Friday, January 12, 2007

2FM dropping 1970's line-up?

Looks like RTE management are once again trying to drag their music station 2FM into the modern era. Less than a year and a half ago RTE dumped Ruth Scott and Rick O'Shea from the morning slot, replacing them with old reliable Marty Whelan. This was particularly unfair in my opinion since Ruth and Rick had only been given 5 months in the show and had been doing a good job and had great potential. They were young, interesting and tried to bring new things to RTE like blogging. Marty on the other hand was stuck in so far in the past, the Hubble Space Telescope couldn't find his origins. That drove me away from 2FM and over to Eamon Dunphy on Newstalk 106. Dunphy may have been as old as Marty, but he was entertaining, when he wasnt on holidays. Marty was a throw back to an era when 2FM was a success, though it wasnt difficult since there were only two stations in Ireland, Radio One and Radio Two, as 2FM used to be called. 2FM were basically telling everyone born after 1969 that the national broadcaster didnt really need them as listeners.

Now it appears that RTE has woken up, smelt the mothballs and gagged, coughing out Marty and a bunch of other old timers, sending them to Radio 1, weekend slots or back to the retirement home. No disrespect to them. they may have been good, there is no denying that, and some of them were still good but while they were the headline presenters 2FM could have no future and would continue to bleed listeners.

The first of the changes is that Rick is moving to a new slot, 2pm to 5pm. Congratulations to him, I think that's a promotion, an improvement in profile anyway, at least it means I'll be able to listen to him. Up to now his slot clashed with the sports show on Newstalk (sorry Rick :-) ). But the big news is that it looks like 2FM have pulled off a major coup and poached the presenters of FM104s Strawberry Alarm Clock. Thats good because I was looking for something new to listen to in the mornings, I'd even been thinking of switching to FM104 just for that show. I'm sure there will be more changes, this sounds like a big shift in focus for the station.

Could RTE finally be about to spend some of the license fee on something entertaining? Fingers crossed.

[Update: Rick O'Shea has the updated line up for the weekday schedule on his blog, also it's interesting to see that people had been having a go at him for being happy about getting a better time slot. You would think that most people who were true fans of his show would be happy to see him getting ahead in the business.]

1 comment:

-Ann said...

What about Jenny Huston? I find her so much better than Ruth Scott, but poor Jenny seems to be relegated to Saturday evenings, late at night, and anytime someone is on vacation.

Peter and I figure she is like the most underappreciated DJ in the place - that everyone treats her like the spinster aunt who is preceived to have nothing better to do than all the crap work. "Oh, sure, Jenny can do your slot. She's no life."