THIS being the private Sector and all, it's only right that Radio Ireland should be subject to a quarterly review - even if, as listening figures apparently suggest, 80 or 90 per cent of readers don't know what I'm on about.
It's three months today since the station's Paddy's Day launch, and its directors have been ahead of this column in reviewing the situation. Last week they brought down the axe on Philip Boucher Hayes without letting us hear any coherent alternative to the way he'd been conducting Entertainment Today. With new host Paul Power, it's well, it's nothing. Just another lightweight music show, complete with "walks down Memory Lane". Let's hope other problems are resolved more constructively.
Is there any need to panic? Well, the good news is that Radio Ireland is audibly struggling in only one time period. But the bad news is that the period lasts nearly eight hours a day, five days a week. And no, it's not after midnight.
From the crucial midmorning slot to 5 p.m., Radio Ireland says bye bye to listeners and advertisers for reasons this column has previously addressed. The managers know one solution: dangle money in front of Gerry Ryan.
Good idea, that - Ryan may seem like an annoying, know all git (I liked his confident assertion one day last week that "after all, western Europe is where civilisation began"), but he is a wonderful broadcaster who would effortlessly carry a huge morning audience to Radio Ireland. But it is safe to assume that said money has been dangling for longer than the last few weeks, and still we hear no nibbles.
At least Ryan would provide instant character. Last week's revised Entertainment Today suggests another strategy to boost ratings: listeners might happen upon the station at random and, finding it inoffensive, stray no further.
Radio Ireland was always out to attract radio listeners, not radio lovers. The latter category (you know who you are) enjoy drama, documentaries, comedy, interesting features the odd bit of audio art; they (we) are a tiny minority, whatever the IRTC might say. Radio listeners want music, with a bit of light chat, some news and maybe a phone in show for night owls.
The only question that really troubles programmers at most commercially oriented radio stations the world over is: what sort of music do the listeners want? After a cautious first week or so, Radio Ireland tried out the hypothesis that its audience was prepared to be flattered about its taste and knowledge, that Ms Thirty something would love to hear the songs that just her and a couple of her cool friends liked in school, as opposed to the ones that were played at all the dances; she might even dig some hip new sounds.
As far as I can discern, panic has also sent that idea scurrying, and the daytime play list, while better than Pat Kenny's, is virtually Classic Hits (spit). Flattery is reserved for evenings and weekends.
Now, John Kelly (Monday to Friday, 7 to 9.30 p.m., don't miss him) can flatter me any time. The stuff at the station's launch about his programme dealing with educational issues, etc, was nonsense, but The Eclectic Ballroom should be on a syllabus for all the snobs who disdain late 20th century popular music and haven't copped on to the glories of American culture. Donal Dineen's Here Comes the Night (10.30 p.m. to 1 a.m.) is hipper, and by definition more ephemeral. But it, too, is very, very good. It's understandable that the station wants rid of the hour long gap between these two brilliant DJs, but it will be a shame to lose The Sessions, a programme that specialises in a different genre each night of the week. Amid all the refugee talk on the radio, it did the heart good last Tuesday to hear, on national airwaves, Fachtna O Ceallaigh dedicate some reggae to some particular, named central Africans in Dublin.
Radio Ireland has other things of which to be proud. Its sports coverage is intelligent and, even with fewer resources and less access, makes some effort to compete with RTE on big events like Sunday's Dublin vs. Meath match.
News is another story. It started cheap, and sounds cheaper by the week. And the shortstaffing leaves promising programmes such as Daybreak and The Last Word sounding thin and housebound, in spite of the very real talents of its presenters. The likes of Emily O'Reilly and Eamon Dunphy meant Radio Ireland had a rather good election, but not all current affairs material is so suited to studio chitchat.
Dunphy, it must be said, has shown unearthly grace under fire from this space, so I'll repeat: in spite of his flaws, he is a real radio star.
However, any "personality" likely to get carried away by the apparent influence of independent radio should look to the fate of Christy Walsh. Formerly the much talked about morning man on midland station CKR, in Kildare South the bould Christy earned the lowest vote - by a huge margin - of any Fianna Fail candidate in the State. If he'd had only 662 "go on, Christy" fans in the constituency, the station would have dropped him ages ago; but that's exactly how many who could be bothered giving him a first preference. I wonder how many Eamon would garner?
