Posted on

fess up radio suits

radio listenership in Ireland is in the high 80% range. it was low 90% in the 90s and it slid to a stop, and then a rise. In light on 18 years of time devoted to Internet Music / Browsing / Socializing networks and PC/TV gaming and online gambling iPods Smartphones YouTube and all other modern day distractions, are the radio industry seriously suggesting that radio listenership is as high now as it was in the early 90s ???? 

NEWSFLASH: there are still only 168 hours in a week. 

Listen, I like radio and I listen a lot. But I can not take the radio listenership figures seriously, a generation of spotify tumblr youtubers are not tuned to a radio station in the numbers that count, so fess up radio suits, the youth are gone, will you get them back? 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Juv5Ifs2fFY

Posted on

Radio Free Derry

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZzMeAMEWfs

Radio Free Derry and its organiser Eamonn McCann talking about getting “Radio Free Derry” back on the air.

“Thats was the summer of ’69” (educated guess) but if anyone has more details, please comment.

a recording of radio free derry

Posted on

50 years of Irish pop charts

The History Show RTÉ Radio 1 7 October 2012 

50th anniversary of Irish pop charts on radio

Colette Kinsella reports on the 50th anniversary of the first Irish pop chart on Radio Eireann

 

Posted on

Radio for the masses

 

I volunteered to find some suitable radios for the local roman catholic church that are keying up for jesus and broadcasting services on 27mhz (11 meters) in the Citizen Band. While I don’t receive the holy spirit myself i do get radio signals and their outreach potential. The churches receiver sets that they have been using have heard better days. The radio sets are given to parishioners that are unable to attend church on a regular basis. 

So far I could source the following for sub €50 from China (if customs doesn’t slap a big chunk of duty on it) 

I like the sound of the ATS feature the radio has. Think of it as a blind scan of the whole SW band. In about 2.5 minutes! it scans 2-30Mhz and stores the signals in a memory bank other than the 500 presets the radio boasts. It stores 1200 scanned stations in 12 pages of 100.

The name Tecsun (like Texan) PL 210 (like polonium 210) is from a family of radio sets that have been getting good reviews for the sensitivity of the FM & SW tuners and its 10Kc down to 1Kc tuning bandwidths. Power is via a mini USB accepting 5v and will charge provided 3xAA rechargeables.  

I might just have to test drive one before I bulk order. Anyone importing these into Ireland? get in touch. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aapus0q9Ks

Posted on

Radio Prague at 75

Posted on

Irish Radio and all that Jazz

The Minster gets involved
The sponsorship of programmes on Radio ??ireann, or 2RN as it was originally known, had long been a source of contention for some.  Irish companies paid ??5 per five minutes of sponsorship while foreign companies were charged twice this amount.  In the first three months of 1927 advertising revenue amounted to ??200 but the entire revenue for 1928 was just ??28. By 1929 revenue had risen to ??50 per annum.[22] The secretary of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, P.S. O???Hegarty, thought that advertising on radio should be allowed to die a natural death while Seam??s Clandillon, the station director, declared that, ???from a programme point of view they are a nuisance and are regarded by the listeners as an impertinence.???[23]

The first sponsored programme, by Euthymol toothpaste, was broadcast on the 31st December 1927.  Frequently these programme would use popular or dancehall music to entice the audience and would intersperse advertisements for their clients throughout the show.  Radio ??ireann could be received throughout Western Europe and the sponsored programmes picked up a significant following outside Ireland.

When faced with an attack on fellow minister MacEntee on Irish radio, Gerald Boland cancelled the broadcast.

Sean ??g ?? Ceallaigh was due to deliver a radio lecture on ???Irish Culture: It???s Decline??? on the 11th of January 1934.  The Minster for Posts and Telegraphs, Gerald Boland, stepped in and had the broadcast cancelled.  Justifying the cancellation, Boland stated that, ???Mr. ?? Ceallaigh had made a grossly unfair and unjustified personal attack on the Minister for Finance at Mohill on the 1st of January and must have known that Mr. MacEntee was not responsible for the conduct of the broadcasting service.  I was determined to ensure that he would not avail of the opportunity presented by his broadcast to renew his attack.???[24]

?? Ceallaigh stated that he had submitted the text of his lecture to the station director a week in advance and no objection had been made but Boland questioned the capacity of ?? Ceallaigh to stick to his prepared script.  In an interview on the subject, Boland said, ???that if he (?? Ceallaigh) wants to make a personal attack on a Minister he can do it, but he will not do it over the radio if I can help it.???[25]

Boland also sought to reassure the public that he was taking steps to curtail the amount of jazz music broadcast on Radio ??ireann and to replace it with classical music and military marches.  The Minister had already used his influence to have the words of ???a foreign type of Good Night song,??? that one of the programmes concluded with, excised and he announced that he was prepared to forego the revenue derived from sponsored programmes rather than have them ???serve to advance jazz.??? [26]

via theirishstory.com

via The Anti-Jazz Campaign ~ The Irish Story by Cathal Brennan
http://www.theirishstory.com/2011/07/01/the-anti-jazz-campaign/

Posted on

Vigra 630 kHz in Norway to close down on 30 June

Eivind Motland reports: Norwegian public broadcaster NRK will cease broadcasts on 630 kHz from the Vigra mediumwave transmitter on 30 June. The purpose of keeping it on the air simply isn???t there anymore, as it primarily is targeted towards the fishing fleet to let them get the weather reports. Today NRK broadcasts weather forecasts on dedicated channels on satellite and DAB.

via blogs.rnw.nl