2BE Commercial Sabotage by 2RN

 

When 2RN took to the airwaves on January 1^st 1926, two stations now operated on the island with 2BE broadcasting from Belfast. As soon as 2BE took to the airwaves in September 1924, the listening public south of the border demanded a domestic service from the Irish Free State government. They listeners demanded something different from apparently British and Unionist slanted output from the Belfast station. There was a sense of nationalistic pride in the opening of 2RN and while initially signal power would not see them as competitors to each other, their competition did however play out on the pages of the most read newspapers north and south of the border.

 

An unusual night of programming took place on both 2BE[1] and 2RN[2] on Friday February 19^th, just weeks after the launch of 2RN. When 2RN began broadcasting in January transmission times were just two hours, 8pm until 10pm. By the beginning of February one hour had been added, 2RN now broadcasting from 7.30pm until 10.30pm. Programming from the Dublin station consisted mainly of instrumental and operatic music which led to complaints appearing in newspapers and trade magazines and comparisons being made with 2BE and British mainland stations.

 

On that Friday night, 2RN began with a tuning note at 7.30 allowing listeners both to tune in and identify the station. Two fifteen minutes talks were then broadcasts, the first one on Egypt, the second on savings certificates. From 8pm for the following 90 minutes 2RN relayed 2LO from London. Dublin listeners were treated to the Hungarian String Quartet, Vivienne Chatterton, Soprano who performed a number of Hungarian folk songs and readings by Dorothy Warren.

From BBC Genome

Meanwhile at exactly the same time on 2BE in Belfast from 8pm and heavily advertised in both the Northern Ireland newspapers and the Radio Times, a ‘Concert by the Dublin Artists’. The Belfast station was clearly audible in Dublin with a stronger transmitter than 2RN’s at McKee Barracks. The 2BE show consisted of performances by Gerard Crofts, Baritone, Jean Nolan, Mezzo Soprano and already a seasoned radio performer on 2RN, Arthur Darley[3], Violinist and the stage comedian and humourist Jimmy O’Dea[4].  The 2BE proved extremely popular with listeners, with Dublin listeners complaining about both the content of the relay from London and the quality of the rebroadcast. The Belfast Newsletter reported,

‘A troupe of instrumentalists give a concert this afternoon at the 2BE studios when many popular musical numbers will be included. A select quartette of Dublin artists (two vocalists, a violinist and an entertainer) are visitors at the station this evening, when an astonishingly comprehensive programme of Irish folk and other music will be broadcast between 8 O’Clock and 9.30.’

 

It was important for the new medium of broadcasting that listeners could read the schedules in the daily newspapers. There was an antipathy towards the Unionist leaning Belfast station from Dublin newspapers. This manifested itself when the two broadcasters clashed for listeners on that Friday. The Evening Herald published its ‘Broadcasting’ schedule but to divert attention from the obvious attraction of ‘Dublin Artists’ for Dublin listeners, they purposely inserted the 2RN schedule into the middle of the 2BE programme. It was an attempt to draw readers and possible listeners to the 2RN broadcasts rather than Belfast, it was commercial sabotage.

The Evening Herald February 19th 1926

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[1] 440m Medium Wave

[2] 390m Medium Wave

[3] Played on 2RN’s opening night broadcast on January 1^st 1926 and died December 1929

[4] Identified in the papers as James O’Dea