The sound of a new generation: How 2FM became a youth station again

Just 18 months ago 2FM’s listenership was in decline and it was in the midst of an identity crisis. Station head Dan Healy insisted he had a plan that would work - and true to his word, the figures are up. John Meagher finds out how.

Eoghan McDermott has been presenting 2fm’s drive-time show for just three months and whatever one thinks of his suitability for the slot, he is certainly someone who speaks his mind.

His straight-talking assessment of the identify crisis 2fm found itself in in recent years comes free of sugar-coating.

“When I think of stations that I enjoyed listening to when I was growing up,” he says, “I liked that I knew exactly what they stood for. I identified with them as I felt they serviced my tastes. For quite some time I’m not sure even 2fm knew what it stood for. Initially it was a youth station without much mainstream competition — then as the market started to diversify, 2fm remained stagnant and perhaps became dated, ultimately not serving the market it was supposed to.”

2fm was not on McDermott’s radar growing up: he had far more in common with BBC Radio 1, Dublin pirate Freedom FM and the now defunct Atlantic 252 in the days when its roster included current 2fm broadcaster Rick O’Shea. The problem for 2fm was that too many other people of McDermott’s age (he’s 32) felt exactly the same way. Just who was RTÉ’s second radio station aimed at?

Even before the untimely death of Gerry Ryan in April 2010, 2fm seemed unsure about what its target audience was and after his passing, it lurched from one relaunch to the next in a desperate bid to hold onto its audience.

The figures were sobering: the station haemorrhaged listeners at a rate that’s probably unprecedented in the history of Irish radio, with an audience share dropping from 11% during Ryan’s final months there, to just 6.5% last year.

“2fm went from competing with no one,” says Ciara King of nightly show Chris and Ciara, “to competing with not just youth/new national radio stations, but also competing with the new technology which could see an average person with limited internet connections access podcasts or live streams of radio stations from shows across the UK or as far as Australia. The choice became much larger and 2fm had to learn to adapt to that.”

It has certainly adapted, although those listening in after several years’ absence would find the schedule to be utterly recognisable. Big names like Dave Fanning have been pushed out to the weekend and the daily slots are peopled by such figures as comedian Jennifer Maguire and the ex-Westlife singer Nicky Byrne.

The station head, Dan Healy, is bullish about the need to change. “It needed to be positioned as a youth station with a clear identity,” he says. “We had some very good presenters on 2fm, but there wasn’t a sense of unity — or should that be continuity — throughout the day, but there certainly is now. There’s still much to be done, but I believe the station can grow steadily in the next few years.”

A 10% market share, he believes, is not out of the question and with Today FM suffering declining ratings in the past 12 months, hardly helped by the deflection of Ray D’Arcy to Radio 1, 2fm might find itself in a good place to pick up new listeners.

It’s the 15 to 34 age demographic Healy has his sights set on and with that in mind, he has issued the station with a directive that no music released before 1990 be played. Keith Walsh, who presents the breakfast show alongside Maguire and Bernard O’Shea, reckon’s Healy’s diktat is a “great idea”.

“It’s a new music station,” he says. “My daughter doesn’t know what a nun is and she didn’t up until recently know what ‘Bono’ was. Anything pre-1990 is an oldie now. 2fm should be about new Irish and international acts and be at the cutting edge. Also it’s very important for radio stations to ‘set out their stall’ – this is who we are and this is what we do. If you don’t like it there are other radio stations out there for you.”

Not everyone in Radio Centre, Montrose, is as ‘on message’. One veteran staffer believes the decision represents everything that’s wrong about the new-look 2fm.

“It’s assuming that kids today have absolutely no interest in the great old music of the past, which is not the case for many of them,” he says. “But music is a long way from what the station is about now, as anyone who listens to Nicky Westlife’s show can see.”

