Easy Music for Difficult Ears

0Yesterday afternoon was the last Access All Areas show presented by Edel Coffey on Phantom FM as the music journalist moves on to the Independent newspaper.

The show was something of a shining light in what is upon reflection a dreadful array of music shows on Irish radio and that includes some of the gash that is on Phantom FM – something which I have stated plenty of times before.

While many have rightfully had a go at Phantom for their poor representation of alternative music, Edel has often been one of the few to showcase Irish artists of any merit on the radio. The show is being taken over by Sinead Ni Mhordha who has been presenting the Phantom Anthems show up until now.
I wish Edel well and hope she’s as successful with the Independent as she has been on Phantom.

Current listening:
Harumi “Harumi”

Sweet,
Leigh

Fantastic,
Now that I’ve got a recent hassles off my chest, I can continue writing stuff. I spend a lot of my spare time listening to the radio – a truly fantastic and slightly nerdish past-time – aided by several pots of tea and digestive biscuits.
Over the years, I had listened to many an Irish station with a primary focus of Tom Dunne, Donal Dineen and Dave Fanning amongst others and while their shows are all quite good, I was always well aware that I was not being catered to. I’ve made my irritation with wacky DJ’s and soulless pop music apparent in previous posts and thus I quick to be turned by them, but that wasn’t it…

I’ve always wondered if a truly independent station possibly exist in Ireland (baring in mind independent means a station independent of commercial concerns as opposed to a station that plays just independent music – that’d just be plain silly)?
A licensed body, such as the BBC, and pirates preoccupy this particular threshold for the time being, but these havens are consistently under threat. There have been calls in recent years to remove the comfort of licence money from the Beeb’s radio stations as it is seen as unnecessary – in years past, you would have had to pay a licence fee to have a radio, this is no longer the case.

The removal of these funds – in essence forcing BBC Radio to become a commercial concern – would be disastrous for independent musicians. While stations like Radio 1 play the commercial radio game (pop hits and irritating DJ’s), it should be pointed out that many Irish artists get their first British radio play on stations such as 6Music – often via George Lamb, Steve Lamacq, Queens of Noize or Stuart Maconie’s Freakzone.
While not attracting huge numbers of listeners, these stations and shows often address the balance that commercial stations can’t and it is conceivable that should the BBC be forced into commercial situation, these stations would lose out very quickly as they simply do not have the audience pull on a national scale to be attractive to commercial bodies, yet as they currently exist they are most attractive to cultural bodies.

Pirates on the other hand face an entirely different problem. One of the main difficulties for pirate stations is their signal tend to be limited and even then, they would have to play the commercial game should they go legit. But more than that, pirates are been pushed quietly into extinction by podcasts as the possibility of presenting to a mass audience – even for those broadcasting from their bedroom – may be too hard to ignore.
Faster internet connections and speeds – which will get much faster within the next five years – will surely make pirate radio (in its present state) extinct.

I must admit that I am very biased here as I know for a fact that I will never be on the radio and anyone that tempts me with assurances otherwise is either a liar, a delusional person(ette) with dreams of publicised intellectual status or someone who is looking for favours (most likely the former with a touch of the latter...).
Much of the resentment towards commercial stations, from an independent musicians standpoint, stems from feelings of isolation – with many worthwhile artists left out in the cold, while the mundane, easy and the tacky triumph. Commercial radio seems to be shrouded in glitter and ticker-tape.
There is also an air of suspicion towards home-grown talent as pointed out by Paul Finn of the Flaws in a recent interview in Day and Night (Irish Independent’s Saturday Arts Magazine)

“…he (2FM spokesperson) said 2FM wasn’t there to promote Irish music. We did the 2FM Tomorrow Tour. We had a single out when we did that tour and we couldn’t get it played on 2FM. They were saying that they couldn’t playlist it because it wasn’t suitable for daytime listening. It’s pathetic — it’s a fucking radio station…”
(Day and Night, Irish Independent; February 16th 2007)

An important question is of course “is commercial radio relevant in today’s world?” and the answer is definitely yes. Radio stations oft speak to its own audience in a way that its rivals and independents do not. There is a corner for everyone to operate in – I just wish the same dozen artists weren’t shoved down our throats everyday.

So where does the future of radio broadcasting lie? I must admit it feels like I’m repeating myself here, but the internet has opened so many channels for artists. However a very interesting side-effect is that radio broadcasters themselves have found that they now foresee possibility’s of a much, much wider audience.
They idea of maximum audience figures within a certain area has been completely dismantled, because there is a realisation that stations can now broadcast to the entire world and penetrate areas that were unreachable only five years ago. Even I enjoy sitting down to jazz and folk shows on BBC Radio 3 and Radio Stoke, before switching to Phantom FM for Access All Areas and Donal Dineen’s show on Today FM!!

There will always be a call for commercial radio and pop(ular) music, but the downside will always be those shows/DJ’s that determine the only way to gain new listeners is to be more wacky and irritating than the next. If they’re not careful, we could find ourselves switching back to Gerry Ryan and maybe that’s the day we should throw the radio out of the window.

That’s all,
Leigh