2fm - New schedule coming

Chun the Unavoidable

Well, 2FM has always been a bit of this and that in its time, Jazz programmes, discussion shows, Folk music shows - as a kid i avoided it as it had a bang of ANCO radio off of it and the pirates were much better - although i seem to remember their saturday afternoon music/sports show being good in the early 80s.

Today its the still a bit muddled. Standard chart driven pop most of the day, a sports how, Jen Z kinda-sorta-gerry ryan show, new music show, EDM in the evenings. Dan Healy wants to go after the spin audience but spin works because its the same stuff no matter what time you tune in most of the time, 2fm is going after both the spin and Today FM audience i think but they are not the same.

Declan A Walsh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122198496#Comment_122198496

You also had Irish music shows, which in the case of Alan Corcoran was heavily orientated towards country; a heavy metal show; albums-oriented shows and Dial A Number One (with songs from previous decades).

That Saturday afternoon music/sports show in the early 1980s was presented by Michael McNamara (later reinventing himself as Mickey Mac!).

Dave Redmond

Screenshot_20240529_154922_com.android.chrome_edit_251624343652749.jpg

Radio is doing pretty good with our youth given the choice of media that's available.

2FM needs a rethink on target audience given the population of Ireland is 5.5 million.

8 regional/city youth stations eating out of the same pie. 660k plus population of 15 to 24 year olds in Ireland. Crazy! 1.4 million 25 to 44 year olds.

There's a very easy solution to 2fm's woes.

Shan Doras

I get that the breakfast show presenter and the two Johnnies had their own thing going long before 2fm but I would have thought that the 2fm/RTE work would have been Jennifer Zamparelli's bread and butter?

Wanderer2010

Will Lottie Ryan ever leave 2FM? All around her are moving on to new opportunities and she seems content to just rot away on some awful late shift show. She's a very unambitious girl. I know it's just nepotism how she got the job but she's not even attempting to do anything different with her career.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122200790#Comment_122200790

I am fairly certain that just after the back lash of her using RTÉ property to promote a car she moved to being a member of staff. Or I am fairly certain that this has been reported.

squonk

She did but as a general reader the amount of bile towards Lottie here seems way OTT. She seems to be judged on her on air presence. It’s been mentioned she is head of entertainment. She sounds like she has a broader role behind the scenes. I honestly don’t know. Anybody else commenting doesn’t seem to know anything for definite either.

Let’s take the most fantastical version of her job that’s being referenced here, €100,000/year for reading out a few showbiz stories. Would I give a gig like that up? Would you? Wouldn’t you be an eejit if you did!

I think none of us know what’s going on with Lottie. I’ll say that flogging Toyotas on the company campus doesn’t exactly say “Head of Entertainment”, let alone her being a contractor at the time.

It seems terribly bitter wishing unemployment on someone. As I say, we don’t seem to know exactly what she does in RTE day to day. If she is, in fact, stealing a living then management would deal with that you would think. I know RTE doesn’t always work that way but any goodwill accrued from her old man or name has long faded now you’d think. She must be there on her own merits at this stage. Certainly in the current climate you’d expect her to be offloaded if she wasn’t useful in there.

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122201012#Comment_122201012

As much as it may seem bitter to wish anyone unemployed it is not bitter to ask what value is her role to the public purse?

RTE is at its very centre a dedicated national communication institution and not a talent factory. She belongs in the private sector because I can not discern any loss in options on the dial if 2fm was cut loose.

radiotrickster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122201054#Comment_122201054

Commercial stations have requirements on how much time per hour has to be dedicated to news, sport, etc. Do RTE have license requirements in the same way? It’s possible that it’s a license requirement for 2FM to provide two minutes of entertainment news per hour across the day and that’s a task Lottie fulfils.

I’d agree with @squonk that it’s a bit of a witch hunt here. So many people here zone in on Lottie as a problem needing to be solved but we don’t know what she does day-to-day, the same way that we don’t know what anyone else does. We don’t know if the breakfast presenters arrive five minutes before a show and leave five minutes after it ends or if they stay for hours, working with producers to plan the following day. We don’t know how much effort the producers put in or if they just go with the first idea that comes to them.

