As chairperson of Craol and certified anorak – I get to visit radio stations and actually have a valid excuse to enjoy it!
This December I had the chance to visit Together FM which is online 24/7 from Ballyfermot in Dublin 10. Located in the spacious civic offices Together FM also boasts a satellite studio in nearby Cherry Orchard.
I got a tour of the Ballyfermot studios and met the keen and dedicated staff. The station are working hard to get a broadcast licence in 2025.
With very accessible studios -they are bright and air conditioned! The only window is to a control room (not pictured) where the editing and main station playout happens.
Together FM broadcasts across the week with a concentration of first air programmes at the weekend. The programmes are all prepared in advance and are broadcast as live (or with minor edits) at the scheduled time.
After the studio tour I had a great in depth discussion with some of the board of management of the station who told be of their plans for getting licenced and growing the station within their local area.
From what I have seen Together FM are busy and dynamic about their project and they have many of the characteristics of an exemplar station already adding social benefit to their area. I wish them the best is their quest and I will be back for their famous South Dublin hospitality in early 2025.
This version of the radio player is branded for Craol and lists all Full and Parttime stations and is sympathetic to http and https streams. Not all streams have shifted to https in this sector.
In October Charity Radio closed after more than 10 years online. I will write up a longer post about this great station over the Christmas break.
One of the missions of Charity Radio in its earlier years was to give voice to charities and their fundraising.
As a hat tip to that mission started by its founder Mark O’Toole (RIP), here is a dynamic auto curation of the latest charity podcasts “sounding great and doing good”.
Let’s be honest RADIO is a medium that was traditionally heard but not seen. The creativity was in story craft and radio imaging (the acoustic identity of the station, jingles, sweepers, liners, beds etc.) But as convergence hits radio the need to look good as well as sound good is something radio either does well or avoids like a plague.
Some stations like Dublin Digital Radio really get the image of radio well. Too well for some radio traditionalists. They have artwork per show done with such detail it could well be album art, and sometimes the art is per episode of show with new funky art expressing the vibe of the show. Think about it, if your favourite band’s latest LP was a white label in a black cover (think New Order – Blue Monday with no colour) well you wouldn’t be impressed would you? and if every other LP or Single had the same bland image? not good.
So why do it? Radio is converging. You generally do not get radio from a traditional radio set anymore (note: 1). I know this will piss off radio purists who tell me radio comes from a transmitter and is heard on a receiver and that is the only radio that is radio. Wrong. Radio is a word. Like Cinema Films Movies Flix Cineplex are all words for big screen entertainment. Radio is one word for Transmission, Mode, Apparatus (TX & RX), Content, Industry & Style. It is not confined to broadcast radio, radio style that is presented like a broadcast but delivered online live or on demand, that’s radio too. This radio has options for art work, as does DAB+ on modern radio sets. Websites and Social Media (not seen before 1992 and 2002) are ideal places to promote radio with pictures.
As the loss of artwork hurt music as we moved from LP to CD so too does lack of images to support radio. It diminishes the impact radio can have in a converged media world. Online radio is a URL. Each URL used is a vote for that link in a world with billions of links. Why does this matter? in the past your radio on the dial was in a city was competing with 20 or so other stations that were allowed to be on the dial through licencing, congestion or distance (geography). Nowadays the competition locally is only limited by those that want to compete with you and 40,000 other radio stations online around the globe. You need to look good while sounding good. And its not just once off, outsourced artwork, its the everyday ability to look good.
As radio content gets valued for its low cost of production, friendly presentation and loyal following it is making its way onto TV screens. BBC Two Television on the UK 9am – 12pm is a relay of BBC News most of the year, TV is expensive and news is plentiful. RTE Radio 1 is on the RTE News Channel multiple times per day, radio on TV is effective and cheap. So expect radio studios to scrub up as they get seen more on HD TV screens.
While some radio will always be better suited to being “theatre of the mind” and heard but not seen, media budgets will dictate that quality radio content must get an outing on TV and Social Media. Some radio stations are merging into TV productions like France Inter or Sud Radio both in France (the later allowing 12 hours of roll back radio).
And its not just Radio on the TV that is happening, News Channels that were TV are doubling as radio and vice versa. Think GB News and Talk TV in the UK.
If you are looking to improve your radio project take a look at your album art and your visual opportunities (I am thinking BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge). There will be more ways to express your brand, image, identity, attitude, logos and your supporters images too.
Finally allow convergence in. Being a purist has its advantages – but if you remain true to ideals long discarded by the audience you might have an Ivory Tower to transmit from but nobody with a radio set to hear you.
Notes:
1. JNLR shows radio sets have a 70% reach of and connected devices have 56% reach. While these number vary from my own experience, there is a distinct variance in cities to rural when it comes to hours / radio / non radio audio content so I would expect variance in device too. All my local anecdotal evidence is more than the opposite of the JNLR figures. And an 8% rise for connected devices would reverse the JNLR lead for radio over connected devices. Such a rise would be over 6 device categories, Smart Phone, Smart Speaker, PC, TV, Tablet, Other. Smart Speaker ownership is rising 8%+ YOY.
From Bowling Alone to Upswing (but perhaps the books should be read in reverse order) Community needs people to join clubs. Why are people joining less clubs. Is it all down to TV viewing. To understand how society need community to work, how the big state or small state needs people to be active in their communities to avoid the chaos that would descend if we all stayed at home. Join or Die is now on Netflix and is long listed (eligible) for an Oscar.
Community Development needs Community to work. Media as a toolbox helps people build their Community. For Community Media to be strong, Community needs to be strong. Joining is better than Dying. Join today.
I want to form a media literacy “book club”, where the the book can be films like this, or TED Talks or podcasts. Media to be discussed. A 2025 not so side project.
Also transmitted on 107.3FM. With high production values it sounds very BBC national speech radio, the content that flows through the station is mediated – so interviews flip between Q&A with the interviewee and presenter continuity that puts the interview into the situation and into the community. The focus is people then story then news in that order.
The website serves the daily content, recent content and evergreen specials in a no frills, stylish way, a bit like the audio, it is well crafted. https://thisisalfred.com
Located in Shaftesbury, population 9,146. The town is famous for Gold Hill used in the 1973 Hovis Television Commercial.