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I saw this on Ireland’s Sunday Business Post this morning. It’s such great news I had to share it with our readers.
Cork gives Ireland its first Christian radio station
by Catherine O’Mahony
Christian radio arrived officially in Ireland last week with the formal opening of Life FM, the country’s first licensed Christian station.
The project has made it on air after four years of effort, by a large number of Cork individuals. It won its first temporary broadcast licence in 2004, when it operated for seven weekends.
This is a ‘‘community of interest’’ station, in that its target audience is linked, not by geography, but by their common outlook. It has a five-year licence from the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI).
Brian Daly, one of the founder members of the station, said it was extraordinary that Ireland had been the only country in Europe without a station of this kind. Britain has nine terrestrial Christian radio stations and several more on a digital platform.
‘‘The first Christian radio station in America opened in 1926,” Daly said. ‘‘Most people abroad are amazed when they hear there’s no Christian radio in Ireland, even though most people still believe in God and would say they are Christian.”
Life FM is backed by a variety of religious denominations including the Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland. Its ethos is to promote family values and its playlist will focus 80 per cent on Christian music, a genre of music that is more or less unknown here.
‘‘We’ll have every sort of music - we’ll have rap, we’ll even have heavy metal - but it will be Christian,” said Daly.
‘‘There will be no references to sex or drugs or anything that does not fit in with our ethos. The sound is the same - only the words are different.”
The station can sell up to six minutes of advertising per hour (a medium-weighted campaign of 28 spots per week has a rate card value of €924). Daly expected Life FM to depend on donations, with possibly a fifth of revenues coming from advertisers.
‘‘Under the terms of the licence, we can earn up to 50 per cent of our funding from advertising,” he said. ‘‘Our only concern would be that it is consistent with the station. We couldn’t run ads for alcoholic drinks or for gambling.”
Life FM is focused on a 25to-45 age group audience during its daytime, when it will have cookery shows and lifestyle programming, but will try to pull in younger listeners in the evening, when it has a music-heavy schedule.
One of its aims, Daly said, was to deliver hope to young people at a time when suicide rates were rising. It has about 50 contributors, all but one of whom are volunteers.
‘‘We’ll avoid any particular kind of doctrine,” said Daly.
‘‘This is an uplifting station. Our message is that Jesus is alive and well and relevant for people today. It’s a miracle really, that we have got this on air. A lot of people have been working behind the scenes, but God has put this together.”
The BCI has also approved a new national Christian radio station, but that has yet to start broadcasting. The licence has gone to Spirit Radio, headed by former East Coast FM chief executive Dave Heffernan.
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