We don’t know anything about how anyone works or how much they contribute to the organisation other than what we hear on-air and it’s unfair to judge Lottie alone for that. You could argue that newsreaders are stealing a living too in that case, only reading a bulletin for a couple of minutes an hour is the same as what Lottie is doing, just with different content.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122201012#Comment_122201012

I don't think there is bile here towards her TBH. I think there is a difference between criticism of someone on Radio versus purely being demeaning towards them for no real reason.

Her father had plenty of critics during his time at RTÉ. His television career was almost always lambasted, nothing every stuck and he was move from one project to another.

I don't wish anyone out of employment but I wonder why she is still on the Radio. Critically she just isn't very good at the job. I don't think she'd really get passed an audition with RTÉ or any broadcaster if she was anyone else.

She might be there on her own merits but what are they? If she is good at over seeing Entertainment on RTÉ.ie then let her do that but she should not be presenting. Sorry if this is harsh but unless she can improve on Radio or TV then she'll need to do other things in the organisation.

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122201257#Comment_122201257

For me Lottie's tenure is as inexplicable as 2fm's continued existence.

2fm was created at a time when half the population was under 25 years of age, youth programming beyond Bosco was pretty scarce. For me 2fm became irrelevant decades ago, and I only tuned back in when the 2 Johnnies were brought in. I had been following them years beforehand on the internet, and now they're moving on again so 2fm becomes irrelevant to me again.

It's been said here many a time but I do think 2fm should just become a dedicated DadFm, goldenoldies, or whatever rather than mawkishly trying to fulfil a youth mandate that's more than adequately catered for by other channels and the internet options.

2fm is truly a quango at this stage, existing on muscle memory and a tenuous blood link to its Gerry Ryan golden era.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122201380#Comment_122201380

2FM was always set up to be a self-sufficient radio station, with the potential to earn a profit which would then be use for other public service broadcast areas of RTÉ.

Bosco actually began a the year of 2FM's launch. RTÉ2 was launched the previous year, and many had access to BBC radio and British TV. Potential 2FM was launched a decade too late, ditto RTÉ2 and maybe even Teilfise Eireann! Though I have a feeling Independent broadcasting was 10 years too late and TV3 20 years too late.

I do think RTÉ needs a link to yuff but it is not 2FM but also 2FM should be just made redundant, though IMO a pop music station is not a public service and should be self-sufficient, I don't understand how 2FM has a bigger budget than Lyric FM. It'd be interesting to know how much RTÉ is spending on their digital radio stations.

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122201469#Comment_122201469

I chime with all that, especially how it receives more than a dedicated music channel like LyricFM.

Having said that LyricFM is relaying and expands what already exists whereas 2fm needs content creators to justify its continued existence, which is in itself an act of futility.

Back on the Lottie criticism my first actual exposure to her was because I tuned in to hear the 2 Johnnies and I found her inclusion extremely bizarre. Her contributions were screechy, opinionated non-craic dross peddlying that was obviously endured by the lads as part of their package and I've no doubt she's already mentally in their rear view mirror.

2fm might have channeled the zeitgeist of Ireland's youth quake of the 80s and early 90s, but no one seems to have noticed the ground has shifted in both demographics and technology has cut the legs from its entire premise.

The 2 Johnnies is the closest 2fm have gotten to where it's at now, and like them their audience will not stick around for Lottie.

Wanderer2010

It's just bizarre how a young woman like Lottie would cling to the same old job year after year with nothing much to show for it. It's embarrassing watching her being wheeled out for the yearly line up promotion photo shoot. So many of her colleagues have left for pastures new which is what younger people do and she seems content to rot away. And people may say she has no pull anymore but I can't see her leaving rte to get a job somewhere else. I'd say even in 10 years time the girl will be the only original staff member there surrounded by new fresh faces and what's she doing? Reading out a few showbiz stories. It's her father's surname that got her the job and she knows this very well so she wouldn't get any free lunches if she moved to another station or broke out on her own. Still makes her career a joke though.

waywill1966

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122201681#Comment_122201681

Maybe she is happy there!

squonk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122201907#Comment_122201907

exactly and she’s married and has kids. If the job she’s doing works for her, why would she leave?

Lots here excoriating her for lacking ambition or being content to sit on a job for whatever reason. I’m not saying she is or is not but you don’t have to look to RTE for this. The country is rife with people in handy jobs sitting on them. Whatever makes you happy and works for you is it!

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122201934#Comment_122201934

Very true. I don't think criticism of lack of ambition is useful, who's to say she doesn't have ambition and she feels she's achieved something in herself.

