Fact File
Name: Chris Barry or Ciaran Gaffney
Born: Dublin, 1961.
Why in the news: He is the subject of legal action over his contract between two radio stations.
Least Likely to Say: I say, that's a bit extreme.
Most Likely to Say: I will not hear a word against taxi-drivers.
It might seem like sheer madness to hand over money to lawyers in a fight over a late-night phone-in show host, but that is exactly what took place in the High Court this week as two Dublin stations, FM 104 and Classic Hits 98 FM, fought to get hold of Chris Barry. The court lifted an injunction, a decision which FM 104 is to appeal to try to stop Barry going to 98 FM. The chief executive of FM 104, Mr Dermot Hanrahan, has claimed that his station has a contract with Barry until 1999 and sought an injunction stopping him from hosting a new show on the rival station.
Why Barry, whose real name is Ciaran Gaffney, excites such passions in radioland is clear when you look at the listenership figures. Barry is the king of late-night radio. He attracts about 44,000 listeners every night. Sometimes that can rise to over 50,000.
Compare that to his rivals, and it becomes clear why FM 104 wanted either to retain him or at least keep him off a rival microphone.
Barry says he was not headhunted. He left FM 104 because he wanted a different arrangement, with more back-up. He says he left last December without a job to go to and that it was only when 98 FM offered him a late-night slot a month ago that FM 104 took legal action.
While Chris Barry was talking to the students, taxi-drivers and workers in late-night food joints in the Dublin area, only between 12,000 and 15,000 were tuning into RTE Radio 1. More significantly, 98 FM had about 11,000 listeners and 2FM 7,000.
Chris Barry has been part of FM 104 since 1989 when it was known as Capital Radio. His first show was at 2 a.m. The station bosses might have been terrified of getting into trouble and libel; they might have known little of news and current affairs, but Chris Barry had two factors going for him: he helped Capital fulfil its legal requirement of 20 per cent news and current affairs, and the show was cheap.
Ciaran Gaffney was born in 1961 in Blackrock. His father was a property dealer, who died when Ciaran was only six. He is the youngest of six. The family later moved to Rathmines and he went to school at the now defunct Dalton School in Leinster Road.
He says he always wanted to be in radio and made a transmitter as a child to broadcast all over the house. As a teenager he did a six-month stint with RTE as a presenter of a youth TV show called Our Times. By all accounts, he did not enjoy it.
He worked for two years with Radio Nova, the pirate station that was a sort of radio academy. Among those who worked for it were Brian Dobson, Ken Hammond and Anne Cassin of RTE and Dave Harvey of Crimeline.
It was at Nova that his name was changed. Chris Carey, the owner of Nova, did not think Ciaran Gaffney was memorable enough.
While the name change was not his idea, it now suits his preference for privacy. Two years ago FM 104 ran a poster advertising campaign using pictures of its presenters and DJs. The picture for the Chris Barry show was of a model, not of Barry. He spent four years working for Riviera 104, the English-language section of Radio Monte Carlo. Hardly surprisingly, he still speaks of it as the best four years of his life.
He did, however, return to Ireland when he was offered a job with Capital at the start of independent commercial local radio - Capital was the first commercial station on the air.
In time, Capital, which later became Rock 104 and them FM 104, became bolder and moved the Chris Barry Phone Show to its 10 p.m. slot.
Since then it has become required listening for thousands of teenagers sitting in their bedrooms doing their homework. The night workers and taxidrivers and other late-night people are also part of Barry's phone fodder.
Barry's style tends towards one of the lads, and if he has an opinion, it is safe enough. That said, the show has never been afraid to push out the envelope. There was the "Little General", as the tabloids dubbed him, the "joyrider" who phoned Barry while being chased by a Garda car as he drove a stolen BMW. He gave a complete commentary live on radio. The week after the shooting of Veronica Guerin hundreds of people phoned in expressing their shock and sorrow. He has interviewed criminals and their associates.
He varies the programme with live reports. He has had reporters at the end of a mobile phone in the middle of riots. Anything happening in the city he covers.
His show has always been an oddball space in an otherwise bland radio environment. He has never been politically correct, nor has his audience. He does play some music. He even played a Vera Lynn track as a small protest at the playlist concept.
Chris Barry has been with FM 104 throughout its chequered history. The station was for many years trailing behind its rivals as the weakest in Dublin. However, recent changes in its music policy and programme areas pushed it ahead of the other stations.
For 98 FM the problem has been that it has never found anyone to compete with Barry since Father Michael Cleary hosted a phone-in show. Then the audience was divided and in effect cancelled each other out. Today Chris Barry has attracted the whole available audience. He has been part of FM 104's success as a station that is slightly different, with a zany edge and a little less predictable than 98 FM, with its classic hits format.
The problem is that the battle of the airwaves is fought over small numbers. FM 104 is in the lead, reaching 28 per cent of the Dublin audience. However, 2FM is not far behind, with 26 per cent, and 98 FM at 22 per cent.
Music radio competes in two areas, the heavily researched music playlists and the personalities of presenters on breakfast radio and, increasingly, latenight talk radio. Many working in radio will be paying a lot of attention to the Chris Barry case, if only to see how binding are their own contracts in the increasingly competitive radio world.