2021 in Irish Radio

Bauer gave away half a million euro with their cash machine and other giveaways. It makes you wonder how much they made if they could give that away!

Yeah, I meant it makes you wonder how much they make from each competition if they’re able to give away 5-15k five days a week. They’re pushing a 21k giveaway now that starts tomorrow

I'm in the truck from 6am till 6 pm Monday to Friday, so I'm an all day radio listener, usually talk radio. I have to say I think the quality of broadcast radio in this country has plummeted in recent years. Whilst they weren't everybodys cup of tea, the likes of George Hook, Eamonn Dunphy and Sean O'Rourke were compulsive listening. They have been replaced by a wave of lightweights who all seem to succumb to the same a mentality and world view. Anything that challenges the ' correct' view is smashed down. Trump seemed to be the rallying call for these people. With his arrival on the scene they could coalesce on a single front of attack, and anyone or thing that challenged their world view was worthy of their combined efforts. Thus we have blind obedience to the EU, NPHETm Greta Thunberg and so many other icons of our time.

In previous times we would have heard contrarian positions and opinions. Now it seems all broadcast media follows the so called Correct opinions. I believe people do not want this. People enjoy discussion, arguments, the teasing out of issues. Instead we are left with gasbags like Newstalk Breakfast, Tubridy, Scare Byrne and Cooper. I don't include D'Arcy, as he is just a joke. Mind you, a sick joke at 400 K pa

I listen to podcasts more and more, and I think a lot of people are voting with their Dials. I think in 10 years time, these people will find themselves in the same boat as print journalism is now and with no one to blame but themselves

Two former Dublin pirates and more recently online stations had temporary license runs on FM this year in various parts of the country: Easy Radio and Freedom FM. Easy Radio was still running as a pirate as recently as 2020.

The Dublin pirate scene in 2021 has been dominated by oldies-oriented largely weekend-based pirates. The most frequent players are Retro FM (92.0), Energy Power AM on 1395 kh (also relays live broadcasts from Retro FM) and ABC 80s on 96.0 FM. 94.3 FM seems to have been shared out between various players, relaying at different times Retro FM, All Eighties and Charity Radio. Another oldies pirate Star1057 has been popping up off and on during the year on 105.7. Other times it has broadcast as The Beach on 105.7 FM, which plays chilled dance music. Dance pirate Phever has been on, as far as I can make out, mainly on Fridays on 91.6 FM. Another dance pirate Club FM returned sporadically to the airwaves on 107.1 FM. Meath dance pirate RetroNow turned up on various FM frequencies, beaming into some parts of Dublin, but seems to have gone quiet now at least on FM.

These aren’t all changes / moves but also a few moments that stand out to me thinking about the year:

FM104’s breakfast went viral for their assumably staged game where someone tried to cheat in Instagrand. Then a few days after, Spin South West’s breakfast had a chancer trying to cheat as well, if I remember correctly. Coincidental.

98FM seemed to start its own homeware range for their breakfast show with branded hot water bottles, candles and boxes of personalised Quality Streets? I don’t follow the show much but it seems random.

Spin removed an hour of their drive show on Friday’s to add Joel Corry doing a DJ show.

Cormac Moore left radio only recently. I think his show was nominated for an IMRO this year? Laura Bracken (Spin) and Ciaran O’Connor (98FM) left radio too.

And speaking of that, Spin’s Zoo Crew went for a double header show to a single presenter show after Laura left. Now the listeners are “the crew.”

And this was also the year FM104’s breakfast got into trouble for comments about a special needs child or something along those lines? I never actually heard the audio myself so I can’t remember it too well.

Honourable mention goes to Ed Smith as he had his show moved to the later slot on Today this year.

Who is taking over from Cormac Moore on FM104? The other presenter left a few weeks ago also.

As did 'Doctor Don' Moore.

Trishauna Archer (who was on Beat for years) has it in her Instagram bio that she does the show so it would assumably be her. I haven’t seen an announcement anywhere though (not even her Instagram feed). She had done some cover on the show before I think.

to be honest i doubt any of this ever happened anyway as we would have heard about it.

Re: SOR

This past year or so has really highlighted for me how you take some presenters for granted.

When we had Marion and SOR, or even going back to the days of Dunphy and Hook, its only when they are gone and replaced by lightweights do you actually appreciate how good they were.

Is there even a decent 'heavyweight' left in current affairs/talk radio? Matt Cooper probably thinks he is, but his output has really dropped in quality over these last handful of years. And the guys on the big money, the holy trinity of Tubs, Darcy and Duffy, have now turned into fluff and filler shows.

Ryan Tubridy continues to "riff" his way to 500k a year while taking weeks and weeks off....

Continues to say the end of covid is in sight....which he was saying this time last year...

Failing miserably at his attempt to become a new form of "Uncle Gaybo"