There has been much written
as to the origins of the unrivalled success of the golden era of Irish pirate
radio, which is generally regarded as 1978 to 1988. In 1988, new legislation
paved the way for the introduction of legal commercial independent radio across
Ireland. The 1926 Wireless Telegraphy Act had been exposed as toothless when it
came to tackling the proliferation of pirate radio. Towns and villages across
Ireland found that illegal broadcasting was easy and cheap access to the
airwaves. It gave a voice to small communities, causes, and provided an avenue
for advertising firms to sell advertising space to their clients and target.
The era of pirate radio created an industry but it had not created the need,
that was already in place across Ireland. It has been described as the period
when radio added colour to a black and white society emerging from a generation
whose lives were shaped by Civil War politics.
From January 1st 1926,
the Irish State created a monopoly in radio broadcasting with the opening of
2RN later to become Radio Eireann. It was Dublin centric, with studios in the
capital and it was not until the 1930’s that technology allowed them to travel
outside Dublin. The apparent failure of 6CK in Cork, due mainly to financial
constraints, seemed to indicate to rural Ireland that radio was broadcasting
from Dublin to Dublin. Whether it was the excitement of hearing a local artist,
or a local accent on the national airwaves or the sense of abandonment, very
quickly the notion of a local radio station aimed at local listeners,
delivering local interest programming and speaking for them not to them, began
to take root.
In urban cityscapes, the
need for an alternative was driven by a younger generation of listener seeking to
hear music and less chatter. Global influences especially from the United
States began to dominate infiltrate the insular attitudes of DeValera’s
Ireland. The increased appeal and access to cheap transistor radios allowed amateurish,
hobby radio stations with home-built transmitters to battle with the State
broadcaster for listeners. But once this demand had been created, larger,
professional operations began to dominate the increasingly cluttered airwaves.
In rural Ireland, Radio Eireann believed it was satisfying the nation’s social,
agricultural, and sporting needs but for growing younger listener outside
Dublin, the national station seemed out of touch. For those listeners lucky
enough to live on the Eastern side of Ireland, there was a choice of radio to
be listened to as an alternative to Radio Eireann. Radio Eireann’s output was
attempting the impossible, to appease all demographics across the whole
country, whether you were an urban dweller or lived in rural Ireland. For the
growing younger generation enjoying the explosion of new pop music including
the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, access to hearing their choice of music was
limited to Radio Luxembourg, Radio Caroline or from 1967 BBC Radio
One.
Radio became increasingly
popular after the Second World War but Radio Eireann was still hampered by both
a lack of financial support from the Government and comparisons being made to
the services available from broadcasters outside the jurisdiction. Listeners
liked the immediacy and intimacy of radio in their homes. From its very first
broadcast, Radio Eireann was a victim of its limitations whether it was
financial, technical or in content. It struggled to connect on a personal level
with those outside Dublin, not helped by a lack of transmitter power until 1933
when a powerful transmitter was installed in Athlone providing coverage across
Ireland.
The first inclination
that there was a need and desire for neighbourhood radio came from the local
community festivals that blossomed in the thirties. Towns and villages across
Ireland created festivals, some successfully continuing up to the present day,
like the Rose of Tralee Festival, to generate business for local traders and to
act as the impetus for social gatherings for those living in hinterlands outside
the town. The idea of a local voice was planted in the minds of Kerry locals in
the 1930’s as the regional newspapers carried a weekly article, supposedly to
be the transcript of broadcasts from a fictional ‘Radio Listowel’. A March 13th
1937 headline in the Kerry Champion informed reader that there was ‘Another
Broadcast from the capital of North Kerry’. The use of the ‘Radio Listowel’ moniker
demonstrated that the locals felt ignored and isolated from the wireless
broadcasts of Radio Eireann and that somehow their village was insignificant on
the airwaves. Up to the launch of the Athlone transmitter, listeners in Kerry
probably had a better chance of hearing an Irish voice on a powerful east coast
based US radio station rather than from Dublin. Once listeners tuned into
Athlone’s transmitter carrying programmes made in Dublin, the lack of a Kerry
accent, deemed by some Posts and Telegraph civil servants as not being
understandable for the regular listener, infuriated the Kerry natives, as many
letters to the local newspapers and radio review journals demonstrated.
