Radio_in_Ireland

Cork Studio Opens: 26 April 1927 The service expanded in 1927 when a 1kw sister station, 6CK, was opened in Cork under the direction of Seán Neeson. The station was opened on 26 April by J.J. Walsh, Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. It was first located in the former Women's Gaol in Sunday's Well which now houses "The Radio Museum Experience". 6CK remained on air until 1930. 2RN Programming Schedules: Example from 1926 This is an example of "Tuairisc an Bhollscaire", the announcer's report of programmes as broadcast. The report listed timings of items, copyright details and any incidents or interruptions to the broadcast programme. Beginning at 7.30 pm each evening, listeners were given a "tuning note", generally a steady tone to enable them to "tune in" their valve receiver or crystal set properly. All broadcasts from 2RN were live, so artists had to remain at the station for long periods. Note here for example, that Miss Doran sings at 9.16 pm and at 10.25 pm, while Mr Young sings at 9.43 pm and at 10.31 pm: this was a long night for the artists. The evening opened with a live Irish lesson. On other nights, German, French and Italian language lessons were broadcast. The overall emphasis was on music and, in particular, on solo performers. The repertoire was dull, and listeners soon tired of the seemingly endless selection of parlour songs and Edwardian ballads. There was an occasional relay from the BBC, usually a concert relayed from London. The 2RN station trio would normally provide instrumental interludes. At this early stage (January 1926), there were still no children's programmes, (no one had been appointed yet to do the work), no news bulletins (because there was no agreement with news agencies) and not even a weather forecast. There were few speech programmes in the early years of 2RN. Apart from the language lesson, the only speech programme this evening was a talk on gardening by Mr Sherrard of the Department of Agriculture. Once the novelty of "Irish wireless" had worn thin, listeners became dissatisfied. But the Director had only been allocated twenty pounds a day to pay artists, and a city the size of Dublin had a limited number of artists willing to wait around the tiny Denmark Street Studio all evening to sing one or two songs. Mairéad Ní Ghráda, Woman Organiser: Appointed 1927 Mairéad Ní Ghráda was the first Woman Organiser, producing women's and children's programmes, and the first woman studio announcer on 2RN. She also wrote radio drama. Nowadays, she is best known for her ground-breaking play, "An Triail", produced in 1964 in Dublin's Damer Hall and first broadcast on RTÉ in 1965. She also contributed much to Irish schools curricula, writing several textbooks. And what did the listeners think': 1920s Some listeners wrote to the Director of Broadcasting. In the main, their correspondence consisted of complaints. Many letters appeared in the newspapers under pseudonyms such as "Cat's Whisker" or "Antenna" or "Two-Valve". How many of these published letters were genuine and how many "inspired" by the newspapers themselves, fearful and jealous of the new medium, is now hard to judge. There were three types of complaints. Firstly, listeners complained of poor reception. Electrical interference was a particular problem in the early days; it was caused by machinery and even by passing trams. The reception area was strictly limited. Clandillon could be less than diplomatic in his defence of the station. For instance, when wireless owners in Cork complained they could not receive the Dublin station, Clandillon's response was that they did not know how to operate their sets. Complaints from Cork waned somewhat when the Cork 6CK station was opened in 1927. Secondly, there were complaints, and well-justified ones, about programme content. The evening fare from 2RN soon became monotonous, due primarily to the frequent re-appearance of the small number of artists who were willing to accept the modest fees. But this was more to do with shortage of money than with any lack of artistic ambition on the part of the Director. His permitted programme costs for each evening, that is, the fees for artists, copyright payments and costs of relayed programmes, was £20. Moreover, one relayed concert from London or Belfast could use up almost the entire budget for an evening's schedule. The third kind of complaint about 2RN, regarding the style of presentation, might be understood as "the shock of the new". This was a most difficult issue for the Director. His letter writers complained of too many, or not enough, announcements and programmes in Irish; too much, or not enough, classical music; too much, or not enough, sport or plays. People in Ireland needed to become accustomed to the new technology of wireless. Reception of 2RN could be difficult or erratic, especially if you lived more than twenty miles away from Dublin or Cork. Unlike today's sensitive radio sets with built-in aerials, it was often necessary to connect the crystal or valve wireless set on to a long wire aerial and an earth. Although at the start-up of the service in January 1926 there were officially about 2,500 licences only, many more people owned unlicenced receivers: many listeners had sets since before the licences were introduced when they had had "free reception" from cross-channel stations. The "Evening Herald" of 6 April 1926 complained bitterly that the imposition of a wireless licence was "robbing country people of a long-promised amusement. Because of their distance from the Dublin transmitter, they needed dearer battery-powered sets to receive the programmes. A letter in the "Evening Herald" complained: "...it was said a while ago that the Dublin Station was going to do great things for the people of the country, and bring a new wonder into the lives of the farmers and so on... Yes, but the wonder is paid for dearly!" 2RN Transferred to GPO: October 1928 2RN left the cramped conditions of its single studio in Little Denmark Street in 1928 and moved into its new headquarters in the General Post Office (GPO), which had been re-constructed after shelling by British forces during the 1916 Rising. 2RN's move to the GPO in O'Connell Street meant that the station now had three studios. One for drama, one for music and one for the announcer. 2RN covered the World Eucharistic Congress in Dublin in 1932 using the new high-powered 60kw transmitter (later increased to 100 kw) installed at Athlone. Irish listeners heard the voice of John McCormack singing at High Mass. The event was also relayed by the BBC and several national stations in continental Europe. This was the largest event broadcast in the early years of Irish radio. By this time over 30,000 licences had been issued in the Irish Free State. On 6 February 1933, Taoiseach Eamon de Valera officially opened the new high-powered radio station located at Athlone in the centre of the country. In his speech, de Valera described the installation in symbolic terms: "Droichead nua Átha Luain is ea é, droichead idir na Gaeil in Éirinn agus Gaeil in imirce" (Translation: "It is the new bridge of Athlone, a bridge between the Irish in Ireland and the emigrant Irish."). Sponsored programmes were the popular medium for advertising in the early days of radio broadcasting. Advertising revenue became increasingly important to cover the cost of the Athlone transmitter. The first sponsored programme, featuring Euthymol toothpaste, was broadcast on 31 December 1927. Through the 1930s, Independent Newspapers sponsored "Slumber Hour", PJ Carroll, makers of Sweet Afton cigarettes, sponsored "Sweet Afton Varieties", The Savoy Cocoa Company sponsored the "Savoy Minstrels", and The Blackrock Hosiery Company, "Rock Revellers". "The Irish Hospitals' Sweepstakes" programme, sponsored by the Irish Hospitals' Trust to promote the sale of tickets for the Irish Sweepstake, and "The Walton's Programme", sponsored by the Dublin music shop of that name, became among the best-known and longest-running sponsored programmes.