I thank the committee for this invitation. I will paraphrase some of this because, as I said, once I started to write I forgot to stop. I am an ex-RTÉ Radio 1 senior music producer. I took up the position in 2010. I was very interested in developing a platform for new young Irish musicians, and through work on a playlist and providing the Pat Kenny radio show with music acts, I was able to give a diverse taste of what was happening in the music scene in Ireland. I saw first hand how important this was to a new career. As a national broadcaster, playing live or having their music played on the playlist opened the opportunities for concerts and being picked up by the smaller stations, who would not have had the resources to explore the vast amount music in the country.
At this stage I should give a brief outline as to the way we select music. Since Radio 1 is predominantly a talk show station, we only get between 43 and 45 hours per week which is not a huge amount, but we set out a very open music policy and try to cater for as big a diversity as possible. Included in those hours are programmes dedicated to Irish traditional music, country music, pop and, at times, jazz and classical music.
We changed our policy from a "playlist" to "recommends" for a few reasons. Unlike most other radio stations, Radio 1 does not mandate a strict playlist rotation. Our presenters or producers on other shows have complete control over what music is played on their programme. We also felt that since we were hiring people who we regarded as experts or well versed in music, it would be best to let them decide what to play. Thankfully, they all bought into our ethos of highlighting Irish artists. The weekly recommended list is well received, and well played.
Most other stations have a strictly rotated playlist, usually consisting of three separate lists: a current top 20, a current top 10, and new and old classics. These would be rotated. Presenters have very little choice as to what is played. Since a lot of these stations are now owned by or controlled by companies from the UK or outside of Ireland, Irish music can take a back seat to the current top 20 in the charts.
The positives of radio plays for Irish artists will be very well highlighted by other members of the group: helping to build new fan bases, generating sales, and attracting other media attention. Artists have told me a number of times how important those plays on RTÉ are or how the recognition has helped them to get gigs or plays on international markets as well.
There are problems from the broadcaster’s point of view that need to be addressed. As I said, a lot of smaller stations do not have the resources to oversee the vast amount of music being released every week. The amount of music I was getting in every week, either by email or hard copies, was staggering, and this has only increased since Covid-19. As a music producer, you try to leave your personal likes or dislikes at the gate and pick what you feel best suits the music ethos of your station. It is not an easy task. It is usually down to one, maybe two people on each station to try to sort through the mountain of music. The first casualties in any choice comes down to quality or production values. It is amazing how many badly recorded songs are sent to radio stations. Then comes the targeting by the big corporations of special times of the year, such as Christmas, St. Valentine's Day, Easter, etc. They swamp the scene with big artist acts that are impossible to ignore, so the small independent artists are squeezed out.
From my perspective again we need a much better and more constructive definition as to exactly what defines Irish music and possibly a good national music strategy. Trying to force radio stations into playing a large quota of Irish music just will not work realistically. Stations are commercially driven and will fight or circumvent the mandate. We need to encourage stations not to pay lip service to any quota but be rewarded in some way for going beyond it. We need to encourage and incentivise stations to take up the challenge of playing more Irish music and at the same time encourage Irish musicians to up their standards. This could be done by using the Canadian method but would require a high involvement from Government.
The number of Canadian musicians I was dealing with was amazing. Their recordings and touring were all supported by their Government's cultural department. Thankfully, I see this is starting to happen in Ireland now, to a smaller degree. The radio station, iRadio, which we might talk about later, deserves a special mention for some of what it is doing. We have seen the success that can be there and anything we can do to help encourage and promote these will do nothing but bring prosperity and enhance our cultural legacy.
