Radio review: Dave Fanning struggles in stopgap summer schedule job

It seems like a classic RTÉ solution to an RTÉ problem. Faced with a vacancy in the key Radio 1 slot left by the departing John Murray, the network hierarchy brings in a 2FM presenter out of synch with that station’s newly youthful atmosphere. Then, realising the newly recruited Ryan Tubridy is away for the summer, the network searches hard for a replacement and brings in another 2FM presenter out of synch with that station’s newly youthful atmosphere.

Everything about Mornings with Dave Fanning (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) feels so offhand that it's a wonder they didn't go the whole hog and call it "Summer Stopgap". The veteran 2FM presenter is at times unable to stifle his ennui with the topics under discussion, while remaining tone deaf to the sensibilities of his temporary new home.

Talking to television producer Bill Hughes on Tuesday about his food history series Lords and Ladles, Fanning gets the name of the show wrong, gives a mock yawn at its premise and then predicts that because "this is Radio 1", he will be inundated with complaints about his "philistine" attitude. The next day, closing his interview with Niall McDonagh, a Galway seminarian working with teens in New York's gang world, Fanning is still in 2FM mode, signing off as though wishing a new band good luck in their career. "Onwards and upwards, enjoy the Bronx, enjoy New York," he says jauntily. "We'll be following your progress."

None of this bodes well, but Fanning’s encounters with Hughes and McDonagh are pretty arresting. The main reason for Hughes’s appearance is to highlight the rise in HIV rates among young people, gay and straight, due to unprotected sex. It’s a development Hughes is alarmed and indeed angry about, as he remembers how “Aids wiped out my peer group” in the 1980s and asks, in exasperated tones, “Wearing a condom, what is the big deal?”

Hughes also lists other sexual diseases on the rise. “Chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis.Nobody’s talking about them, because it’s not nice. Of course it’s not nice,” he says.

It sure isn’t, particularly for those having a late breakfast. But Hughes’s fervour is bracing. Fanning’s style – genial, irreverent, slightly gormless – prevents mawkish or preachy excesses, as his guest talks about everything from his recent health woes to how he came out as a teenager in the less tolerant 1970s.

It’s a measure as to how much things have changed since then that the story of a young man turning to religion and the priesthood should now merit a slot on national radio. But Fanning’s interview with McDonagh has all the right ingredients for captivating daytime radio – family tragedy, in the form of suicide and serious injury, followed by simple and traditional redemption, as McDonagh finds meaning among pilgrims on a trip to Medjugorje.

“Everything I was looking for was right there in that church,” he says. Subsequently, he does missionary work in the slums of Rio de Janeiro before moving to New York, where he is about to enter a seminary.

Fanning is impressed with his guest’s achievements, but can’t mask his wider scepticism. Recounting how his niece was killed by a drunk driver, the presenter’s voice hardens: “I’d like to meet this God person who some people say could have prevented that. I’d have a few words to say.”

There are times during the inaugural edition of The Colette Fitzpatrick Show (Newstalk, Sunday) when the host's television pedigree shines through, to at times jarring effect. Having long presented a TV3 chat show, Fitzpatrick has a taste for the kind of glib soundbites more suited to holding the attention of viewers before important messages from the sponsors. Talking about the impact of inadequate childcare on women's working lives, she muses that "women can't have it all, or can't have it all at the same time". Flagging an item on a new exercise craze, she says: "Coming up – is strong the new skinny?"

Such snappy phrases aren't the only thing Fitzpatrick has taken from her television incarnation. Though her show isn't explicitly tagged as a women's interest programme, as with her television programme, its target audience is clear from its content. As Newstalk gives over six hours of its Sunday schedule to the decidedly male-skewed sports show Off The Ball, this might seem only fair. But given the conspicuous dearth of women in the Newstalk schedule, there's a whiff of tokenism about the whole thing, as though a female presenter can only be entrusted to talk about women's issues. (Fitzpatrick also had a heated argument about women's rights with her new station colleague George Hook on TV3 this week, suggesting she's unlikely to be on his radio show any time soon.)

For all that, however, Fitzpatrick helms a decent show, starting with a lively debate on the childcare issue. Journalist Bebhinn Byrne feels women are less actively discriminated against than held back by empathetic instincts that see them assume the burden of rearing children: “It’s less a glass ceiling than a sticky floor,” Byrne quips, trumping the host on the soundbite front.

Fitzpatrick brings a keen eye to apparently soft-focus items. In an otherwise chirpy interview with Rose Of Tralee Maria Walsh, the host notes she has never seen fuller- figured women in an event meant to be more than a beauty pageant.

She also notes that her guest being a pioneer is probably a bigger story these days than Walsh being gay. Truly, Ireland has come a long way. At this rate, Newstalk may even allow a woman to host her own daily show.

Moment Of The Week: Myers shows mail bias

On The Pat Kenny Show (Newstalk, weekdays), columnist Kevin Myers appears to decry the effectiveness of the new eircode postal system, but cannot help taking aim at another bugbear. He harrumphs that he’s “going to use the term ‘postman’” because most of those delivering the post are male. Kenny then adds his terminology will also “stick with the male”. You’d swear these men were gagged by pesky feminists, rather than opining loudly on national radio. Talk about a mail bias.