Byrne might have imagined a more glamorous post-boy band career than one involving early starts to present a mid-morning radio show in his home town, but Healy says he has shown consummate professionalism to the job and, he believes, has become an integral part of the daily schedule.

“It was a gamble, but after we met and spoke I sensed he was an excellent fit,” Healy says.

Byrne had to be snuck into RTÉ in the cover of darkness in order to do a dry run audition and the station boss retains a boyish delight that his identity was not leaked before it was announced.

But The Nicky Byrne Show, which is co-hosted by Jenny Greene, has been consistently battered by critics with one offering the following pithy appraisal: “Talking loudly in a show about nothing on 2fm; Nicky Byrne and Jenny Greene are cheery but stunningly banal.”

And yet, the numbers tuning are pleasing for Healy and 2fm.

Its audience now stands at a healthy 163,000. The figures for it and Breakfast Republic (196,000) cannot be compared to last year because they are on different time slots.

RTE was forced to admit it had made an “incorrect statement/comparison” on its RTE Ten website after Today FM accused it of a “flagrant breach” of the JNLR (listenership data) rules.

The ratings are going up across the board for 2fm, albeit from a position that some would have regarded as rock bottom. The most recent JNLRs last week , show there is now a negligible gap between Today FM and 2fm on weekdays, and if the former continues to fall as quickly as the latter is rising, 2fm will have a greater audience share by the end of next year.

“We make radio for people who are young at heart,” Keith Walsh says. “It doesn’t matter what age you are. [Maybe] you are the type of person who doesn’t want the ‘Oh my God, the country is a mess’ and the water charges brigade shouting at you from the radio. Radio is ultimately entertainment. And 2fm gives you the best kind of entertainment — Irish humour and fun mixed with the best new Irish and international tunes. It’s all very wholesome stuff.”

Wholesome is not a word that the station’s original batch of DJs would want to have applied to them. When it launched in May 1979, the then RTÉ Radio 2 shook up a fusty broadcasting world in which many young listeners had already migrated to pirate radio. And it was from the pirates that its early roster of presenters, including Dave Fanning and Gerry Ryan, were culled. The fledgling station would nurture some of the country’s best known broadcasters today, among them Pat Kenny, Mark Cagney and Ian Dempsey.

It was arguably at the peak of its powers in the late 80s when it was rebranded to the name we know it today. Those were the days of Electric Eddie in his ‘Eye in the Sky’ helicopter and the ‘Beat on the Streets’.

But the advent of, first, commercial radio and, then, the opportunities afforded by the internet, ensured that 2fm’s tenure as the only show in town for the country’s young was over. Youth stations like Spin moved with the times quicker than 2fm, especially with urban listeners.

Restoring 2fm’s place in the Dublin and Cork radio markets is something Dan Healy is keen to do, but he has his work cut out for him as both cities have strong local offerings in, respectively, 98 and FM104 and Cork 96FM and RedFM.

To this end, he brought all broadcasting back to Dublin.

Both Hector Ó hEochagáin and Will Leahy had presented their 2fm shows from RTÉ studios in Galway and Limerick; the former is no longer involved with the station, while the latter has been moved to weekends. Healy shipped considerable criticism, but was unmoved by the 15,000 signatures of a petition to have Leahy restored to his drive time slot.

An even more seismic move was Ryan Tubridy’s departure to the Radio 1 morning slot vacated by John Murray last month. Many felt that the Late Late presenter had been a poor fit for 2fm’s lighter touch, but Healy counters strongly. “I’ve listened to an awful lot of radio and The Full Irish [the 2fm breakfast show Tubridy presented between 2002 and 2005] was one of the best, cleverest breakfast shows we’ve ever had. Ryan is a gifted broadcaster.”

Thirty six years after changing the course of Irish radio, 2fm continues, nowhere as strong as it was in the middle of the past decade, but in a far better place than many thought it would be a few JNLR results ago. “The figures are going in the right direction,” Dan Healy says.

“But there’s an awful lot of work still to be done.”