Out of tune with listeners who want value for money

RADIO has always been something close to my heart going back many moons when I bought a Playmate transistor radio after receiving my first pay cheque from DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) in Ballybrit.

There was – and still is – a great thrill from tuning into different stations and many’s the late hour between tiredness and the arrival of The Sandman was spent in listening to Radio 1 and the BBC World Service that broadcast through the night.

The melody of Terry Wogan’s Floral Dance on his BBC Radio morning slot still floats around in a little memory cavern of my brain while there’s a lovely nugget of innocence in memories of Din Joe (Take the Floor), who introduced dancing to radio listeners. Mad yes . . . but funny to the point of laughter convulsions.

I remember also, as a young boy, being put on housekeeping duties on the last Saturday of July in 1966, and tuning in the old Philips radio to the famous BBC commentary of England’s 4-2 World Cup success and that famous line from commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme as England hung onto a 3-2 lead in the dying seconds. "Some people are on the pitch. They think it's all over. It is now," he quipped as Geoff Hurst completed his hat-trick.

During teenage years there was also a great thrill to listening to Radio Luxembourg and I have a memory too of Radio Caroline, broadcast from a ship on the high seas, in order to avoid the legal clutches of Governments not keen on the idea of unregulated radio stations.

The great ‘gift’ of radio is that you go about your business and still keep in touch with your music and local news. Over recent decades, the licensing of local stations has also revolutionised the whole business of radio, giving air time to the local club or community on a regular basis.

There’s a diversity now in radio that’s huge from the State broadcaster to independent national channels, and of course the local stations, whose niche in the market lies with their ability to tune into the goings-on of little towns and parishes all over their own county.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.