1930's Irish Radio Analysis - Part Five. It's All About The Money

2RN, the fledgling Irish radio station stuttered to the end of nineteen twenties and into the thirties still only clearly audible on the east of the country. There were many problems encountered by the fledging radio station not least that lack of finance provided from the exchequer. Many of those in Government feared the power of radio and believed limiting the stations output would keep it in line. At the time Ireland did not produce any radio receivers of its own and all wireless sets were imported mostly from the Britain. In 1934 the UK media reported that,

‘The Irish Free State was Great Britain’s best customer buying £27,000 worth of radio apparatus from British manufacturers’.

These imports however were subject to a 33% import tax putting the price of a quality radio set outside the reach of most Irish people. If you could not afford an imported set, a homemade crystal set was the only option. With 2RN only audible on the eastern side of the country, the use of radio west of the Shannon was limited. This was reflected in the uptake of the required wireless licence. The radio licence was introduced in 1923 and initially cost £1 but this was reduced to 10s in August 1926 with the launch of 2RN in 1926 with a dearer licence required for institutions such as hotels. In 1923 there was 1,020 licenses issued, 1,493 in 1926 the year 2RN began and in 1929 there were 7,660 licences in the Free State. The state radio station was initially financed by the combination of the import duty and the licence fee.

The 1930’s there was a boom in licences and an increased effort by the Government to detect evaders. In 1930 just over 26,000 licenses were issued and the increased numbers of radio sets purchased in advance of the 1932 Eucharistic Congress and the launch of the powerful Athlone transmitter by 1934 there were 60,192 sets licensed and by the end of the decade there were 166,275 licenses across Ireland.

In 1935 the total number of radio licences in the twenty six counties was 78,627 which equated to one in every thirty eight citizens over eighteen having a licence. This figure would increase to one in seventeen by 1939. The distribution of those licences illustrated the divide in the nation when it came to radio. Leinster 60.03%, Munster 27.09%, Connacht 8.30% and Ulster 4.58%. According to the BBC, the number of licences in Northern Ireland at the end of April 1934 was 59,032 while in the entire 26 counties of the Irish Free State there were 51,667. In the six counties in 1935 there were 63,000 licenses at ten schillings per licence.

The comparisons with programming from the BBC often appeared in newspapers, magazines and in political debate. The poor quality of output from the Irish State broadcaster was often laid at the door of a lack of finance in a smaller market. During a Dail debate on broadcasting expenditure future Taoiseach Sean Lemass then serving in the Government opposition revealed in 1930 that the breakdown equivalents of both stations were as follows

2RN                 BBC

Programmes               45%                 65%

Salaries                       28%                 7%

Maintenance               10%                 19%

Overheads                   17%                 9%

It should be noted in the maintenance costs the BBC had over thirty transmitters in 1930 while 2RN only had Dublin and Cork.

Finance was always a concern for Irish Broadcasting. In 1930 the Government announced that it cost £28,259 to run the station plus a further £47,000 set aside for the launch of the new Athlone station. Income for the station was listed as £13,365 for the licence fees, £30,700 from the tax on the imported radio receivers and just £40 from advertising. Advertising consisted of five minute ‘talks’ at the end of programming at night. But in 1930 a new form of advertising was tested on the urgings of the radio industry much of it through the weekly magazine The Irish Radio News which had replaced the Irish Radio Review. Despite this apparent lack of income, in 1930 the Secretary at the Department of Posts and Telegraphs M.R. Heffernan TD wrote in an article aimed at improving listenership amongst the rural community,

‘Let me make it quite clear that so far broadcasting in the Irish Free State has not cost the taxpayer a penny. It is the other way about in fact. The broadcasting enterprise has actually contributed in a small way towards the funds of the national exchequer.’

Radio Eireann had spotted an opportunity to sell some of its airtime for sponsored programming. The bulk of the ‘advertising’ consisted of five minute ‘talks’ broadcast at the end of transmissions each weekday and solely for Irish made products. The Government decided to sell the hour from 9.30 – 10.30 to sponsors and it was divided into three twenty minute segments and from earning £220 in total advertising revenue in 1932, a year later the station had earned £22,000 from sponsored advertising, a lifeline for the cash strapped station. Unfortunately for the station its new found wealth came at a price as the Government reduced the percentage of the licence fee paid to the station. 

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