Seems to me she's made a very good life for herself, regardless of her name. Fair dues to her.

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122201934#Comment_122201934

The question then becomes where do you put such a lifer if the tv license fee vacuum shuts down 2fm?

How does one so institutionalised be reprogrammed?

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122202045#Comment_122202045

Continuity still exists, bring back the Entertainment minute on RTÉ News channel. National lottery, weather, telly bingo?

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122202135#Comment_122202135

Collecting trays in the canteen etc…

Wanderer2010

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122202177#Comment_122202177

Herself and Blathnaid Treacy could do that! Blathnaid I feel is another one of those girls even 10 years ago you could confidently state "that girl will spend the rest of her life in RTE" and so far 10 years later I have been proven right! Maybe they do like the job but it's a bit strange to have so little ambition in that industry. It's not like a factory line where nothing changes. Tv and media offer so many types of activities and sidelines. With RTE under the microscope more than ever, I'd say only the most unambitious and feet draggers will limp on until retirement.

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122202428#Comment_122202428

That guilded lifestyle may come to end soon if rte is restructured due to license fee implosion.

All surviving departments would have to prove content worthiness and I doubt any of the lifers would know if Mullingar is north, south or west.

Chun the Unavoidable

i have only heard lottie in the past few years the odd time doing the entertainment news spots although i had a period when i was out and about early weekend mornings and would catch her old weekend breakfast show as I always wanted to have a live show with a live presenter to listen to. I thought she was ok, but ok isnt anywhere good enough for a national breakfast show flying solo. she was then promoted into the shouty gang breakfast show, which seems to be the house style for 2fm from 6am till noon and so her shouty entertainment slots fit right in.

As is said above she is marred, has kids and is almost 40 so you cant blame her for not wanting to go anywhere. By all accounts she wants an actual show of her own maybe she will start battering Jennifers Mic come september. I'm not convinced she should do it solo tbh.

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122202865#Comment_122202865

She could follow Bryan tubridy into podcasting. Some of his weekly YouTube submissions have hundreds of viewers.

Shan Doras

Lottie gets a lot of posts on this forum but realistically she is only the very top of the iceberg of "corridor wanders" in RTE, Like what does Mr Spring do in RTE when he's not on 2fm Saturday night at midnight? What does Derek Mooney do all day as "wildlife officer"

squonk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122203044#Comment_122203044

Good point but it just goes to show that we don’t know. Hell, there are people in my own organisation who I wonder what the hell they must be doing all day. I know they’re working as hard as I am because it’s a small organisation but it shows for me an impression isn’t worth zilch. I would be supportive at this stage of an external evaluation of RTEs staff. I’d want to see the appropriate people made redundant as I suspect that’s not what has actually happened.

Shan Doras

There is the crazy situation of every time they have a redundary program, not only is it voluntary, it's never targeted so you have people who actually had a clear role getting paid to leave.

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122203075#Comment_122203075

Just to scale back the issue is not the personalities, but the roles that are propped regardless of demand.

The 2 johnnies moving is a great example of how 2fm is irrelevant in today's media landscape.

I have zero problem with a national broadcaster, but what 2fm is is more than adequately supplied by the private sector.

Basically the likes of Lottie are symptoms of the problem, and changing them doesn't change the problem, namely 2fm is not required.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122203441#Comment_122203441

I think the value that RTÉ put on 2FM as a touchstone for younger audiences is long gone, but I do think that RTÉ should invest in content for young people and the 15 to 24 / 15 to 35 age groups. However 2FM is not that attraction alone, if it is even part of a plan to keep younger audiences with RTÉ.

RTÉ maintained 2FM over the last 20 years and yet cut children's content, cut Drama and failed to invest in Comedy.

It shows just how badly run RTÉ is that they continue to espouse the importance of 2FM as a connection to youth but fail to realise 2fm's position in RTÉ and RTÉ's connection with younger people via Children's content, Drama and Comedy.

RTÉ never even consider each of these other important Genres.

BTW many will ask what age are we and what do we know, well I'd argue we've seen RTÉ's attempts at Yuff Programming and the demise of RTÉ 2FM to have some understanding of the situation.

Shan Doras

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122203474#Comment_122203474

Yeah like why don't they do any effort at all for the youth/15-35s on RTE two television between 7pm/Midnight? They show gardening shows and such around 8pm, why not show Family Guy and Bobs burgers?