Through absolutely no efforts on my part, this column was happily denied the dreaded end-of-year assignment, chockful of top and bottom 10s and grander reflections on the stuff of 1997. No, this Christmas season came and went with no rifling of files, followed by no straining for witty summaries and no need to rent a high horse. So far, fingers crossed, I haven't even been asked to dust down the crystal ball for visions of 1998. Still, while I have a quiet moment here, perhaps it is appropriate to reflect on what for a few thousand listeners and a dwindling band of employees was the big Irish radio story of the year. Oh yes, another column about Radio Ireland.
The subject has particular significance, even poignancy, this week. By the time this column appears again (next Tuesday, please God), Radio Ireland will be no more. In its place, at various points between 100 and 102 on the dial, will be something called Today FM. From what we can gather, Radio Janus would be a more suitable moniker for this split-personality radio, the visages of which have been clearly taking shape for several months.
Having struggled with the character and quality of the daytime schedule, the station's execs have decided that if they're going to broadcast rubbish, at least they should do so with the intention of broadcasting rubbish. Face one, from sun-up, plays lousy music and is rather Ginger-headed.
Then, every weekday at 5 p.m. the station will turn its second face to the world. It's a familiar one: the Radio Ireland combination of Eamon Dunphy, John Kelly and Donal Dineen, a critical if not a ratings success, remains intact. So for two hours we'll hear wide-ranging, often intriguing and occasionally funny talk radio, followed by six hours of some of the best music on the air.
That continues to target the audience that chairman John McColgan at Radio Ireland's press launch called "people like the people in this room" - urban, affluent, youngish, educated, mostly male.
The original Radio Ireland schedule also went after them from 7 a.m. to 9.30 a.m. (Daybreak) and 12 noon to 2 p.m. (Entertainment Today). However, by now McColgan and company, with the help of Chris Evans's team from Ginger Productions, have evidently concluded that those AB1s - in marketing lingo - either don't listen to daytime radio or won't be pried away from other stations. Indeed, they probably won't listen to the evening programmes in any great numbers either, but as the hours wear on, radio stations that target adult listeners don't expect to rake in advertising revenue anyway. Here, other considerations come into play, and the prestige that comes with employing broadcasters like Dunphy, Kelly and Dineen must surely count for something in this small society. So those heavyweights stay, even at the risk of making Today FM unrecognisable on either side of the 5 p.m. divide. By day dangles the promise of the dial-spinning housewife. This character from a marketing textbook gets bored easily, and the stuff that keeps her even marginally attentive is light music and snappy, lighter talk. Somewhat confusingly, she too figured in the original Radio Ireland output, but the station's commitment to her was half-hearted. After all, if she switched on and heard Emily O'Reilly or some arty interview rather than a Phil Collins tune, this flighty creature might never return. The hope is that in the crucial Dublin region, FM104 and 98FM are gone too wild for this highly domesticated listener. Nonetheless, those stations are the competition, and the fact that their transmitters now carry them right across Leinster worries the Radio Ireland/Today FM team.
It needn't worry most of the people who read this column, unlikely to be Today FM's daytime listeners. It certainly won't worry RTE Radio 1, which - whatever the strains of its present changes - at least recognises a very different sort of woman (and man) in the home, one who doesn't need patronising prattle. But it all leaves a bad taste - not least because through our regulator, the IRTC, the public has had to rubber-stamp this development, as if it had something to do with providing an alternative national radio service.