These articles were
hugely popular not just in North Kerry but throughout the county but more
importantly when locals were referring to ‘the newcomers programme’ or ‘The Children’s
Hour’, they were referencing ‘Radio Listowel’ not the national station.
In one article in
September 1937 ‘Radio Listowel’ wrote,
‘Listeners,
I have to crave your pardon once again. Owing to telephonic communications
being disrupted during the recent snowfall and owing to the fact that Radio
Listowel is not long in being the main heads (headlines) are all that have
arrived here. I am in a quandary now as to what to do about it. I would not
wish to disappoint my unseen audience for millions, but I have no way out of
it. What shall I say to you to fill the news time?
‘Wireless
Pirate (butting in), ‘cannot you play them a record or something. As your news
items were de-tailed or perhaps ‘beheaded’. The very thing, a gramophone
recital. I shall now give my listeners a gramophone record.’
The writer continued,
‘This
is Radio Listowel Hallo, everybody! Continuing our weekly
programme from this station you shall now hear one of our latest
"record." You must welcome the gramophone when all other sources of
musical supply fail.’
When the author spoke of an
audience in the millions, it illustrates an already
apparent appetite for local radio and an understanding of the power of the
medium. He is also demonstrating that music radio is as important as the ‘talk’
radio of Radio Eireann. When the writer references a ‘wireless pirate’, he is
legitimatising illegal broadcasting as a way of delivering its message. Up to
that period ‘a wireless pirate’ was usually the term attached to those who
failed to purchase a radio receiving license but in this context the writer
would have been aware of the illegal broadcasts that emanated from Limerick and
Waterford cities in the mid-1930s. He was creating a perception that a ‘Radio
Listowel’, a local voice would be important to Listowel and it would entertain and
inform better than the State broadcaster.
There was a growing sense
of them and us, between those who listened to Radio Eireann and those who were
turned off by it. There was rarely a mention of Listowel on Radio Eireann and
this led to a feeling of isolation and abandonment. There was no immediate
coverage of local news and debate, the natives relying on the weekly newspaper
to bring after the fact news reports. In April 1937, the writer in referring to
recent boxing results,
‘The
Kerry Champion beat Radio Listowel in giving the results in the last issue. I
might also add that the ‘Kerry Champion’ in its issue of the week before beat
Radio Athlone by having news of an important appointment, that of the State
Solicitor, first.’
The ‘Radio Listowel’ newspaper
articles continued throughout World War Two and provided the belief that radio
could be more than just the sound of distant rumblings.
The logical next step for
a ‘Radio Listowel’ was more in line with the traditional sense of a radio
station that we know today, with regular programming coming from a radio studio,
yet the only piece of equipment not in use was a transmitter, which of course
would have made it illegal. For many locals a ‘Radio Listowel’ would fulfil a
growing need for the local community to be connected and to be genuinely proud
of their ‘station’. This new type of ‘Radio’ service was to be delivered through
a public address system. Loudspeakers were attached to telegraph poles and
wired back to a studio based in the town. For Listowel this unique solution to
local ‘broadcasting’ can be traced back to 1959, when the organisers of the
Harvest Festival in Kerry opened their first ‘Radio Listowel’. It ‘broadcast’
through a public address system from a studio located in the home of the
Kenneally family, who ran a local travel agency. Michael Kennelly was a prime
organiser of the festival, that coincided with the Listowel Races, which
attracted thousands of visitors to the town. Each year extra loudspeakers were
added to the town’s streets, financed by local advertising which was relayed
over the system. It was an immediate success and as the 1960s began, the
organisers extended the ‘broadcasting hours’ outside the Harvest Festival to
include Christmas, which of course allowed local businesses to advertise to the
locals shopping in the town. It created a unique atmosphere as shoppers walked
through the streets doing their Christmas shopping with music, requests and
local businesses advertising filling the air. ‘Radio Listowel’ also went on air
a couple of days before St. Patricks Day, mostly in support of the local public
houses who relished the opportunity to advertise their music promotions and
events.
