radio.ie

A new Irish Radio Station began broadcasting online today. Streaming online Hits Radio Ireland with a great image (website) and social media presence, plays the hits across the decades.

Staffed by well-known DJs from the radioactive/Charity Radio past, the quality of mix is high. Tune in on our Radio Tuner Hits Radio Ireland.

Hits Radio Ireland uses UPstream to record all programmes and automatically send them to Mixcloud directly after broadcast.

Did people write reams of articles about the demise of the Compact Cassette? was the transition from a Vinyl Top 40 to a CD Top 40 a much hyped thing? Do radio folk fuss too much about the fall in listenership to radio?

Is it analogue versus digital, and digital is perceived to be better so it sweeps away the old and heralds a new format? A lot of questions, but what is the answer? (another question). Yes most research ends with a call for further research, but let me state the point I had in my head prior to writing this, and let you ponder not on my questions but the central point.

I believe radio anoraks do talk about the pending crisis in radio much the same as Anglers talk about the state of water quality (thinking Feargal Sharkey). This is because we care. I think there is a group that care even more than us and hide the fact that the old business model is broken and the mega media companies of the internet have sucked up so much advertising money the old model is broken while the older audiences remains loyal to radio, healthy numbers persist as long as we are not looking at the numbers across the city in the auditors office.

So why do we fret about the medium when we were more fickle about the departure of Cassette Tapes for example? Well, its simple, radio is more than a format to the radio lover. It is not just a technology, a mere platform, its not even the sum of the great content espoused from wireless sets, transistors, Walkmans, hi-fi systems, tuner amps, car radios or SDRs over the decades. It’s more, a lot more.

Radio is craft, a knack, a communication tool. Layered with affordances, radio from its evocative glass dial with glowing valves to Ghetto blasters, radio continues to be a friend, while a Compact Cassette is a format to carry content, now residing in shoes boxes in the attic.

The passion and love of a medium is not evidence that its just a medium. The ongoing loyalty beyond the business model to fund its endless creativity continues to make radio a thing that will not lie down and go away.

I predict that the generation that lived and loved the radio in its hey day when AM welcomed FM to the party, this generation, the anoraks among them, are plentiful. They will keep radio’s glass lit for years to come. Hobby AM pirates will become audio museums to a world of content that the radio generation still love. Digital only radio stations will continue to make radio like it used to be, while not actually making it like they used to, where voice tracking gives productivity to the hobby DJ, freeing up time to voice track on even more stations.

While Cassettes hold on to the memories of hey day radio, there are stations living that past 4, 5 or 6 decades later with tribute stations springing up everywhere. And why will it grow? As these retro pioneers retire, their memories, and record collections, all digital now, will have increased time and digital opportunity to live in the past.

Radio, a format, a technology, a communications tool will live on, fueled by the nostalgia for a way things used to be. Like Classic Cars and Motorbikes, restored, polished and well looked after by proud owners. After the suits are gone, radio lives on.

first published on substack Feb 2024 by Brian Greene.

Recognising that Community Radio is an ideal means of fostering freedom of expression and information, the development of culture, the freedom to form and confront opinions and active participation in local life; noting that different cultures and traditions lead to a diversity of forms of Community Radio; this Charter identifies objectives which community radio station share and should strive to achieve. Community Radio Stations:

1. Promote the right to communicate, assist the free flow of information and opinions, encourage creative expression and contribute to the democratic process and a pluralist society.
2. Provide access to training, production, and distribution facilities; encourage local
   creative talent and foster local traditions; and provide programmes for the benefit,
   entertainment, education, and development of their listeners.
3. Seek to have their ownership representative of local geographically recognisable communities or of communities of common interest.
4. Are editorially independent of government, commercial and religious institutions, and political parties in determining their programme policy.
5. Provide a right of access to minority and marginalised groups and promote and protect cultural and linguistic diversity.
6. Seek to honestly inform their listeners on the basis of information drawn from a diversity of sources and provide a right of reply to any person or organisation subject to serious misrepresentation.
7. Are established as organisations, which are not run with a view to profit and ensure their independence by being financed from a variety of sources.
8. Recognise and respect the contribution of volunteers, recognise the right of paid workers to join trade unions and provide satisfactory working conditions for both.
9. Operate management, programming and employment practices which oppose discrimination, and which are open and accountable to all supporters, staff, and volunteers.
10. Foster exchange between community radio broadcasters using communications to develop greater understanding in support of peace, tolerance, democracy, and development

