Alfred – Community Radio their way

Have a listen to Alfred 107.3FM

It’s community radio but not as you know it. A new 60 minutes recording every day.

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.

The Alfred Radio stream is on radio.ie/t

Hospital Radio St. Ita’s back on Mixcloud

UPDATE: having written this post as St. Ita’s returned to Mixcoud they then announced they were closing the FM 89.5MHz on November 30th as the licencee (the HSE) was not renewing the licence.

Pirate.ie published a post to mark the occasion with an archive gem of a recording of the station in 1986 (which I recorded, seemingly) and a 2019 interview I did with station manager Tom Noctor.

The station continues online with a new era schedule. Hospital Radio via radio.ie/t

Original Post: Ireland’s longest broadcasting independent radio station Hospital Radio St. Ita’s is back on mixcloud after a 2 year gap.

https://www.mixcloud.com/itasradio/

Ita’s started back in 1988 before the legislation for independent radio was published but with the minister for communications from the same parish, Ita’s was not part of the big switch off in 1988 as they had permission to stay on air.

Ita’s uses UPstream to upload programmes direct from their stream to Mixcloud. UPstream is free for Community Radio in Ireland to use. Contact reception@radio.ie for more details.

Plurality in Irish Media

Plurality in media is important. It can cover the content and platform. Is the content shown in Irish media from a large variety of sources in society? or is it from a few sources?. Also is the platform the media is delivered on owned by a few big companies or is a wide diversity of ownership available?

from the BAI policy on plurality.

  • Diversity of Content means the extent to which the broad diversity of views (including
    diversity of views on news and current affairs and diversity of cultural interests prevalent in
    Irish society) is reflected through the activities of media businesses in the State, including
    their editorial ethos, content and sources.
  • Diversity of Ownership means the spread of ownership and control of media businesses in
    the State linked to the market share of those media businesses as measured by
    listenership, readership, reach or other appropriate measures.

Is your media more or less plural these days? Media Ownership Ireland is a database tracking who owns media in Ireland. As old media matures competition leads to buyouts and more and more media is owned by less and less companies. Is this ownership deficit offset by the public’s access to new media platforms? Does the ability to “broadcast yourself” on social media outweigh the importance of plurality in the media?

The ability to reach billions of people with messages online does not equate to the ability to broadcast to a nation’s airwaves given that broadcasting is the incumbent and dominant mass media platform where a few transmit to the many. Social media silos of content where users select their preferred catalogue of content, like subscribed podcasts or Netflix watch lists does not have the same effect on society as broadcasting. Therefore the share of ownership in media remains important across all media and in particular in the broadcast sector.

Media Ownership Ireland database tracks ownership across Online, Print and Broadcast media in Ireland. But one sector it fails to track is Community Media. This sector is owned by the communities it broadcasts to. This means that this sector has a unique strength above all the other sectors that are listed. The strength is that the the media entity is owned by its public. Control and direction of the media is down to the people within the community. This goes a long way to demonstrate the lack of plurality in commercial and public media, which is evidenced in the content on air and access citizens have to their media.

Community Media which is recognised as the third sector in Irish media legislation might not yet be a large enough sector to rebalance the deficit in plurality in Irish media but if the sector was to grow to being in every town and county in Ireland (like pirate radio was in Ireland in the 1980s) then it could begin to be the necessary counterweight to large commercial multinationals owning and controlling Irish media.

With 30% of Local Radio owned by companies outside of Ireland, plurality in radio broadcasting in Ireland is rebalanced by the existence of community radio (another reason the sector should be listed in the Media Ownership Ireland database) . 100% of community media in Ireland is owned by its community. The ownership model transfers to the content on air, which on community media is as varied and diverse as the community it serves, unlike the formatted commercial offerings from local and national broadcasters.

Parity of each of the sectors of Irish broadcasting in legislation is required to make sure that the sector that values and spotlights the marginalised the most is not marginalised itself when media codes, policies and legislation are being drafted. Equal recognition of each sector will allow for future funding and growth to happen and therefore allows community media to continue to out perform in areas on diversity of content and plurality of ownership.