In 1968, local newspapers
proudly reported,
‘With
the introduction of that unique and valuable possession
called "Radio Listowel," which on many occasions
relayed loving messages from parents to their children abroad, Listowel claimed
the honour of being the only town in Ireland with such a permanent apparatus.’
Despite the fact that the
station did not ‘broadcast’ and would not allow for ‘listeners’ from anywhere
outside the range of the loudspeakers, locals were still delivering requests to
the station’s studios to offer messages dedicated to their loved ones abroad.
In the 1950’s the county was afflicted, like much of Ireland, by widespread
immigration to the UK and the United States. It did not matter that these
relatives would never hear the dedications directly, those who missed their
absent family members heard it and these requests provided reassurance to them
at least that those who had left had not been forgotten. News of that request being
heard was often carried in a letter from neighbours that their names were heard
on the streets of their ancestral home. It provided a glimpse of the power of
radio to connect, there was a sense of connection and excitement by merely
approaching the station and having a request played and even if it was only
those who delivered the request, heard it, it did not detract from its
importance.
Throughout the sixties
and seventies, towns and villages across Ireland organised local festivals to
create an entertainment buzz, to attract visitors and business to their
festival. The organizing committees began to see value in the uniqueness of
having a radio station. Once the funds were allocated for the installation of a
loudspeaker system, the festival radio station was ready to go on air, creating
excitement and a sense of pride in their own broadcasts, programming and
hearing local voices and artistes entertaining both the locals and visitors to
the town. This generated goodwill and for the businesses hopefully repeat
business. No business wanted to miss the opportunity and the revenue generated
by the advertising was often reinvested in expanding or upgrading the
equipment. Local and regional newspapers highlighted these ‘radio’ stations and
seemed at ease that some of their advertising revenue would find another outlet.
The fact that these stations only lasted a short time on ‘air’ and that they
were quite localized in nature, newspapers did not see them as a threat. The
stations ‘broadcast’ to a town or village, while the newspapers covered a wider
catchment area from a county to a province.
These festivals ranged
from an accordion festival in Ardee, Co. Louth to the Wild Boar Festival in
Kanturk, Co. Cork, from the Brown Trout festival in Ballinrobe, Co. Mayo, to numerous
May Day festivals, Christmas shopping promotions and even a local Cheese
promotion in Charleville, County Cork. In the early seventies numerous festivals
stations like ‘Omagh Festival Radio’, Athlone’s and Carrick on Shannon’s
celebration of the River Shannon, Radio Loughshinny and Kilkenny Beer festival
radio were all ‘broadcast’ via a public address systems attached to poles in
the town or from speakers hung outside the festival office.
Following on from Radio
Listowel’s lead, the other great Kerry festival, Killorglin’s Puck Fair also
saw the town wired with loudspeakers to bring the locals the up to date news of
events in the town.
In August 1976, the ‘Kerryman’
newspaper reported,
"There
was a chance too for the visitors to ' Killorglin to hear themselves over Radio Killorglin. This
was a public address system set up throughout the town and hosted by resident
D.J. Declan Mangan. People were slow to come forward at first, said Declan,
"but, when they realised that they could be heard all over the town, quite
a queue formed’"
For many towns, the
loudspeakers were left in situ on the poles around the streets but they were
subject to damage from the weather and it became more and more expensive to
replace the speakers and the wiring as the extensions were added to cover wider
areas. There was a need for a cheaper alternative to maintain the interest and
the success of the wired radio stations.