I took a trip across 22 stations in Ireland and here is the July 15th playlist.

July 15th 2024 Community Radio Playlist

I am testing some code that builds podcasts or news reels automatically. Each item has an expiry date – so old listings will not appear past the expiry date. Also the tool can randomise or date order or priority order the items as often as required during the day. An intro and outro are at either end of the media.

now residing at https://events.radio.ie/

some web and mobile visual players for some streaming dublin radio. click on the images to try them out.

On the Adamant Nicolas Philibert

France, Japan | 109 min | 2022

Synopsis:

The Adamant is a unique day care centre: it is a floating structure. Located on the Seine in the heart of Paris, it welcomes adults suffering from mental disorders, offering them care that grounds them in time and space, and helps them to recover or keep up their spirits. The team running it is one of those that try to resist the deterioration and dehumanization of psychiatry as best it can. The film invites us to board it and meet the patients and caregivers who invent its life day to day.

IFI noon 25/02/2024

The W Cinema – Westport 8:40pm 27/02/2024

Happy World Radio Day 2024. This site as been offline for a few weeks with the teaser that it returns today. What was the tease? Where is the big reveal?

There isn’t a big reveal as once intended. A career move into television in January has had me busy in a new job so for now here is what is new.

1. As of today Feb 13th 2024 UPˢᵗʳᵉᵃᵐ pain free radio archiving is now FREE for Community Radio in Ireland. Any paid plans will become free plans and any stations not yet using UPˢᵗʳᵉᵃᵐ can jump on for free via an email to reception@radio.ie
2. A convergence APP for Irish is media slowly being built see /signal for an early peek. It brings together 260+ Irish radio streams, 300+TV news channels via newsvendor.com, the latest 15 Irish Radio uploads to Mixcloud, a randomised TV playlist, the latest 50 Irish Podcast drops.
3. I have begun blogging about media over at wavelinks.substack.com
4. radio dot.ie /tune continues as a http/s player and radio.ie/t is now 100% https
5. Older Radio Lab projects that have been much ignored are mothballed. Access to theses and papers available on request.
6. New radio shows on Canary Islands and Dublin radio have begun. Links to follow.

That’s about it except, well, this project now gets serious about being a labour of love. Expect more great things less often 🙂 “take your passion – and make it happen” Irene Cara.

Broadcasts from Bankstown to Sydney, New South Wales Australia. 92.1 FM
Streaming Online 24/7 2MFM is online at http://www.2mfm.org.au/
Recording from stream 14/05/2023

Established in 1995. The Muslim Community Radio is a multicultural and multilingual Islamic radio station. It broadcasts to the Sydney community in general while incorporating elements that target the Islamic community of Sydney. It first transmitted twenty-four hours a day during the month of Ramadan of 1995 and has continued to broadcast during every month of Ramadan and Dhul-hijja (Pilgrimage month). In addition, in 1997 Muslim Community Radio was broadcasting on every Friday of that year until the introduction of the temporary broadcast community license (TBCL). Muslim Community Radio currently broadcasts 24 hours 365 days a year covering all Islamic events. Because Arabic/Lebanese is, according to statistics, the major ethnic language communicated among the Muslims in Sydney, understandably the radio programs are primarily transmitted in the Arabic and English languages with spots of other community languages, evolving in pace with demand.