Overall listening to radio in Ireland is on the way down.

To see a trend you need to look back over the years which I have done and you can also.

In 1999, the JNLR Listened Yesterday figure for All Radio was 88%. The most recent JNLR reports that same figure as 85%. A drop of 3%.

It gets really interesting when you compare us to the UK market. In 1999 the RAJAR Listened Yesterday figure for All Radio was 89%. The most recent RAJAR reports that same figure as 92%. An increase of 3%.

The trend is, Irish radio is falling, UK radio is growing. What are they doing with UK radio that we’re not doing in Ireland? They’re expanding the market, using DAB to offer more choice, and people now listen to radio more often.

SiriusXM has been enjoying success in the USA with their satellite radio service.

It gives listeners over 180 commercial-free radio stations which can be heard coast-to-coast across the States. Channels include oldies, Top 40, Sports, Comedy and the most famous of the all, the Howard Stern channel.

Satellite radio receivers are factory installed in many cars where drivers get a three month trial period, after which, a large amount convert to paying subscribers. There are also home and portable receivers as well as online access.

This new type of radio is now coming to Ireland via a service called EUR Radio. It’s being established by Dublin company Solaris who are backed to the tune of €150m by Eutelsat and SES-Astra.

Solaris are licenced to broadcast to all 27 EU states not only via satellite but also local terrestrial transmitters in weak satellite reception spots. The result is a flawless radio signal from Croatia to Conneamara.

How does this affect the Irish radio industry?

Well two thirds of the Irish audience have access to less than eight stations (six national, one regional and one local). All of these carry significant talk content. A new operator coming to the Irish market with 150+ radio services is an attractive proposition.

In addition, because EUR Radio is Europe-wide and delivered by satellite, foreign operators can beam services into Ireland without any recourse to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland.

EUR Radio may or may not work in this market but one thing is for sure; if we don’t have an alternative such as that offered by DAB in place, we’re leaving the door wide open.

“Ford drop CD from In-Car radios” scream the headlines.

As ever things aren’t quite that dramatic! I was speaking with Eddie Murphy, the Head of Ford Ireland, who said any move regarding in-car entertainment is a gradual one. The future for Ford is USB mp3 drives, aux inputs, DAB and even connections to cloud services.

One gradual move becoming evident with all manufacturers is the inclusion of DAB as standard in all new car models. As a presenter of a motors programme, every day I get press releases about new motors, and almost every one of them include DAB as standard. While this is a UK trend it does show the motor industry is behind digital broadcasting.

Sadly, as DAB is still in it’s infancy in Ireland, Ford have no plans to include it as standard … YET. In the meantime Eddie and I reminisced about in-car cassettes which both of us had in our respective cars less than 10 years ago.

Radio needs to embrace digital and start doing some joined up thinking. That was the message to the Independent Broadcasters of Ireland (IBI) conference this week from Peter McPartlin, Strategy Director at Ireland’s largest media buyer Carat Ireland.

Advertising has changed and a new Bought-Owned-Earned model is in play.

Bought Media like radio/tv/print advertising is now just part of an overall plan. Traditional media is now sharing with Owned Media such as the advertisers own website, sponsored events, retail outlets etc and the most effective of all, Earned Media, where a brand is recommended on social networking sites by “real people”.

Mr McPartlin says radio needs to embrace digital using websites, online players, podcasts, social media and more to really engage with listeners and leverage the audience to act a certain way. The days of simply quoting JNLR numbers to make a sale are disappearing.

We have one problem with this. Most of the digital interaction required is done away from a radio set. So do broadcasters push listeners towards other media devices such as their phones and computers OR does radio integrate this digital interaction right into the point of consumption, the radio set itself?

We believe the latter. We know it can be done. In fact, we will do it before the end of this year. And you can bet our first visit will be to one Mr Partlin in Monkstown.

The last big FM licence to be awarded to the Dublin market came on air today.

Radio Nova 100.3FM, named after a local legendary 80s pirate, is running a classic rock format.

The elaborate launch at 1pm involved a barge on the River Liffey, at the epicentre of the city, on which a Guns’n’Roses tribute band played live. Banner branding on the barge, the river quays and even a light aircraft above made a big splash. The on-air side of the launch was strangely muted though as you’ll hear from the clip below.