There were many reasons
for the explosion of pirate radio in Ireland in the 1970's and 1980’s. Localism
as displayed by ‘Radio Listowel’ was one, another main reason was the increased
younger population, the children born in the late fifties and early sixties quickly
found that their musical tastes were not being catered for by the State
broadcaster RTE Radio. For listeners it was also hard to listen to radio when
it was not there because in the 1970’s RTE was hit by a number of workers
strikes, putting both radio and television off the air. From 1970 to 1978,
there had been more than a half dozen strikes that either curtained its transmissions
or on two occasions blacked out both radio and television for three weeks at a
time. This was particularly hard felt as there was only one radio and one
television channel for those with no access to broadcasts from the UK.
Mary Kenny writing in the
Irish Press on February 2nd, 1970 articulated
‘I
knew there was a strike on at R.T.E. because I found myself listening to The
Jimmy Young Show on B.B.C. Radio 2 in the mornings, smiling at his chuckly
quips and cuddly, presence and painstakingly taking down the abominable recipes
and wishing we had something as inoffensively yet cleverly cheerful.’
The star of one of RTE
television’s most popular TV shows ‘Quicksilver’, Bunny Carr, speaking at a
conference in Cork in 1970 said of local radio,
‘they
would be a cement that would keep local communities together by broadcasting
both national news and the good local news that would not make the national
headlines. Local people talking to local people on a local radio station makes very
good broadcasting’.
For the younger
generation desperate to hear some modern music, found themselves relegated to
45 minutes from Larry Gogan from 11pm, Monday to Friday and nothing at the
weekends. This was yet another opening for the advance of pirate radio to
deliver the content that the youth of Ireland wanted to hear. A demand created
the supply. But a huge amount of credit must be delivered to the corridors of
Montrose itself for the growth of
pirate radio. Dublin and the East Coast of Ireland was well served by overspill
radio broadcasts especially from Britain’s BBC Radio 1 and Radio Luxembourg but
as you travelled across the country these signals faded as did the choice for
pop broadcasts. Much of rural Ireland had no other choice other than RTE Radio
(previously known as 2RN) but in stepped RTE itself. Originally conceived as an
attempt to illustrate their ability to deliver local radio, RTE Community Radio
would launch in 1975 with Radio Liberties in the heart of Dublin, their first
port of call.
The concept, originally
credited to the then Director General of RTE George Waters, was to take a
mobile studio and a transmitter to towns and villages across Ireland, teach
locals how to present and produce local programmes for its limited transmission
times. This would be all powered through a low powered transmitter on a
frequency allocated to RTE by the European Broadcasting Union, 202m medium
wave. This medium wave frequency would later be augmented by a FM outlet.
Towns would organise a
‘radio committee’ and invite RTE to choose their town for the arrival of the
mobile station. For many years, the man tasked with being the go between with
RTE and the committee was Paddy O’Neill. Paddy was born near Skibbereen in
County Cork and after a brief career as a national schoolteacher he became
involved in the Abbey theatre from where in 1951 he joined Radio Eireann. At
the station he became a producer, one of his most influential roles as producer
of the popular Din Joe’s ‘Take the Floor’. Paddy was also a greyhound
enthusiastic both racing them and being involved in the organising of races.
Under the alias ‘Paddy O’Brien’ he became Radio Eireann’s greyhound racing
commentator later taking up the role of Chairman of Bord na gCon in 1983.
Paddy’s role with
advancing community radio meant that he travelled Ireland to make initial
contact with the radio committees, offer advice, training, and technical
know-how. The interest created in these towns and villages showed that there
was a demand for a local voice on the airwaves. The committees did not always
run smoothly as in 1991 when the Ballina Community Radio Committee was branded
'a snob job' by the Urban Council Chairman, Gerry Moore who led a high-powered
campaign to have the Committee broadened to one representing all the people of
Ballina. When the Committee input into the Local Radio experiment,
planned for Mayo during June, was set-up, the Urban Council, Trades Council,
and many other leading community groups were "snubbed",
said Cllr. Moore.
