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First They take NOdisco - Now Here Comes the night. Lets do something !
 national |
arts and media |
opinion/analysis
 Sunday April 04, 2004 15:45 by Conor - SAucd/Not relavant for this post conor at ziplip dot com
From this week coming, the only space for alternative tunes on the radio will be between 12am & 2am
As you may or may not have heard, TodayFM are cutting/Have cut Donal Dineen’s fabulous “Here Comes the Night” Show. The reason given (according to yesterdays Times) was that “the numbers didn’t add up” so predictably enough the commercial Station cut it.
I think it time we did something here on indymedia for slightly off centre culture in Ireland. JazzFM is on and off air like a yo-yo (ive given up on my analogue dial), other pirates seem to be shut down, the new licences have all been awarded to the more commercially orientated “PhantomFM” (surely the worst pirate since Jack Sparrow) “Spin1038”(98fm for kids) “Q102” (ditto), and Another country music station of sorts. We shouldn’t have to rely on unsupported pirates for radio anyhow!
For me, the cutting of “here comes the night” is the last straw. We obviously can’t rely on commercial stations to supply our ears with avant garde music, arts or media. “Radio Ireland” was set up under certain guidelines (if I remember), which im sure didn’t involve it employing 3rd rate, failed Irish Musicians to play “the Thrills” “Franz Ferdinand” and “Mic Christopher” all night every night. Regulation of the radio waves seems to go as far as “were under some financial pressure, so were going to revert to commercial pap”. I don’t remember where, or what the exact figures were, but TodayFM did seem to be making a lot of money for its investors the last time I checked.
So what about the stations we supposedly do control via our licence fee? What about RTE?
Around 2 years ago, its only credible music show (namely “NOdisco”) was cut, presumably for similar financial reasons. With RTE radio and Television1 overrun with Joe Duffy’s, Pat Kenny’s, poor current affairs and biased media (see other sections of this site), and 2fm/network 2 overrun with poor to worse imported sitcoms / dramas and mid-Atlantic dj’s, where is the “Public Service” output?
Are Gerry Ryan, Dave Fanning, and Larry Gogan REALLY doing anything to improve the quality of life, and cultural well being of the Irish “punter”. Is there ANYTHING on RTE that couldn’t be done on commercial Radio / Television? The age old argument of having to import programmes for the masses outside NTL/Cablelink land is surely dead with TV3 showing plenty of “Diagnosis Murder” “Coronation Street”, etc, and Today Fm / Local Radio playing plenty of Britney, Beyonce, etc. Anyone lucky enough to get BBC4 television, or digital radio will know how cheap, and fantastic the mediums of Radio and TV can actually be.
Shouldn’t we at least ask that a programme along the lines of Nodisco be shown twice a week on one of RTE’s stations, or maybe we could be daring enough to demand quality output along the lines of “here comes the night” for 3 hours a night, when were not either in clubs, or in bed?
This Kind of programming is very very cheap, epically alongside the kind of output RTE throws money into . No Disco was one man, a small studio, a cameraman, and some great music.
If anyone is interested in trying to do something about this, then please post here indicating support. I would be willing to put a reasonable amount of time into such a non authoritarian, non affiliated campaign. Please post all suggestions, or feel free to email me. I am not related to, or have any interest in any persons in the media. It just annoys me that each night my radio choice is mainstream music vs politics vs radio phone – ins. All because someone like John Mc Colgan isn’t making enough money, or RTE producers don’t look beyond the economics of their programmes.
Please also feel free to copy and post this on any related music forums.
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Comments (9 of 9)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9http://www.powerfm.org ?
i dunno if its going out over the dublin air waves
Is where it is at.
92.1 FM from Midnight Friday to midnight Sunday.
And available online all week.
What's that when it's at home??
that's bad news...not surprising though. better buy a computer and throw away my radio alarm clock
Alright Constance, haven't heard from you in a while!
Can i just add you also forgot to mention Pop on 3, hosted by former UCD Ents Officer and a fellow Ballinasloe'er Darragh Purcell. Yeah sure, he may have come across as being up his own arse but the music was far better than Leagues "i'm too f**king cool to smile" O'Toole's reign on No Disco.
Personally, I don't bother with Donal Dineen's show anymore as it's become very lo-fi in recent times. Back in the day though, watching the reactions of the old folks in turn watching him play Come to Daddy by Aphex Twin at my neighbours wedding was brillant!
But the scrapping of 'Here Comes the Night' is indicative of commercial stations main interest: profit. Because 'Here Comes The Night' generally has a small cult following rather than having mass appeal, big business is reluctant to spend its money on advertising cos there's f**k all listening to the show. For them, its not profitable.
Unfortunately, there ain't many pirate stations out there, and decent ones at that, as there were a few years back. Power FM is there alright, but it just don't cut the mustard in my opinion. Though i hate the word 'initiative', maybe its high time we in the underground fraternity took it and attempt to reclaim the music and set up an alternative sources for listening to music as is common in Britain.
Incidentally, if there are those amongst you repulsed at the idea of paying extortionate amounts of cash for booze and entry to a club this easter just to listen to the same auld sh*te, there are cheaper and more fun ways to celebrate the resurrection(!) in a more natural enviroment (I know of two raves happening this w'end). Just drop me an e-mail, with genuine name, and i'll let you know.
See y'all on the flip side!
There is still something worth listening to: R na G: 10pm - midnight, Monday-Saturday: easily the best programme on radio. No ads, 5 in a row, minimal chatter, international music, no english language songs, mostly instrumental, different themes each night (eg. Latin + Reggae, Dance - Sunday's best with gentle keyboard-based instrumentals).
Agreed Maestro, the show on R na G is very good, but I think it's a to their detriment they don't play music containing English lyrics. It's a lot like France at the moment, where radio stations have banned many accomplished French electro acts from the air because their music contains English lyrics.
This is something that shouldn't be applauded, it's just another form of cultural censorship. It's not all that different from from the censorship mainstream radio stations are enforcing at the moment in regard to left-field music.
havnt seen ya since we parted after the showroom dummies.
i just checked back this trhead, and since ive exams in a few weeks, and bar "phantom/power/rng are still good" comments , theres obviously no mass appeal for such an action : (
anyhow, ill be about this summer, and will be looking into what we can do about this. i fucking hate world music and phantom, but if thats what youre into, then it deserves a profit free space too.
more to follow.......
It's not about what you like, it's about whether you could find it or not, if you were an alien that fell to this planet (read: got borne) and needed to get into life here in Ireland.
If you've been to the US and have experienced commercial radio there, you'll know what I mean.
Ireland has never been a place where you could learn your place in the world from what is around you, the open-ness of "Here Comes The Night" is a relatively recent phenomenon which the elders among us could only have dreamt of.
Donal Dineen put a welcome mat out for those of us who needed to get in from the outside, equally for those of us who yearn to escape to the outside, and for that alone the man deserves a medal.