It reminds me of this day 21 years ago when we launched Atlantic 252 across the UK. The excitement of being properly “on air” was immense. Sadly launch excitement is short-lived and it took us a full six months to actually settle in and begin building an audience. Once we got rolling though the station turned into a juggernaut eventually hitting 5 million listeners within four years.

Even though Nova have entered a tough market they have a very experienced team and a killer niche format in their favour.

On the surface they appear to have a secured a derogation on the normally required 20% news & current affairs content allowing them to concentrate on the music and rock related talk as they should.

The day-time schedule kicks off with Pat Courtnay a Dublin morning show legend from the 80’s/90s. The remainder of the day is held by three DJs; Greg Gaughran, Marty Miller and Enda Murphy all holding longish music shifts from 10am through midnight. All three also work weekends. The station also carry Rick Wakemans syndicated show on Saturday teatime.

Carol Dooley, an Irish lady with major US market programming experience at KISM Seattle, is the station PD while David Tighe, former CEO with UTV’s Live 95FM in Limerick takes the same role at the helm of Nova.

It’s interesting to see the reaction from other stations in the market. 98FM are changing their breakfast and drive shifts plus have new imaging in place. FM104 are also making morning changes and Q102 which targets a similar 35+ adult audience today started a €5,000 Three-in-a-Row competition where the first song is the most classic of rock tunes “Bohemian Rhapsody”.

Great to have a bit of fun back in the market!

Radio Nova’s website is www.nova.ie and they’re running 128k mp3 and 32k aac live streams.

Also, if you missed it, their on-air launch is below.

This week the Broadcasting Authority (BAI) announced their contract negotiations with all three potential operators of digital terrestrial television (DTT) have now failed.

The process started over two years ago with the award of the licence in principal to Boxer, the combined Denis O’Brien Communicorp and Swedish Boxer group. After a year they withdrew from the process citing the economy and breakdown of negotiations with RTÉ as reasons.

The licence was then offered to the runners-up, OneVision, the Eircom/TV3 consortium. After another year they too withdrew also citing breakdown of negotiations with RTÉ as reasons.

Last month the licence was then offered to the sole remaining candidate Easy TV, the RTÉ/UPC consortium, who decided not to pursue negotiations at all.

Is this the end of DTT in Ireland? We think not.

RTÉ, as the public service broadcaster, are obliged under legislation to provide Ireland with one basic digital television multiplex carrying the four existing free-to-air “must carry” Irish channels; RTÉ One, RTÉ Two, TV3 and TG4.

Currently they are rolling out the new transmission network and Ireland will be well placed to meet the EU deadline of 2012 for Analogue Switch-Off.

What happens on the commercial front remains to be seen. The issue will be discussed at the next BAI board meeting at the end of the month and a statement will issue thereafter.

A new DAB trial has begun in the South-East of Ireland serving Wexford, Waterford, Tipperary, Carlow and Kilkenny.

The trial, operating under a one year ComReg licence on Band III 9B, is being run by Total Broadcast Ltd in Waterford. Initially the trial is simulcasting local radio services.

The trial will encompass tests on station bitrates, transmission power and location in addition to a planned trial of DAB+.

The multiplexer itself was constructed by the team at Total Broadcast. Knowing the system from the ground up will allow the company to experiment greatly with DAB and we expect some very interesting tests over the coming months.

If you are living in the area simply re-scan your DAB radio to receive the broadcasts.

The first speech by Bob Collins, the new Chairman of the BAI, appears to mark a departure from the Authorities traditional focus on the administrative end of regulation to a more visionary stance.

Mr Collins called on the commercial broadcasting sector to take a more active part in emerging technologies. “Commercial broadcasters cannot stand back and see digital radio as being only something for public service broadcasting” he said. “Digital radio is an area where we have to be involved. We can’t stand back as observers of technological and editorial development and not be part of it”.

After years of frustration dealing with a passive regulator these comments are greatly welcomed by our company. We hope the immediate future will see the BAI become more proactive than reactive and will back up Mr Collins words with real action.

As a company with real enthusiasm for radio, and the will to secure our mediums future in a rapidly changing technological age, we look forward to a positive working relationship with the new Authority.

Read more of Mr Collins comments on Digital Radio, Sound & Vision and more in last weekends Sunday Business Post.