For younger people in
these rural areas, they were often excluded from these daily four-hour
broadcasts and there was certainly rarely room for modern music or local
recording artists. In 1978 the service was advertised as ‘carrying programmes that
will go out on the medium wave and items dealing with matters of health, sport,
history, music/drama, education, art, agriculture, planning and development,
family finance, youth, poetry/essays, Irish, quiz, as well as news,
will be covered’ no music for the youth of the community. They wanted to be
involved, they wanted to hear their voices, their concerns and their music and
while the ‘community radio committees’ set about organising for the arrival of
RTE’s mobile unit, the more astute set out to piggy back on the interest
created by the arrival.
It was perhaps apt that in May 1975, the Listowel Festival became only the second location for RTE’s
new mobile radio station after the Liberties in Dublin. It broadcast on 202m medium wave and
96.6mhz FM twice daily, from 12.30pm to 2pm and 6 to 7 pm in the evening.
Radio Listowel or Raidio Phobail Liostaí as it was known had travelled the journey
from a newspaper article to a wired loudspeaker system to its ultimate goal of becoming an
actual radio station serving the listeners of this small Kerry town.
Due both to demand and financial constraints,
the RTE mobile service rarely visited a location more than once. This left
festivals in a quandary, as the success of ‘local’ radio was evident once RTE
had moved on. From the mid-seventies. Festival committees, seeing the success
of the previous year’s broadcasts, set up a transmitter and began to broadcast
themselves. These micro stations included Radio Ceilteach in Falcarragh and
Radio Letterkenny Folk Festival both in Donegal. To cultivate that sense of importance
of a local radio station, the use of a fictional ‘Radio Letterkenny’ during the
popular pantomime ‘Dick Whittington’ staged during the 1955 festive season was
talked about long after the staging ended. Letterkenny was similar
to Listowel as they installed a public address system to ‘broadcast’ Radio
Letterkenny. The Donegal News reported in 1974,
‘During
the Festival an innovation was Radio Letterkenny, with
interviews, requests and records played over a public address system from the
Festival Office at Upper Main Street. This was arranged by committee member.
Alex O'Donnell, and in charge was D.J. Niall Anthony with Joe Deehan
interviewing people along the street.’
The Donegal Democrat in
the weeks after the festival signalled some of the flaws in limiting
transmissions to a wire and loudspeaker system. They reported,
‘Radio Letterkenny played
a big part during the recent Folk Festival, even if at times there were flashes
over the ether that could well have done with a bit of editing.’
The success of the public
address system during the festival was replicated for the following Christmas
season,
‘And
the Chamber hopes to introduce special Christmas street music. This will be
operated from Mr. Noel Crossan’s premises at Upper Main Street and be largely
on the system operated by the Festival Radio Letterkenny in
August. It will run from 2 until 5pm daily.’
The following year, Radio
Letterkenny ‘broadcast’ from studios located at ‘The Sound of Music’ record
shop on the Market Square with the newspapers reporting that the business owner
Mrs. May Herrity would act as the station disc jockey. In 1979, RTE’s mobile
service arrived in Letterkenny and removed the necessity for the loudspeaker
broadcasts. It was a tremendous success but in 1980, despite an invitation from
the organising committee, the mobile service was unable to return to the Letterkenny
festival. Instead of a loudspeaker system or a visit from RTE, Radio
Letterkenny for the Folk Festival went on air with a pirate transmitter
broadcasting on 192m medium wave. Unlike RTE, who departed the town once the
festival had finished, the pirate Radio Letterkenny remained on air to
entertain and inform the residents of the Donegal village. By 1981, Radio
Letterkenny had moved on from being just a festival radio station when it was reported,
‘Letterkenny Local
Radio, which has been on the air since November last, is now extending its
range from 4 miles to 12 miles on 252 Medium wave. They will be on the air from
9 a.m. to 6 p.m. from next week, not the usual 12 noon to 6 p.m., and hope to
expand their range to Derry very shortly. At the moment local radio can be
received on the South side of Derry on a mains radio with aerials. As the
station has no telephone as yet they have request boxes in Fitzgerald’s Music
Centre and hope that anyone with a request will avail of these.’
