‘The Modern Swash Buckling Pirate Phenomenon’

On any given Sunday on the Dublin airwaves in 2020, the listener is treated to a melange of radio stations delivering a wide variety of speech and music entertainment. However, the Dublin airwaves are a uniquely Irish solution to an Irish problem. Radio in Ireland is the most consumed form of media with over 80% of the Irish adult population listening to the medium, whether it’s in the home, exercising or stuck in the car in a rush hour traffic jam. Because of its unique ability to connect with its audience, the listenership figures have stayed constant for the past quarter of a century and as a result, advertisers have flocked to the national, independent commercial and local radio stations across Ireland.

The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland issues licences for the independent sector, advertising different genres to accommodate all tastes. This radio industry we have today, was born in the 1970’s and 80’s when the state broadcaster RTE, had its monopoly position challenged by a plethora of pirate radio stations, stealing frequencies, listeners, and advertisers from RTE. In 1988 new stringent legislation plugged loopholes in the law and allowed for the orderly opening of legal licensed alternatives both nationally and locally. The BAI, and its predecessors the IRTC and BCI have struggled to blend listener requirements with commercial demands. Since deregulation in 1988, the market has solidified with some major media moguls commanding ownership of vast swathes of the airwaves.

In the eighties the success of the pirates was driven by market forces as a youthful market demanded to hear the music that they wanted, a direct alternative to RTE, who’s darkened halls attempted to accommodate everyone  on a national level when listeners actually wanted a local voice and perspective. RTE had failed the younger listener and even with their attempt to placate that constituency with the launch of the ‘pirate light’ RTE Radio 2, the uplifting super pirates like Radio Nova, Sunshine & ERI dominated their markets. In the quest for the local listener, once again RTE lost out to community stations like BLB and Kilkenny Community Radio and local stations like Mid-West and West National Radio 3 rapidly eroded any credibility RTE had with its listener.

Licensing has regulated the airwaves is the Government response, but even a cursory glance along the waveband on a Sunday tells a different tale. When the pirates were at the height of their success, every genre of music was catered for by individual stations, pop on Nova, rock on Phantom, C&W on TTTR, religion on ICBS or album tracks on Capitol. Today’s youth population listens to their music, dance, garage, trance, and rap but these music trends do not sell advertising and therefore find every little light on the current station playlists. That demographic is younger, usually under eighteen and therefore unimportant to current stations and their advertisers. Once again in step the pirates and as enforcement retreats like the tide, the pirates are empowered to start up their transmitters once again and fill up the Dublin FM frequencies. Not only has a need been created for these stations but technology has made it easier to get on air. Gone are the days of medium wave transmitters, home built, strewn over an attic floor with an aerial strung between the attic and a tree or telegraph post. FM transmitters are cheap and highly effective. They do not cause the interference that their Medium wave forbearers did, and computerisation has removed the need for bulky turntables and mixing desks. Because of their appeal to an under eighteen audience, these stations utilise social media avenues far better than their legal counterparts.

In Dublin on FM on a Sunday there are a number of national and quasi national stations like RTE, Radio na Gaeltachta, Newstalk and Spirit Radio, there are community stations including Dublin City FM, Near FM and Phoenix Radio and there are five legal local franchises 98FM, Radio Nova, Sunshine 106, Spin 1038 and FM 104 all competing for the listeners ear and you would say to yourself that surely that is a comprehensive choice but yet despite five Dublin licensed stations, on Sunday April 19^th 2020 there were thirteen pirates radio stations on FM, one on Medium Wave, Energy 1395 and four on short wave broadcasting to the world. The majority of these pirate stations were broadcasting some form of dance music but other genres were being catered for that licensed stations seemed to have covered but yet pirate station were on the airwaves covering similar including The 90s Network and Easy FM.

Some legal stations are now voice tracked removing that personal touch with the listeners. This is simply a cost saving exercise for the media conglomerates that own them. This would be obvious if they used in studio cameras like watching RTE’s Today programme with the now retired Sean O’Rourke. A camera could show the DJ actually choosing and enjoying the music he is playing. The pirate DJ is not hampered by the playlist or the format. The reasonable pirate example of this is Phever FM.

The inertia caused by the lack of enforcement has given pirate radio a new lease of life with a number of them including Club, Pure and Pirate FM carrying a significant amount of advertising, not just relying on advertising club nights to generate revenue. Despite the coronavirus lockdown, the closure of venues and therefore the closure of those station revenue streams, the FM band is alive with pirate radio. These stations are catering for audiences ignored by mainstream stations who have once seen themselves as cutting edge, but the commercial reality has diluted their position. None of these pirates broadcast salacious, threatening or terrorist content and are simply on-air to entertain their constituency, they give airtime to new and struggling dance and rap artists and without causing interference they do little harm. They are however illegal and subject to a minimum of €10,000 fine either for broadcasting, advertising or providing transmission land and if Comreg continue to not implement the law and the BAI fail miserably to cater for the people who are actually listening to the radio, not the listeners that stations wishes to portray to advertisers, then pirate radio will continue to blossom. Is it too early to claim ‘long live the pirates’?