The Today FM / Newstalk merger moves to the next level
November 21st, 2008The relocation of Newstalk’s studios to the same building as Today FM was a clear sign that a merger between the two radio stations was afoot. Now it appears that the Communicorp-owned operations are undertaking phase two of the merging process by bringing their respective news-rooms closer together.
It seemed apparent from the time of Denis O’Brien’s purchase of Today FM that the two stations would eventually develop a relationship akin to the one between RTÉ’s Radio 1 and 2FM - it was only a matter of when rather than if.
According to the RTÉ.ie article the new development will see back-room news resources being pooled but front-of-house newsreaders remaining unique to each station - much like RTÉ’s current set up. What results is a largely logical situation where, say, one journalist goes out to an event and later brings information back to Marconi House rather than two doing the same separately.
Unfortunately this does cut down on the potential work for journalists in Ireland at a time when the deteriorating economy is creating bad news in general for the industry. Interestingly it seems that a news-room merger had previously been rejected by the BCI but the aforementioned economic climate will be the perfect cover for Communicorp to re-pitch the idea.
There’s still more to run on this merger, however. Other back-room operations like sales and marketing will be next, if they have not already slipped into a ‘merged’ status yet. Various facets like this will begin to fall into place and the eventual final step will be an alignment of the schedule to ensure there is no conflict (which is currently only really limited to the mid-morning and drive-time slots); although this could take some time to resolve.
It’s unlikely that we will see a re-brand of either or both in the mid-term future, though - a lot has been spent on the Newstalk name and Today FM is far too strong a brand to even consider wasting.
They will become closer still, however; you can bet good money on that.
In reality it makes sense for the two to form a tag-team against the 2FM/Radio 1 alliance that has dominated radio for so long. There is still plenty of time left before such a truly joined-up operation emerges, though. If you’ll excuse the poor metaphor it’s fair to say that the two stations are currently co-habiting fiancés; the wedding is still a while away.
Digital radio turns the nation gaga (B&F - 6th November 2008)
November 6th, 2008With RTÉ recently detailing its medium-term plans for DAB radio, it seemed as good a time as any to take another look at digital radio. Of particular interest is the path RTÉ plan to take given the DAB problems going on across the water and across Europe.
The article will be uploaded in the near future but until then you can pick a copy of Business & Finance anywhere you like (in Ireland) for under €5.
Mobile broadband article in Business & Finance
October 29th, 2008The latest issue of Business & Finance, which hit the shelves late last week, has an article by myself on mobile broadband in Ireland. The article looks at its growth, its problems and where it might be going once these are overcome.
I spoke to someone from Three mobile and Dell about their involvement in a working group which aims to put 3G SIM slots into new laptops in the future and what that means for WiFi and WiMax.
Alongside that feature is a review of the Elonex / Carphone Warehouse Web-book and a few ‘News In Brief’ pieces.
Most of my B&F work hasn’t been put on up on the Portfolio page yet but I’m getting around to that in the near future - this will be going up alongside that once it happens!
RTE damages own argument against the Sound and Vision fund
October 20th, 2008Today’s Irish Times carries a piece on Noel Curran’s speech to the Cleraun Media Conference, where he suggested that an increase in the BCI Sound & Vision fund would force RTÉ to cut investment in Irish programming. Curran, who is the managing director of RTÉ, said imported programming tends to be cheaper than home-produced content and if the broadcaster had its licence fee income cut in the midst of an advertising downturn they would have no choice but to buy from abroad.
So today would surely be a bad time for RTÉ to announce that it was going to cut its investment in home-produced content anyway but that’s exactly what we got this afternoon.
The broadcaster announced details of its €25m cost-cutting plan, part of which will involve “some curtailment of programming”. Exactly what that means is unclear but it does seem somewhat self-defeating to say funding commercial broadcasters with the licence fee will kill home-grown content only to turn around within hours of the statement to do the same thing yourself.
The ironing is delicious
October 10th, 2008Screen cap taken from here at noon today.
Happy weekend, folks.
Mr. Bird goes to Washington
October 8th, 2008So Charlie Bird, RTÉ’s Chief News Correspondent, is off to ply his trade in Washington DC, USA from the start of 2009.
As with all major movements in places like the RTÉ news-room you cannot help but ask who the winners are losers are.