Radio Charleville in
County Cork was originally a location for a RTE mobile visit but when RTE were
unable to commit to a secondary visit, in subsequent years the local committee
received the assistance of the pirate radio station Big D Radio in Dublin to go
on air but in order to perhaps avoid scrutiny from the Department of Posts and
Telegraphs as they operated without a license, in 1978 the ‘committee pointed
out that this is festival radio not a pirate radio.’
In numerous towns, an official radio committee
was formed to coordinate the mobile service with RTE, but there was also an
‘unofficial radio committee’ working in the background. Transmitters were
procured, equipment sourced and DJ’s readied. In many towns and villages, they
waited patiently for the RTE van to arrive, do their thing and leave. Then
within hours or days of that departure the new pirate transmitter was turned
on, often on a frequency not far from RTE’s 202m location so that listeners
could easily find them. Financial considerations also played a vital role in
the creation of a pirate alternative to RTE’s mobile service. Despite its
ability to carry advertisements in its first couple of years, the RTE’s
Community Radio service carried no ads, it was funded by local donations and
business subscriptions, pirate radio would not have the same constraints and the
commercialism of radio would make money for those organising the swash buckling
operations to the detriment of revenue generation for Montrose. RTE had created
a monster.
Some of the pirate stations that found their way onto to air once RTE
departed, having created that desire and need for a local voice on the airwaves
included Claremorris Ham Fair Radio on 199m which was located in the town’s
Imperial Hotel. The station broadcast for the duration of the local Ham Fair
and was operated by Gerry Delaney, who would later be involved in the pirate
station Atlantic Radio. The Claremorris Ham Fair was launched in 1970 and to
promote the event Radio Claremorris went on air broadcasting in the morning for
two hours and in the evening for a further two hours initially using a
loudspeaker system in the town. In 1977 RTE’s mobile radio service took up the
baton and broadcast for the festival with more modern studio and technology but
when they could not commit to returning to promote the ever expanding festival,
the pirate radio station was set up.
In
September 1978, RTE mobile service visited the County Cork town of Fermoy for a
week of Community Radio Fermoy. Shortly after the mobile unit had moved onto
another location, the appetite for radio in the town was ignited. Some locals
including Jim Byrne and Oliver Tobin purchased a transmitter for £300 and
initially from a location above a pub on McCurtain Street Fermoy Radio was on
the air broadcasting on 208m medium wave. After six months the station moved to
Fred Daly’s house on St James Place. It was an instant success, staying on air every
day from 8am to 6pm. After three years on air, Fred Daly received a notice from
the council to close the station and after seeking legal advice Fermoy Radio
closed.
Big M broadcasting on 217mMW was set up with the assistance of Don Moore
from ARD in Dublin. Located above a man’s shop on Castle Street, the station
began broadcasting on November 23rd 1978. On that first broadcast,
the station who was located in an upstairs room, dropped a microphone out the
window on a long lead, so that locals on the street could be interviewed. One
of the primary backers of the station was the then Senator and music promoter
Donnie Cassidy. He was assisted by local man Paddy Fagan. The station closed in
the early eighties. Once again thanks to the interest created by the RTE mobile
station that was in the town in October, the pirate radio operation quickly
followed
Another station illustrating that this was affecting communities across
Ireland was Radio Carrick on 198m medium wave. In April 1980, RTE’s mobile
station had spent five days in the town of Carrick-on-Suir and it created a
buzz in the town that Gerry Gannon would tap into, and Radio Carrick went on
the air on August 1st 1980. The Munster Express newspaper reported
in May,
‘To
add further to the unqualified praise and congratulations which have been so
deservedly showered upon Community Radio Carrick. which
enthralled the people of the town and district in the week from Wednesday 30th
April to Tuesday 6th May, would be to gild the lily. Suffice to say that
organisers, presenters, participants and others who contributed in any way came
up trumps to prove once more the wealth of talent and organisation with which
this town abounds.’
