Recent ratings and an influx of new presenters would suggest that 2FM is changing with the times, but is it too late, asks Tony Clayton-Lea
John Clarke, the 2FM programme director, might have had reason to smile, or even breathe a sigh of relief, when the Joint National Listenership Research (JNLR) figures were published midweek; although it was third in Dublin, behind 98FM and FM104, 2FM managed to hold its market share nationally. For all the recent change at the good ship 2FM, it seems as if the country as a unit is taking stock and tuning in.
In a nutshell, this is what has changed in 2FM over the past 12 months: out goes the old brigade of DJs Tony Fenton, Dusty Rhodes, Ruth Scott and others. In come bright young presenters, such as Ryan Tubridy, Cormac Battle, Dan Hegarty and Jenny Huston. Out goes a daily diet of Simply Red, Toploader, David Gray and Westlife. In comes an evening diet of Fugazi, Guided By Voices, Interpol, P.J. Harvey and Radiohead. In the new 2FM autumn schedules, meantime, Gareth O'Callaghan takes over Larry Gogan's erstwhile unassailable lunchtime slot (Gareth's "relaxed style and easy manner" will guide us through that crucial two-hour period when "tea and a sandwich just isn't enough"); while Gogan - a steadfast 2FM jewel in the crown and still a presenter on the ball, despite being old enough to be most of the new presenters' father - is, somewhat forebodingly, shunted and trimmed to the 5- 6 p.m. slot.
It's all change, then, at 2FM. Isn't it? Well, maybe not. There are theories floating in the air that continue to question not only the station's public service remit - which is surely its unique privilege and burden - but also the decision of John Clarke to so belatedly bring in such a posse of youth-oriented presenting talent.
Clarke, the detractors say, took so long in changing the face of the radio station that it lost all credibility when compared to, for example, Phantom FM, the Dublin pirate station that is currently broadcasting on the Internet, and lying in wait, its owners hope, for a licence to broadcast legally. Yet 2FM appears to have had the last laugh, as Clarke swept up Battle, Hegarty and Huston from Phantom FM's dying embers. In one fell swoop, 2FM had the kudos it hadn't had in many years, albeit at the expense of a pirate radio station many in the industry felt should have been made legal during the last round of licence-issuing.
But is 2FM following a commercial concern rather than a public service one? Surely vast audiences are not solely what it's about. The Irish Times has spoken to a number of 2FM employees - who all asked to make their comments strictly off the record - who have intimated that even now, after several months of fine-tuning, 2FM remains a national radio station without confidence or a central creative or commercial aesthetic. A station with some of the right people, yet with little focus. A station, if not lost at sea, then certainly unsettled.
"I would hope that 2FM never settles down," says Clarke. "Because if it does that it starts to become complacent. It should be a station that is constantly evolving, not every week or couple of months, but it should have a mental process of wanting to change. It's a youth-oriented station and youth culture changes at such a rapid pace that it should reflect those changes musically and style-wise."
Despite Clarke's bullishness about the station's achievements over the past months, there are serious flaws in 2FM's autumn schedule that could cause furrowed brows by the time the next JNLR figures are published. For instance, are the "finest new tunes of rock, R'n'B, chart, hip-hop, dance, garage and indie" really safe in the hands of Rick O'Shea (8-10 p.m., Monday to Thursday)? Should the record review show, The Firing Squad (presented by Mr Spring), really be broadcast on Saturdays, 8-10 p.m., a time when the world and its hipper sister are out and about and nowhere near a radio? And if, as Clarke says, 2FM is a "youth-oriented station", should the very same programme director really have his own show (Ireland's Biggest Jukebox, Sunday, noon to 3 p.m.), playing "songs from the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s?" How youth-oriented is that? Regular re- programming, however - irrespective of drawbacks and criticism - inhibits stagnation, a state that Clarke explicitly agrees 2FM has come out of.
"There has been a lot of change over the past couple of years, but there had been a full decade of very little change and that's why the process had taken a little bit longer," he says. "If there had been an evolving and changing landscape from 1979, we probably wouldn't have stagnated - stagnated in so far as we found great success - but we still did stagnate. The parallel is Jack Charlton's team: it was successful, but when he left, he left an aged force that had to be rebuilt. It will always continue to evolve; there won't be a revolution but it will always evolve."
