The Porn Commissioner
And Weekend Ryan checks in...
There are a couple of topics worth looking at in today’s newsletter, the second of which involves porn. Although I won’t be posting pictures or video, so don’t unsubscribe immediately.
To start, I’m going to briefly return to last week’s topic of Ryan Tubridy and his new shows.
Ryan’s latest New Show
I’ve dipped in and out of the Virgin / Q102 shows throughout the week, and although he sounds more confident, as a Q102 listener, the show continues to make little or no sense. Continual references to life in Virgin’s building, mentions and suggestions that listeners should download the Virgin Radio app and a baffling lack of any kind of split links for the Q102 audience make it a very disjointed and odd strategy.
However, I’m sure the wise men in Rupert Murdoch’s Wireless Group have a plan, that I just can’t see.
On Sunday, I took a listen to Ryan’s third new show. This one is a syndicated weekend show, which runs on Q102, LMFM, Live 95 in Limerick and Cork’s 96FM.
It’s scheduled for 10am to Midday, across the 4 stations, and it’s really, quite unremarkable as a show.
More interesting was the approach the different stations took to it. Q102, Live 95 and LMFM all appeared to embrace it, although on each of the stations, it appears to have caused some disruption to the previous weekend schedules.
In Cork, however, it’s something more substantial in terms of disruption. For those not familiar with Cork’s 96FM, they have a proud history that stretches right back to 1989 and are well loved by the people of Cork. In particular, the show “Oldies and Irish” which is hosted by Derry O’Callaghan and has been on air since 1991.
The show is a ratings monster, it has a Reach of 60,000 (JNLR Q3 23), which compares favourably to weekday breakfast shows and giant beasts on the Cork landscape like PJ Coogan and Neil Prendeville.
Even more impressive is its Average Quarter Hour, which is 50,000 (JNLR Q3 23), that is an extraordinarily high level for any show, and may well be one of the best reach / share conversions in Ireland.
However, to accommodate Mr Tubridy, “Oldies and Irish” has now been halved and moved to a midday start. I can’t imagine the 50,000 strong audience will be too impressed.
And the fact that there didn’t seem to be any mention of Ryan’s show starting this weekend on 96FM’s social media – not Instagram, X, or Facebook, suggests that the station knows that it may well prove to be an unpopular move.
Scribbled on the back of a Napkin
Ryan’s show itself was ultimately disappointing. It was packed full of safe, mainstream classic hits, which is fine, but it seemed to be largely a music show, which requires a certain amount of skill as a music presenter. Those are not really skills in Ryan’s arsenal, but he’s never claimed to be a “DJ”.
So, what we got was largely two hours of platitudes, and lots of bad DJ habits, talking about the songs and the movies they featured in, including a particularly un-Sunday morning reminiscence about the food poisoning scene in the movie “Bridesmaids”.
There were brief, somewhat shallow tributes to those we lost in 2023, and a slightly more focused tribute to Aslan’s Christy Dignam, but not much else. No sign of a content plan, very much a feeling of, “I’ve got 20 minutes to spare, let’s do the weekend show” and armed with some notes scribbled on a napkin from the Virgin Radio canteen, off he went.
It also suffered from the same lack of station ID from the presenter, bizarre on a pre-recorded show, and lots of generic “get in touch” moments, which made no sense at all.
It’s a first week, and I’m pretty sure the respective programme directors at each of the stations will have notes before the second show gets recorded.
The Porn Commissioner
On a totally different topic, I saw a job ad this week for a pretty significant role in the Irish Broadcasting landscape as part of Coimisiún na Meán.
Commissioner for Broadcasting and Video on Demand
This appears to be the role that was held by former CEO of the BAI, Celene Craig, but there’s been a fairly major tweak to the job title.
The Broadcasting Commissioner was due to be responsible for regulation of existing broadcast output, i.e. much of the existing role of the BAI before it was rolled into the new Media Commission. However, the addition of the “Video on Demand” element opens not just a can of worms, but a whole Botanic Garden’s worth.
If you haven’t been following, there’s a consultation process going on at the moment, in which the Coimisiún na Meán are asking for feedback on their new proposals to regulate Video on Demand.
Video on Demand by the way, and the part that needs regulating, is largely referring to pornography, although in theory the content could also be any video on Facebook, Instagram, X, Twitch and so on.
The purpose is both noble and required, to keep children in particular, safe from the worst content available on the internet and the new rules will be part of Ireland’s new “Online Safety Framework” which is backed up by new European laws on digital content.
As a parent, the notion that all kinds of content is widely searchable and discoverable online, and an understanding of the corrosive effect that pornography can have on young people, means that I’m broadly in favour of some regulation in this area.
Boiling The Ocean
But, it appears that the new Commission is trying to “boil the ocean”, rather than adopt a more sensible approach. The first draft suggests that keen consumers of video content aimed at adults may need to submit some form of official ID, such as passport or drivers’ licence, which might then be verified by a “live selfie” when users want to consume content.
I’m no digital rights, or legal experts, and Simon McGarr from The Gist has done a much better job of explaining why that’s a really bad idea – his newsletter is below
The consultation period has been extended, and it’s unlikely that any of that would work in practice, but my real concern is the amount of time and energy this will consume.
A Focused Regulator
The Irish Broadcasting industry needs a proper focused regulator, who is not distracted by trying to regulate video on demand on a global scale.
To have a single role which encompasses two such wildly different areas, makes no sense to me. I can only imagine what percentage of whomever gets the job’s time will be available to look at regulation for radio or consider proposals for new licencing rounds and so on.
Having a Porn Commissioner who has a part time interest in Broadcasting just doesn’t work, and I think it’s something that the IBI amongst others should be making noise about now, before an appointment is made.
Video on Demand and the potential scale of the job that the Commission is setting itself is vast, and if they are intent on boiling the ocean, then at least make that role separate and leave broadcast media with a Commissioner who has time and focus to help protect and grow our native media industry.
This has been the 28th official edition of the RAudio Newsletter.
Apart from writing newsletters, I also consult to radio stations and podcasts, so if you have a question, or a project you need help on, drop me an email – liamathompson@gmail.com
I’m also attending RadioDays in Munich in March as part of a new Panel concept.
You can send feedback, questions or potential topics – you can also get me on Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/liamthompsonconsulting/ or on Twitter @Maxliam