RTE had created the need,
and pirate radio had satisfied it. In August, the same newspaper was reporting
on the new pirate station. It said,
‘Since Radio Carrick (199
metres, medium wave), came on the air two weeks ago, it has built
a wide audience and deservedly so for it is professionally organised
and presented. Congratulations and best wishes to all involved, notably G.
G. and may they
continue to entertain and enlighten us for many years ahead in their daily 12.
a.m. to 6 p.m. broadcasts.’
The RTE production unit and
staff had provided the training for the new breed of broadcaster. They proved that
there was a desire for local broadcasting with local news and voices and the
pirate station also pushed out the boundaries of broadcasting from the two, two
hour slots of RTE to a continuous six hours seven days a week providing
continuity of content.
In Tipperary, Radio Thurles on 230m was slightly different but its
arrival was caused by the interest generated at a community meeting in the town
when it was decided to approach RTE to visit the town with their community
stations. The small low powered station opened in 1978. The Radio Thurles studios
were in an abandoned building attached to a castle ruins in the town and to rub
salt into a wound, the station hijacked the station title Community Radio
Thurles when they heard that RTE’s mobile service would be in the town in
October 1979 forcing RTE to title itself Thurles Community Radio.
Having
opened the possibility of community local radio, RTE opened further
opportunities in 1979 when it was reported in the Connacht Sentinel that the
local stations would no longer be taking advertising thus denying local
businesses and avenue to promote their products and services. The newspaper
wrote,
‘Galway's Community Radio,
R.T.E.'s answer to local radio stations, begins broadcasting
next week and will score a notable first in the
history of radio broadcasting in Ireland. For it was
revealed yesterday that the Community Radio, which will
broadcast daily at 11.30 a.m. from May 7th to 12th, will be the first
non-commercial radio in the history of the state - with absolutely no
advertisements during broadcasting hours. And the lack of
advertisements from the broadcasting timetable means
that RTE will lose a considerable amount of revenue, last year the
advertising revenue on
Galway Community Radio realised £3,000, a sum which went
a considerable way towards offsetting the not inconsiderable
cost of putting Community Radio on.
The Reason for the ad free broadcasts is that the
advertising and sales department of RTE do not have the staff
available to canvass for advertisements locally in Galway. Yesterday the
P.R.O. for the Community Radio, Mr. Ray Raftery, said
that the committee was 'absolutely delighted' with RTE's decision
as it meant an extra 24 minutes per day broadcasting time. Said Mr. Raftery:
'While one appreciates that RTE have the right to recoup some of
their costs through advertising, the decision not to broadcast ads means
that we have more broadcasting time available to us.
'We
rang RTE recently to clarify the situation with advertisements
and we were told that the Radio would not be carrying
ads as the sales and advertising department were too busy with the
new RTE 2 radio and just could not spare the personnel to
canvass for advertisements locally in Galway.'
The
provision of the Community Radio service is seen
by many to be the first step in what is likely to be a long
drawn out battle between RTE and
Galway's local Pirate Radio, Independent Radio Galway
in the battle for listeners in the city. A recent survey undertaken by the
Commerce Department at UCG which was printed in 'Irish Business' magazine, estimated
that 86% of the population of the city listened to
Independent Radio Galway, over 90% of whom felt that
the pirates should be given a licence to operate legally.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Pirates said yesterday that
I.R.G. would be closing down during
the Community Radio's broadcasting hours and would advise its
listeners to tune in to the Community Radio. Said the
spokesman: 'The reason we began in the first place was
that we felt there was a crying need for a
local radio in Galway. We felt that RTE were falling
down on the job by not providing such a service so we decided to
go ahead ourselves. 'While we feel that a week during the year is no answer
to the problem we nonetheless don't see the point in the two stations
competing with one another so we decided to 'cry off during
the Community Radio airtime'.