But evolve into what? Despite the drafting in of youngish talent, there is little heard on 2FM that could be described as cutting edge. And it's surely not a question of being "brave" by playing "new" music. Phantom FM and 2FM play music that is hardly new; anyone who reads the NME every week will be familiar with the band names that are spoken of with such enthusiasm. It's moderately hip but also quite staid compared to what we hear on Donal Dineen's programme on Today FM. (Even Today FM's mid-morning presenter, Ray Darcy, plays music 2FM wouldn't dream of playlisting during the Gerry Ryan show, which, despite its occasional excellent content, sounds more and more like a Radio One show with each passing year.) It is music, says Clarke, that is "nothing more than today's pop music being played by people who have a passion for that music".
If that's the commercial brief sorted out (and what is today's pop music other than mainstream chart success?), then where is the public service remit? 2FM did have an oar jutting into that territory through the involvement of weekend presenter Jay Aherne. Curiously, given that Aherne, through his day job as manager of Vital Distribution, is plugged into probably the sharpest, if not most visceral section of contemporary music, he is no longer with 2FM. Do the powers that be at 2FM really think that public service broadcasting equals dissonance?
Whatever one thinks of the station's output, it seems people had sensed it had turned its back on them. Today FM appears to have realised this for quite some time; its evening and weekend programming has, by and large, been both experimental and successful. 2FM, meanwhile, was on a crash course to nowhere, catering increasingly to those who still have a problem tying their shoelaces.
"When I was on Phantom," says Jenny Huston, presenter of 2FM's rock show, The Waiting Room (10 p.m.-midnight, Monday-Thursday), "2FM would have been the last station I would have ever listened to. I might on occasion have tuned in to Dave Fanning's show to hear what he was up to, but even the style of his show had changed; it's now more of an entertainment show, it was less than just about music. So 2FM really needed to change; it had very little street-cred any more and they hadn't quickly adapted to the fact that pop wasn't as big as it used to be."
Latterly, 2FM had become so formatted that, according to Clarke, "it was starting to become a passive noise in the background". Clarke intimates that the passive buzz in the background was due to a programming schedule that was staffed by people who grew up on a different style of pop music.
"A lot of the big hitters and performers that I would have inherited were only of a pop generation, and it seemed to be as important to be the personality as opposed to a working disc jockey or a music presenter; people who liked music and who would go to gigs," he says. "In their day they would have gone to Simply Red, but they were never going to go to The Strokes 10 years later." (We can presume he means the departed likes of Fenton, Rhodes and Scott.)
No one is saying that as programme director Clarke has to be "down" with the kids, but there's a feeling abroad that he's not as in tune with the spectrum of listening tastes of 2FM's 15-30 age-group demographic as he should be.
Employing three presenters from a highly regarded but niche pirate radio station might salvage a level of credibility, but in the long term it would seem the station requires root-and-branch surgery rather than a waterproof plaster. The landscape, as always, is bound to change.
"It could," agrees Clarke, "but hopefully having broken the mould and having created avenues where you can take fresh people in, we can continue to reflect what's happening across the musical landscape."
According to Clarke, the influx of new presenters and the changes to the 2FM schedule will add to the strengths the station already has. "There's an active swing back to where the station should have been and to where it should never have drifted away from," he says.
Why it drifted away in the first place is moot and whether it will do so again is open to argument. The signs are not good, however. The autumn schedule doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the discerning listener, or, indeed, the lover of fresh, challenging music or interesting and innovative ideas. Inevitably, 2FM's new presenters are very much up for the change from pirate to national status. Jenny Huston even goes so far as to say that the station is now one she would "very much want to listen to".
"Now, they've got about four people working in a similar area, whereas before there was only Dave Fanning," she says. "Hopefully 2FM has more of an edge to it. That said, there's nothing that would outrage people. In fact, I'm very conscious of being the opposite of that."
"I don't see Jenny, Dan and Cormac as being left-field," says Clarke.
And the beat goes on.