The obvious winner here is Bird himself who undoubtedly requested the move across the water. Why? Well the next president of the USA, whomever he is, is sure to reign over a very interesting period in the country’s history as its economic and foreign policies are reassessed, questioned and challenged from a variety of angles. What’s more is that both “tickets” have some very interesting personal stories to them, somewhat as a result of their respective historical potential.
Barack Obama’s story is captivating for reasons beyond his race, of course. His meteoric rise, oration skills and message of hope has marked him out as something different to the pack and whether he succeeds or fails his tenure as US president would make for must-see politics. McCain, on the other hand, does not himself hold the same intrigue but his choice of vice-presidential candidate - Sarah Palin - does, given her own meteoric rise and often soap opera-style back-story.
As a result the obvious loser in this move must be Robert Shortt, although it may well be the case that he requested a move back to Ireland for his own reasons (even if such a request meant missing a very historic stage in the life of the USA).
For the rest of the RTÉ news-room it’s difficult to say if there will be winners and losers and if so who they will be. Perhaps the various correspondents will be somewhat happy to see the back of Bird, not for personal reasons but because his all-encompassing position of “Chief News Correspondent” translated into him regularly taking charge of a story they had worked hard on once it became the agenda-leading story of the moment.
For the person who moves into the “Chief News” vacancy, assuming there is someone, this could be counted as a victory but it could also be a poison chalice. After all, having a focused patch to report on allows a journalist to cultivate contacts of quality rather than quantity. While being a jack-of-all-trades journalist does not automatically mean you cannot also have good contacts it does mean you have to work considerably harder in order to do so across such a wide range of topics.
Comic Genius (The Irish Times - 4th October 2008)
October 4th, 2008Today’s Magazine supplement in The Irish Times has a piece by yours truly on Dublin comic book artist Bob Byrne.
The piece is available here for free and naturally in the printed form around the country.
It’s a long story that I’ll save for another day but this piece has been in development in some form or another for over a year, so it’s a delight to finally see it printed - at the very least it’s something I no longer have to chase and worry about.
When I find the time I’ll copy it and my recent B&F stuff to the Portfolio page.
Market Bite of Bluetooth (Business & Finance, 25th Sept. - 8th Oct. 2008)
September 30th, 2008I know I’ve been a bit of a bad landlord of late, only turning up when there’s rent to be collected (or in my case, articles to be plugged) but for those of you not yet disgusted by my shameless abuse of the blogging format lately, here’s some more self-promotion on my part.
The latest issue of Business & Finance, which should be available near you as we speak, features my latest tech piece which is on the issue of Bluetooth marketing in Ireland. I spoke to one of the owners of Bluemedia, who are making quite a name for themselves in that particular market segment, and UPC which ran a bus-advert with some Bluetooth functionality recently enough.
There’s also a review of HP’s MiniNote laptop and some Tech Briefs for those of you who fell out of the loop for the last week or two.
September has been a crazy month for me, what with the new job and the balancing of it with my existing work, but things are beginning to settle somewhat so hopefully blogging will become relatively regular in the near future… at the very least I promise to throw a few non-pluggy posts in soon.
Clicking with the consumer (Business & Finance 12th-25th Sept. 2008)
September 12th, 2008The latest issue of Business & Finance is just out and on page 50-51 you’ll find an article of mine on the future of digital cameras, along with a product review and some tech news briefs.
The main article looks at the next potential advancements for digital cameras now that the pixel-count “arms race” appears to be drawing to a close. The ‘news brief’ section details some interesting movements on a pay-as-you-go iPhone in Ireland while the ‘Review’ section looks at HTC’s TyTN II.
You can pick up the magazine across the country for €4.98 or if you have a subscription you can read it online.
Talking about Google on The Last Word tonight
September 8th, 2008I’ll be on Today FM’s The Last Word this evening to talk about Google, largely to mark its tenth anniversary as an incorporated company which was yesterday.
As far as I know there’ll be someone from Google on too and the discussion should be quite general looking at how Google has done so well, why it’s so popular and what issues it’s facing in the months and years ahead.
Tune in around the 6pm mark if you want to hear - you can do so on your FM/DAB radio or on their website. A podcast of the show will also be available at some point tonight should you miss the piece.
Blogs elsewhere
