A station which aims to give light relief to Dublin listeners weary of non-stop current affairs or "in your face" chart music began broadcasting yesterday.
Lite FM is targeted at 35-54-year-olds and aims to capture 10 per cent of the radio market in the capital, or 86,000 listeners, by the end of the year. It will broadcast in Dublin city and county at 102.2 FM and will take "a very light and easy approach to music".
The station officially began broadcasting at lunchtime yesterday by playing John Lennon's Imagine and Robbie Williams' Angels.
Lite FM will cost £2 million by the end of this year, with £1 million being spent on marketing and advertising alone. Some 80 per cent of the station's output will be music.
Finance director Mr Howard Block said the station aimed to be an alternative to, rather than going "head to head" with, any existing broadcaster.
"We want people to turn to us and listen to us for a while when they get fed up of talk. There's only so much talk you can take."
What speech-based programming there is will be "very much Dublin focused", Mr Block says, and will include news bulletins, an arts magazine programme and sports and traffic news.
Mr Block's brother, Martin, is the station chief executive, while former IDA chairman Mr Padraic White is Lite FM's chairman. General manager Scott Williams, formerly of Limerick's 95 FM, will present the station's flagship programme,. Dublin Today, from 10 a.m. to midday each weekday..
Launching the station yesterday, the Tanaiste, Ms Harney, said: "it's music for my generation . . . it'll be a great relief from Leinster House and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment."
In a brief interview, the Tanaiste said she hoped its news values would be different from those of the The Irish Times, which she said gave more prominence to divisions within her party than the fact that the Moriarty Tribunal had discovered payments of £8.6 million to former Taoiseach Mr Charles Haughey .
"He's second to me in The Irish Times. I hope that on Lite FM we'll be able to get the stories in proportion," Ms Harney said.
roddyosullivan@ireland.com
