TO HEAR some people talk, you'd think the competition for RTE Radio starts and ends with the Riverdance crowd. This is the case only so far as the new national commercial station will be the first Century (at least) to come on market with the financial clout poach, say, Pat Kenny.
However, as the TAM reading folks in Donnybrook know, the competitors already in place may not be able to get hold of RTE's top talent - but they're more than capable of snatching an even more desirable commodity: its audiences. Indeed, the vitality of a big chunk of the local commercial stations in Ireland should give Moya Doherty and Co. pause for reflection.
Some Dublin readers - including the ones whose interests transcend (or ignore) pop music - may wonder what I'm on about. Notwithstanding the fact that the hottest thing wireless right now is Vincent Browne Tonight on 98FM (and overlooking for the moment the improving "community" services from Anna Livia and Dublin Weekend Radio), the capital's listeners have little cause to celebrate a genuine local provider.
On the other hand, Dubliners may have noticed country accents emanating from a taxi radio, or from the stereo in a garage, from the ghetto blaster in a shop. The fiercely competitive realm of local radio "down the country", though rooted in localities, is no respecter of boundaries, and it's finding favour even in the heart of the city.
You only have to hear, for example, the way Wicklow's East Coast Radio - and its advertisers - try to absorb south Co Dublin, or how the kingdom of Carlow Kildare's CKR actually stretches across Laois and north east to Tallaght, at a conservative reckoning. When the latter station's popular morning man, Christy Walsh, puts out a call for a second hand oven door for an Aga 5 range, he's reaching a lot of kitchens.
Such border incursions help to explain why what might have been regarded as handy little fiefdoms have actually met variable success. Last week a young man in the south midlands told me the stations he can easily tune into while in the car or tractor: RTE Radio 1, 2FM and RnaG/FM3 obviously; plus South East Radio, Radio Kilkenny, CKR, Midlands Radio 3, East Coast Radio, LMFM, Tipperary Mid West, Tipp FM, Shannonside, 98FM and FM104. That makes 14, including most of the commercial stations in the State.
Their formulae for ensnaring potentially fickle listeners all sound similar, after admittedly limited listening by day, country music and talk; and by night, hipper music and not so much talk. Demographically speaking, the challenge for Radio 1's audience sounds rather stronger than that for 2FM's.
One exception to the latter generalisation comes in a region where the competition is far thinner on the airwaves. Radio Kerry's John Drummey hosts a successful programme, Into the Night, that aggressively and successfully targets teenagers, complete with adolescent double entendres in the promo ("Who does it every Monday to Friday from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m.?"), sophomoric humour ("Coming up, the news headlines will give us the latest from that big FAI meeting, so I guess all the farmers will be listening - oh, sorry, that's the IFA") and blatantly "courtin'" music from 11 p.m. to midnight. As it happens, Drummey also plays pretty good music, apart from that sappy hour, and goes all sensitive at 11.30 each night with some tinkly piano music and a "Dear John" letter from a listener. The fact that he is apparently able with little difficulty to pull five confessional letters a week out of the mailbag testifies to the show's popularity; it also means first hand tales of teen traumas get an airing without excess adult mediation.
The Talk Shop on Midlands Radio 3, on the other hand, offered a good example last week of the deadliness of "expertise". A potentially good chat about food cravings and aversions in pregnancy was nearly killed by having a woman from the health board in studio (yes, at least it was a woman) to inform callers solemnly that, no, your baby's red face was not caused by all the beetroot you ate; and no, actually, cravings for coal and starch are very, very rare; and yes, perhaps this phenomenon may be caused by something hormonal ("hormones are very active during pregnancy", seemingly) but no one really knows.
Mind you, half the vox pops played seemed to involve the woman in the street saying she'd never had cravings - and in one case, she'd never been pregnant! - so you can't trust the punters for a bit of fun either.