RTE’s mobile service had
first visited Galway in 1977 and received widespread local newspaper coverage
as ‘Radio Galway’ took to the airwaves. The following year, the pirates were
broadcasting to the western city and to illustrate the marked difference
between what the State broadcaster was delivering and that of the illegal
broadcaster, the pirate was known as Independent Radio Galway.
The powerlessness of RTE
to satisfy all their listeners demands was outside much of their control but
because of this, sectors of Irish society adopted pirate radio as a means to
achieve their goals and further causes. While the main driver of the success of
pirate radio and the success of the so-called super pirates was the broadcasting
of pop/chart music, niche and cause orientated pirate stations replaced delivery
from the national broadcaster. In 1970,
Saor Raidio Chonnemara was set up in Galway to challenge the authorities to set
up a dedicated Irish language radio station, campaigners believing that RTE
failed to broadcast enough of the native tongue. In 1972, Raidio Na Gaeltachta
was officially launched in the Gaeltacht. This did not satisfy some campaigners
especially in Dublin who set up pirate station Radio na Phobail, to demand an
Irish language station for the capital. Other pirate stations launched to fill
the gaps left by RTE including local and community stations across the country,
religious broadcasters like the Irish Christian Broadcasting Service (ICBS),
country and western stations including TTTR, rock stations like Capital
Radio who provided to the then up and coming U2, easy listening like KLAS, local
news and even created a new genre with the broadcasting of death notices that
began on Radio Luimni in Limerick.
Pirate radio created employment,
a renewed enjoyment of the medium of radio, encouraged participation from the
general public, gave voice to minorities, encouraged diversity including accent
diversity, provided access to the airwaves and to training, provided platforms
for artists to achieve global success, it gave businesses an opportunity to
succeed with B2C advertising streams and paved the way for the current radio
landscape in Ireland.
Initially it was the lack
of financial resources that prevented Radio Eireann addressing a nationwide
audience but because the station was seen as insular to Dublin, local rural
committees created a voice and then found the means of connecting with their
audience. Local radio created a sense of local pride. By building their own
station, it allowed access to the airwaves for local residents and advertisers.
A pub in Listowel would find little benefit in advertising on Radio Eireann but
by narrowing that reach to Listowel, an advertisement on Radio Listowel was vitally
important. It was also important for every pub not to be outdone by another and
each publican ensured that they had a radio ad on air in attempt to attract
customers. Locals saw the benefit in having a ‘radio station’ and it gave them
a sense of power and they had felt abandoned by the national broadcaster. It
was never a realistic prospect that RTE could cater for the needs of every town
and village wishing to broadcast. The
radio committees believed that the use of a transmitter would deem a station
illegal and generate negative press publicity for the festival if it was raided
by the authorities. They employed a unique solution to get their station on
air.
It was however a step
backwards if you consider that wireless telegraphy replaced overland telegraph
lines but now at these festivals the wireless radio broadcasts were replaced by
wired or cabled broadcasts to a town. Just as access to radio receivers had
become cheaper and portable, the means of broadcasting, a transmitter also
became cheaper to make and it become mobile forcing the authorities into a game
of cat and mouse to close the local pirates. This once again replaced the wired
broadcasts with wireless broadcasts. There were huge local benefits in genuine
local community radio. The inability for RTE to cater for that local desire for
access to the airwaves, reducing that to the occasional visit of a short-term
mobile service, created the demand. Pirate radio eventually fulfilled that
demand with supply and it became the first building blocks to the radio
industry that was created by the 1988 new broadcasting landscape.
