I’m completely biased in this because Rick O’Shea is a good friend but I’d listen to his show if he was a mate or not. Except his show isn’t a show anymore. It’s a playlist with a voice that doesn’t get enough coverage. As you may have read on some blogs and in the press, 2FM made a very silly decision to take an axe to Rick O’Shea’s afternoon show along with the shows of Nikki Hayes and Will Leahy. Rick’s show was a modern radio show, meaning it was interactive, it was guided by pop culture and whatever zeitgeist was happening, it read texts out, it got people to do funny things, it spread the 2FM wings out from radios and into the general populace and the ratings showed it was working quite well. The future of Radio is not the “broadcast out and that’s it” model, the future of radio is about reaching out and getting back and reaching out again. Radio needs to be guided by the voices of those that are listening. We don’t need a Carson Daly radio model.
And now the personality and the soul of it has died. The music lives on but nobody wants just music anymore, as someone said, our iPods will do that for us, we’re much better at being our personal DJs.
They won’t take his blog away though or his chat and banter with us the audience at the Blog Awards or the Web Awards so we can still have fun with Rick there. You can join the Facebook group If It’s Not Broken Don’t Fix It: Keep Rick O’Shea and Nikki Hayes Talking to show your support. Or has Una says, email complaints@rte.ie.
Photo owned by kevindooley (cc)
I don’t think a Facebook Campaign is enough though but at least it’s a way of showing our support. Join the group, write a blog post and maybe suggest ways of getting this more attention.
[…] show. That’s what they’re taking away from him. There’s a Facebook group but, as Mulley says, they rarely change the world (alternatively email complaints@rte.ie). Here’s hoping that […]
I just tried listening in to Rick’s show for the first time & my God it really is just a playlist, and a dodgy one at that. After only 20 mins I couldn’t take any more Britney and switched back to Moncrief on NewsTalk. What are RTE thinking?
done 🙂
http://shadowsatsunset.blogspot.com/2009/01/i-dont-usually-complain-officially-but.html
RTE would want to wake up to the fact that the days of lean back media are numbered. In 10 years time very few people will be Watching TV on their TV, Reading Magazines such as the RTE guide & listening to Radio on their Radio..this media is all going digital/web whether they like it or not and the key attraction of this media is the interactive possibilities. they should be embracing not cutting back on interactive/digital/web if they want to stay relevant to their audience/advertisers.
I’ve set up an event for Monday 19th to get all the group members to email RTE. Some press interest too: the Star had a piece on it today.
i’ve started talking to my trees and plants again… i know they were happier listening to rick – bring back the DUDE 🙂
[…] not the only one. Damien has written it. Una rocks knows it. They feel it here, Darragh really feels it and according to […]
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I’m betting that TodayFM are going to be laughing all the way to the bank after this particular cost cutting measure at 2FM
Great, so now our License Fee is going to be given to the likes of the overpaid arseholes that are Gerry Ryan and Pat Kenny, and all the management in RTÉ.
It’s hard to kill a bad thing. But it’s easy to get rid of great presenters like Hayes, O’Shea and Leahy.
I’d be very worried now about where the license fee is going. At least it used to be going towards the proper presenters, but now I’m sure Pat and the gang will get another payrise as soon as the recession is over, and they’ll find some lame excuse for it.
Yet, Rick, a brilliant man at what he does is being kicked out on his arse just because he’s the soundest of the lot.
Maybe the heckler on The Late Late show got it right when he said “arseholes” – he was right.
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[…] 2FM got close instead by turning off talk and interactions in a time when the world interacts more. So can we have Rick’s voice back now? […]
Have to say that I rarely listen to Rick’s show anymore since the changes. Before I never used to miss a show.