Earlier this year, the Independent Radio and Television Commission (IRTC) looked closely at the Dublin radio market - at the listeners who were complaining about lack of choice; at the advertisers who were looking for new media outlets to sell their wares; at the unlicensed "pirate" stations, many of them playing dance music, which were continuing to attract big audiences. In its wisdom, the IRTC decided that one of the things the capital needed was a "youth-oriented, music-driven" radio service. The commission then solved the first puzzle that arose by defining youth as ages 15 to 34 - perhaps reflecting the (middle) age of the commission members.
It's a very broad definition. After all, you could well have a 15-year-old with 34-year-old parents - and how many people do you know who want to listen to the same kind of music as their parents? When seven applicants made detailed submissions to the IRTC, it was clear that the younger half of that age bracket, including teenagers, was the audience that the broadcasters and advertisers were most interested in picking off. Applicants with strong music-industry connections - including U2's guitarist, The Edge; U2's manager, Paul McGuinness; and U2's accountant, Ossie Kilkenny - were clear that this audience was under-served, and that the musicians that young people like would benefit from the extra airplay. What music did the audience want to hear? Surveys said dance, with some pop and rock. What didn't these young listeners want to hear? Country, easy listening, jazz, classical. Teenagers would be crucial listeners. They listen to the radio for an average of two hours a day - especially in the evening when the rest of the family may be in front of the telly.
After public hearings, the applicant that won the youth licence was Spin FM - "Get ready to Spin", the IRTC was told. With Ossie Kilkenny as its chairman, Spin emphasised that the young women on its team (including chief executive Maria Mahon and programme controller Siona Ryan) didn't just know about this audience and its fashionable urban lifestyle. They were part of it.
"It's a transient market," Mahon said. "It's absolutely essential we employ people who are of that market."
That transience of fashion and taste means that Spin, which is due to come on air on February 1st, can't promise it will always play a specific kind of music. Trance had been the main musical trend of this year, Ryan said - "but by the time winter hits, trance is going to be over and R&B is going to be the big thing".
She cited the current popularity of dance music, broadly defined: of the current top-20 records in Dublin, she said, seven were dance, but none of these were playlisted on existing stations. However, she noted, "Dance may not be here in 10 years' time, but the listeners will still be here."
"We know what the audience want to hear," said Spin's marketing manager, Nuala Canning. "But more importantly we know what they want to be identified with."
That means Spin is likely to market itself aggressively as a fashionable product in itself, the place for young Dubliners to tune in and find out about what's trendy in clubs, gigs - and of course, records, clothes, mobile phones and other consumer products. This audience "has its diaries set by fly-posters", Kilkenny said. Spin would aim to supplement this source, at least.
"We'll be incorporating the Internet into everything we do," Mahon said. The station's website will be promoted on air, and listeners will be able to comment through a "Feedback File" on the site.
The rules of the IRTC insist that every station has to broadcast 20 per cent news and current affairs - even a music station like Spin. But Spin's head of news, Breda Brown, told the commission that there would be just two minutes of news every half-hour; young listeners, she said, "don't want to get bogged down in unnecessary detail. Or if they do, they can check out the details on the Spin website."
But while Spin FM will be presenting itself as something new, young and different, it is intimately connected to existing media and entertainment organisations. Radio 2000, the company which operates Dublin's 98FM, owns about a quarter of the shares in the station. The Ministry of Sound is also involved in Spin. Ironically, the station that at the moment wins most of the capital's young listeners, FM104, was involved in a rival bid for the youth licence. Now that Spin has won it, we can expect fierce competition for young listeners, teenagers included, come next February.
