People Involved with Newstalk with a Pirate Past

Declan A Walsh

Listening to Alan Cantwell reading the news this evening reminded me that there are some on Newstalk who went through the pirate scene. If you are wondering, Alan was a presenter during the second of the 1980s on Dublin alternative-inclined pirate Capitol/Nitesky Radio. He used the name Dave Carney. He was more the Capitol side, i,e. slightly more mainstream thrown in the mix!

Others that come to mind:

John Duggan: 1990s Dublin pirate Coast FM which had a mix of AOR and alternative rock. I believe it was inspired somewhat by the aforementioned Capitol above. I think he may have turned up on its successor Spectrum.

Richie McCormack: he joined alternative rock pirate Phantom in the early '00s, which was itself a successor to Spectrum. Coast, Spectrum and Phantom were all operated by Simon Maher of 8Radio.Com fame.

Bernie Jamieson (if she is still connected to Newstalk): various 1980s Dublin pirates including superpirate Radio Nova.

John Keogh (Head of News?): 1980s pirates including Heartbeat FM

Bill Hughes (has been a contributor): Dublin superpirate Sunshine Radio.

Aidan Cooney, now with Q102< was with Newstalk when it was a Dublin only station. He had extensive pirate experience from the late 1970s up to the late 1980s.

Mark Cagney did some presenting on Newstalk in the last few years. He started with Cork pirates o=in the 1970s.

That's off the top of my head. Any more examples -past or present?

TheBMG

Not strictly Newstalk but the legendary Teena Gates is still on their unbranded syndicated local service. Usually heard at the weekends.

Pirate newsreaders, it’s quite something when you think of it as a concept…

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121203203#Comment_121203203

It's very interesting considering nowadays there's any number of YouTubers doing news channels which range from well balanced and professionally produced to totally biased and unhinged

1980s - You can't let just anyone present the news!

2023 - You want your own news channel, sure! Here's a free green screen so you can project a CG news studio in the background

TheBMG

News on the aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrr!

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058317091/people-involved-with-newstalk-with-a-pirate-past

I still struggle with the idea of pirate radio

I get the idea that you can't just broadcast at whatever frequency you want as it could cause issues

The thing I can't wrap my head around is that the best way available for someone to bring some punk rock and non De Valera approved news to the masses was to setup a radio transmitter and illegally broadcast across the countryside

Nowadays you can just use Twitter to say whatever you want (unfortunately)

It’s remarkable actually when you look across Europe in general, broadcasting used to be extremely tightly controlled, usually by public service broadcasters that grew up very much like RTE.

Ireland just made a half arsed effort to actually enforce its draconian laws, so a thriving commercial sector grew in a bit of limbo between being illegal and being tolerated.

If you consider say the French market, Europe 1 radio, the French equivalent of Newstalk or 5Live used to broadcast from Saarbruken in Germany and a lot of broadcasting became from RTL (Radio Luxembourg) and TMC (Télé Monte-Carlo) and so on all to get around extremely tight broadcast regulations.

Austria had effectively no commercial broadcasters until 1995!! The EU had to force the issue to end an absolute monopoly by ORF.

Declan A Walsh

Another name is Adrian Kennedy, who has been acting as a newsreader and a stand-in presenter. He was associated with the well-known 1980s pirate BLB (Bray Local Broadcasting) from Bray, Co. Wicklow.

Antenna

Stuart Clark of Hot Press magazine who has been a music news contributor/reviewer on Newstalk - he moved to Ireland originally to work in pirate radio in 1982, initially arriving in Co. Waterford, and later in Limerick:

https://pirate.ie/archive/stuart-clark-on-abc-tramore/

Declan A Walsh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121313922#Comment_121313922

Along the way, he also did a stint on offshore pirate Radio Caroline during the mid 1980s .

Infoanon

When Sunshine and Nova launched RTE were obviously concerned by the commercial impact , those in power however were far more concerned with Sunshine and Novas hourly news updates !, a new concept in Irish broadcasting at the time.

Magic 103 , Dublins talk led station , had its transmissions monitored by the special branch ! ,

When Capital 104 (now FM104) launched they had a clip from a 'left' wing politician which upset then minister for communications Ray Burke , 'we gave them a licence to stop this ' , and later that day Burke enforced the 20% talk rule which they had a short term exemption from....

Different times !

RINO87

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058317091/people-involved-with-newstalk-with-a-pirate-past

I think I have heard Bernie Jameson reading news from clips I have heard of Century also. I'm too young (just) to remember it in real time!

Declan A Walsh

Yes, Bernie Jameson has turned up on various commercial stations after her time with the pirates. She also read the news on Century's successor Today FM (originally Radio Ireland) and indeed semi-national station 4FM/Classic Hits. As well as the commercial sector, Bernie was a presenter on almost national Christian station Spirit Radio and has been a long standing presenter on Christmas FM, harking back to her origins as a radio deejay! She would have crossed paths previously in her pirate days with at least one of the latter's principals Paul Shepherd (Radio Dublin Channel 2 and ABC Radio).

She’s definitely one of the most distinctive news voices on Irish commercial radio.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121314083#Comment_121314083

Just curious - who was the politician who irked Rambo Burke?