There was optimism abroad when the State's latest nationwide radio station, Lyric FM, was launched at the weekend. Ms Sile de Valera, the minister responsible for the arts, expressed the hope that there would be much that is novel and experimental in the programme schedules and that the service "will foster new Irish creative and performing talent". It may just do that but if it does it will be unique. The trend in radio in this State is towards sameness and safety. It has turned away from innovation in search of revenue maximisation. Lyric FM will do broadcasting a considerable service if it displays the courage to reverse the trend.
Lyric FM has taken to the air sooner than many had anticipated and it has recruited persons of proven ability, such as Seamus Crimmins and Eamonn Lawlor. But, to succeed in keeping above the bland, Lyric FM will have to display a boldness in planning and programming that may be inimical to commercial priorities and somewhat of a stranger in the corridors of RTE.
Purists will be disappointed - and justifiably so - that RTE has deemed it desirable to run advertising on the station. The terms of RTE's proposal two years ago, stated that "it is envisaged that the channel would be free of advertising". Instead, it will be seeking advertising revenue running to 50 per cent of its funding allocation from Montrose. RTE will ensure that Lyric FM gets the revenue, whatever its listenership figures, through offering special discounts to regular advertisers on its Radio One and 2FM stations. Is there no limit to RTE's desire to deny its commercial rivals much-needed advertising income?
Lyric FM, as Ms de Valera reminded us, is meant to be an arts and music station, dedicated to offering arts and cultural programming. But the schedules, as announced last month, exhibit a disregard for the arts which verges on the total. Who decided that Lyric FM should instead become basically a middle-of-the-road classical music station reliant on a computer-dependent playlist system that would not be out of place on the most commercial pop stations? It is essential that Lyric FM be more than just a carbon copy of Classic FM and that it encourages vigorously Irish composition and concert music at its best and tasks its presenters to pursue individualism and originality.
The detractors of radio are wrong; it is not a medium which is out of its time. It offers low cost-of-entry and accessibility. It can be exciting and vital and it has the potential to reclaim lost listeners while the visual media combatants tear pieces out of each other. A month ago the IRTC received more than 100 expressions of interest in the provision of new stations. But the IRTC has surrendered to the fallacious notion that popular equals quality. Daytime radio is abandoning minority interests. In addition, it would seem to have been decided that children must not be drawn to their transistors for anything other than pop music.
The responsibility falls on the dual-funded RTE. It behoves the public broadcaster to lift the reputation of radio in this State - starting with Lyric FM.