Ireland Calling 2024

Following the recent death of Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh (June 25th 2024) it reminded me of a post I wrote when he retired in 2010.

Irish Overseas Broadcasting was written in September 2010 for the website ilikeradio.net now archived here on radio.ie

It is still a good read and a bit dated, but it guessed the demise of DAB where RTE put Mediumwave funding after it closed that service to the UK (March 24th 2008) . In general it takes a look at RTÉ and how they are slow to move with new technology and are really bad and serving the Irish abroad, although their plan to put RTE Radio in UK cities with small scale DAB is now a legal reality, if though RTÉ may now not have the cash for this venture any longer.

Since the article was written RTÉ pulled the plug on DAB (March 31st 2021) and Longwave 252 (April 14th 2023 minutes after President Joe Biden gave a public address from Ballina Co, Mayo). These 2 broadcasting withdrawals were seemingly unrelated to the other controversies that have engulfed the national broadcaster. Now RTÉ has a 5 year plan and 3 year funding to continue in a slimed down state.

The internet is a healthier place for delivering content in a technical capacity, but as this medium has matured it has also become a more difficult place to disseminate content due to rights issues and geo blocks.

It takes vision to see beyond the roadblocks and see and hear the diaspora, so they can see and hear Ireland via its national broadcaster. Irish Overseas Broadcasting or content delivery is still much needed and there is a wonderful archive of content in RTÉ that should be on the RTÉ Player or opened up to be on any Irish Player that cares to serve this content with new context.

If other groups see a market in the gap to serve the largest national diaspora on planet earth, then every assistance of our national broadcaster should help make it happen, after all, we all fund RTÉ, it is our public service channel.

Technical changes means integrated streaming and broadcasting players which are truly cross platform (such as DVB-I) can deliver Irish content to wherever people want to see and hear it.

Read the 2010 post here Irish Overseas Broadcasting.

Ubuntu Radio

To many, Ubuntu is a flavour/distribution of Linux, a computer operating system. In Africa Ubuntu is an ancient African word meaning ‘humanity to others’. Listen to this podcast first released in 2017 on how Youth Radio in South Africa focused on Ubuntu to examine its principles through radio reporting practice.

Many of the mission themes will resonate with those that truly understand the power of radio. Thanks to a podcast for bringing this gem to me. And as you read this, thank a blog for informing you. Content should never be left in silos, and media/platforms shouldn’t be either, it takes a village to raise a child, and a host of media can deliver the same ethos/content.

Learn more about the Children’s Radio Foundation at RadioWorkshop.org
Frist heard on Stories of Impact podcast.

Podcast Radio

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NUJ Freelance Forum Podcast #82

I spoke to Gerard Cunningham at the NUJ Freelance Forum podcast August 2024 episode #82 all about my day job at Dublin Community Television and how it fits into the Community Media sector in Ireland.

Pod Des: Brian Greene, Outreach and Training Coordinator at Dublin Community Television, talks about the world of community television, how it can provide an outlet both for community groups and for freelance journalists, the differences between television and radio production, and plans for the future.
Brian also runs the websites radio.ie and pirate.ie

Podcasts (demand radio on demand)

From time to time I post about podcasts, and the ones I listen to. The ones that I hit refresh to see if another episode has landed, often in hope, because I really wish it was a radio show if only to keep the publishing on a weekly or monthly pattern.

Decentered Podcast – An off-centre look at community, social and sustainable media.. With discussions about the role of media in sustainable and participative communities, providing an alternative to mass media. They look at how to build our capabilities to tell our own stories and think about the importance of what we become in producing and sharing our own media content.

Presented by Rob Watson,  a pioneer of new approaches to community media production, communication for development, social media organisation and collaborative problem-solving.  While academic in approach there is plenty of practical experience on offer here.

I support the this podcast via pateron. RSS makes podcast work! https://decentred.co.uk/feed/podcast/