Radio ReviewOf those stations top-of-the-crops in the JNLRs - RTÉ Radio 1, RTÉ 2FM, Today FM and upstart Newstalk 106-108 - there are only three midweek daytime female presenters outside of news: Orla Barry and Brenda Power on Newstalk, and Nikki Hayes on 2FM.
There is no female anchor on RTÉ Radio 1 from 9am until Mary Wilson takes over on Drivetime at 4.30pm. On Today FM, male anchors rule from 7am, when Anne-Marie Kelly goes back to bed. On weekends, we still have Marian Finucane (RTÉ Radio 1, Sat & Sun), thanks be to God, and Karen Coleman's The Wide Angle(Newstalk, Sat). Alas, our own Róisín Ingle has decided to leave the Weekend Blend(Newstalk, Sat) after today.
But hark! There were two missed opportunities this week to try out some strong female talent: Ryan Tubridy was on holidays and Sean Moncrieff was sick.
Dave Fanning took over for Tubridy. He is in the '85 zone. Think middle-aged, black-skinny-jeans-wearing, Sartre-and-U2-discussing groupies in a dark corner of Bruxelles circa 1985, when Phil Lynott was still alive - and not a bronzed statue outside so people can lock their bicycles around his ankles. Fanning is okay, but very samey.
We needed a fresh, female face. An Eve Harrington to "fill in" for Tubridy's Margot Channing. Montrose must be full of overlooked Eves with wet hair and drab beige raincoats belted at the waist, looking through the studio glass longingly, with a warm glow of helpfulness in their bespectacled eyes and ice-cold ambition in their hearts.
Fanning is no Eve. He is very unthreatening. His constant laughter is steeped in years of backstage banter. Fanning laughs to show he's laid-back, man. Tubridy does his own PT Barnum showman routine to show appreciation. (Silence works just as well.) You can act the giblet on TV talk shows. But radio is more intimate. You can spot false laughter on radio a mile off. When Orla Barry (Newstalk, Mon-Fri) laughs heartily, you know she means it. That is why taxi drivers go ga-ga for her.
Eamon Keane on Lunchtime (Newstalk, Mon-Fri) has a nice blend of efficiency and pep. On Tuesday, he spoke to Troy Cremin, who failed in his action seeking damages for "slopping out" chamber pots in Cork Prison during his week-long stint in jail. He read out a spitfire of vitriolic texts such as "They should defecate in public!" It felt like an assault. (On Thursday, Keane even read out a text on his Mahon Tribunal coverage: "Eamon, you're starting to sound pathetic!") Brenda Power and Orla Barry know that texts have their place, so they don't overwhelm the programme. But texts on other Newstalk programmes make Liveline sound like a Buckingham Palace tea party.
James, a teacher at the former Spike Island Prison in Cork, had sensible things to say about slopping out and the risk of visitors at a centralised prison spreading diseases all over the country by hand, but he was rushed off the phone. Like germs, the texts spread, eating into healthy airtime.
The soothing swoosh of the Hawaiian surf on Joe Molloy's documentary, White Lightning: The Mick Fanning Story(Newstalk, Sun), which I listened to mid-week, eased the pain. Fanning is the 2007 World Surfing Champion and an Australian with Irish parentage. The programme was slickly produced and a welcome change of pace.
But it was back to the sound of slopping out on Tuesday's The Last Word, which has overtaken Drivetimein the JNLRs. Matt Cooper questioned the viability of "en suite" prison cells. Dr Fintan Lane, who spent 45 days in prison for anti-war protesting, said, "En suite is a loaded way of putting it. Ultimately, they are entitled to a toilet. There is no justification for demeaning people to that level." Well said. Cooper wisely laid off the texts-from-hell when he interviewed Sarah Jane Cromwell, who said she was born a woman in a man's body.
On Newstalk, the texts risk competing even with the migraine-inducing ad breaks. And, on too many radio shows, you either catch an interviewee's name first time around or risk never knowing who the hell they were talking to.
Sean Moncrieff of Moncrieff(Newstalk, Mon-Fri) was sick Monday and Tuesday, and replaced by Hugh Cahill - another male, but well able for it. He sounds like a laddish Tubridy. On Tuesday, he spoke to Frank Ahearn, an American PI who helps people disappear and find a new identity. Before being rushed off the air, he told Cahill, "Elvis is probably working in a Burger King in Iowa." Cahill concluded, "That was pretty interesting stuff." It was.
But it was more interesting when the same Frank Ahearn appeared on Marian Finucane last month. (Cahill's researcher should have used another PI tool: Google.) Finucane made like we had all the time in the world, talking in detail about the mechanics of how Ahearn creates new corporate identities for individuals. She also asked him about people who discovered, as she put it, "It was just too lonely not being themselves."
Radio can be great company. But when it desperately fears losing your attention by filling your living room with noise, such as some programmes on Newstalk, listening to it can be a terribly lonely experience too.