the BAI permits derogation between the hours of 1am and 7am. The Authority does not propose that any additional derogation from the statutory requirement will be granted to such services; "

This means that Today FM is graciously allowed to drop the waffle from 1am to 7am and just churn out the hits .... for the massive audience that might (not) be listening at that time, but outside of those hours it must provide 20% news and current content, of which 120 minutes must be broadcast between 7am and 7pm. That's why most stations do the same talk coverage, at the same time.... there is very little scope to do anything different if you are trying to meet the requirement, without alienating your audience that largely only wants to hear music.

It has always been an issue for stations, even more so in these days where the modern audience now has a myriad of broadcast and online sources to go to for news and talk, if they so choose. That's if they are even listening to radio these days, in the first place.

turbocab

But the BAI turn a blind eye to other requirements.Example a stat..ion in dublin that got a counrty music license .Withuuin a very short time it dropped the country format for which it got its license and went easy listening. Still broadcasting to this day.Then we have another quasi national station that got a license for AM,with some fm filler in txs.The AM signal was off more than it was on,they really wanted to be only on FM.THEY are now on FM only not complying with there license either.

radiotrickster

Just because the BAI have turned a blind eye to other stations license requirements doesn’t mean stations would necessarily want to chance their arm and see what they can get away with.

It would also be much easier to implement a gradual change of country music to easy listening music than to go from having Matt Cooper on weekdays to scrapping him for a music show.

Tork

Today FM used to have more serious programming at the weekends as well. I can't remember if they had anything on Saturdays but they definitely did on Sunday mornings. I remember the Sunday Business Show, followed by Sam Smyth's current affairs program. Both of those have long since vanished from the schedule and there was probably a blind eye turned there. Removing Matt Cooper's program would be a step too far and there's probably an understanding that it should stay where it is to fulfil the BAI obligation. It also gets pretty solid ratings so I guess everyone's happy.

irs

They used to have Premier League Live on Saturdays and there was a GAA programme on Sunday mornings in the summer. Also the "best" of The Last Word was on Saturday mornings. A lot of these weren't necessary once Newstalk became established nationally.

Andy From Sligo

yeah, Newstalk is there ... a dedicated station to Talk, owned by the same group as TodayFM I believe. seeing as there are a handful of nationwide stations across Ireland personally i would like to see talk shows moved to newstalk where they belong and other FM stations play music with a tiny bit of chat if they really have to

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120106521#Comment_120106521

Is it fair that sunshine 106.8 have a derogation from the 20% rule now that their jnlrs are so good? Indeed one could say their ratings are so good now because there's nothing remotely special interest in their output