It’s Sunday September 1, the day before Pat Kenny and Sean O’Rourke take to the airwaves to do battle for mid-morning radio listeners in Ireland. As we’ve seen from the shenanigans around Kenny’s transfer (unlike Real Madrid at the time of writing with Gareth Bale, Denis O’Brien got his man) and RTE’s robust response with O’Rourke, talk radio is big news and big business in Ireland.
Given that both presenters are unavailable to talk to us on the day of this Banter – both will be at home making their sandwiches and preparing their opening lines when we take to the stage – we’ve gathered a panel of other interested parties to look at the state of the Irish talk radio nation and the national obsession with people talking about stuff on the wireless. Who’s going to win this much touted match-up? Where’s local radio in all of this? And why do Irish people love talk radio so much?
The radioheads: Miriam O’Callaghan (RTE Radio One), Caroline Clarke (producer of the Moncrieff show on Newstalk) John Purcell (chairman of Independent Broadcasters of Ireland, CEO KCLR 96FM and director of Newstalk) and Yvonne Judge (broadcaster, radio producer with RTE Radio One and 2fm and former editor and deputy head of 2fm). Banter’s Joe Duffy: myself
Radio Ireland takes place on the Leviathan stage at Mindfield at the Electric Picnic on Sunday September 1 at 5.30pm.
Big thanks to Mindfield big kahoona Naoise Nunn for the invite.
Banter in September: we’ll be heading to the CultureTECH festival in Derry and launching our Living for the City autumn/winter season at the Twisted Pepper.