Atlantic 252

Last updated

Atlantic 252 (defunct)
Broadcast area Ireland
United Kingdom & mainland Europe (via overspill)
Frequency 252  kHz with 500 kW (100 kW nighttime) power
Programming
Format Contemporary
Ownership
OwnerRadio Tara Ltd (RTÉ/RTL Group)
History
First air date
September 1, 1989 (1989-09-01)
Last air date
January 2, 2002 (2002-01-02)

Atlantic 252 was an Irish longwave radio station broadcasting to Ireland and the United Kingdom on 252 kHz (1190 metres) from its 1988 purpose-built transmission site at Clarkstown radio transmitter, County Meath, which provided service to Atlantic 252 from 1989 until 2002. The station's studios were located 12 km (7 mi) away in Mornington House, Summerhill Road, Trim, County Meath. Atlantic 252 also had sales offices and studios at 74 Newman Street in London.

Contents

Early history

The concept of Atlantic 252 can be traced to as far back as August 1986, when Irish state broadcaster RTÉ announced it was to use its allocated longwave frequency for a new pop music station. Ireland (and RTE) had been allocated a long wave frequency at the Regional Administrative Broadcasting Conference in Geneva in 1975. [1] RTÉ teamed up with RTL Group / Radio Luxembourg to form Radio Tara – the trading name of Atlantic 252 – which, being on long wave, was able to provide reception across Ireland and the United Kingdom. The Irish Government allowed RTE to allocate the 252 licence to Radio Tara. [2] The broadcaster Pat Kenny, who was a member of the RTE Board was Chairman of Radio Tara (Atlantic 252) between 1990 - 1992. This followed Chris Cary's pirate Radio XIDY test transmissions on 254 kHz longwave in the mid-1980s. [3]

The Radio Tara company was officially registered in 1985, with trading names of Radio Tara, Atlantic 252 and Tara 254, it was dissolved in 2011.

In 1987, RTÉ commenced building a giant three-sided 248-metre broadcast mast in Clarkstown, County Meath, using a specially built pair of air- and water-cooled 300 kW solid-state transmitters (which could be combined to give double power) built by Varian Associates, Texas, despite protests from local residents. Studios were set up in Mornington House, in the nearby town of Trim. The station cost £6 million to set up. Just over 47 million people were in the station's broadcast area.

At 8.00 local time (7.00 GMT) on the morning of 1 September 1989 Gary King announced on Atlantic 252, "Mine is the first voice you will ever hear on Atlantic 252". This was followed by a specially produced pre-recorded introduction tape that introduced everybody employed by the radio station on its launch day, from engineers, administration, management like Travis Baxter and John Catlett, and the station's personality music presenter line-up, including ex-Laser 558 presenter Charlie Wolf, Henry Owens, Mary Ellen O'Brien, Dusty Rhodes, Al Dunne, Tony West, Jeff Graham and the station's newsreader Andrew Turner. An appearance was even made by Rosalyn Reilly, who was to remain the station's cleaning lady for its entire twelve-year history.

The station's official "first record ever played" – on the launch date of 1 September 1989 – was "Sowing the Seeds of Love" by Tears for Fears, followed by "Monkey" by George Michael. The first record played during the period of Atlantic 252's test transmissions had been "Ain't Nobody" by Rufus and Chaka Khan ('89 Remix).

Although the transmitter was in Ireland, the signal's reach meant that it was often looked upon as a "UK national station". Reception reports were received from such locations as Berlin, Finland, Ibiza and Moscow. The signal had even been received in Brazil at night-time. The Scottish musician Mylo has claimed that it was the only station with listenable reception on the Isle of Skye. At launch there were no UK-wide commercial stations (the first would be Classic FM in 1992), and the lack of a UK broadcast licence attracted the attention of the IBA. Although the transmitters were theoretically capable of being combined to operate at a radiated power of 600 kW, international agreements limited it to a daytime maximum 500 kW, and just 100 kW during the hours of darkness.

Mid-1990s peak

Initially, the station transmitted only from 6a.m. until 7p.m., outside of which listeners were invited to tune to Radio Luxembourg. In August 1990, the station extended its broadcasting hours to 2a.m. with post-midnight output being automated under the branding of The Big Mattress. In September 1991, Atlantic 252 began broadcasting a 24-hour service, although until the middle of the decade, overnight programming continued to be automated.

The music format consisted of high-rotation mainstream pop and rock music, with influences borrowed heavily from American radio, and through to 1993, a lot of the station's music was drawn from the top part of the US charts. The station mixed the best songs from the last few years along with the best songs from the top 40 – this was called "Today's Best Music Variety". News summaries were broadcast at 10 to and 20 past the hour during the breakfast show and during part of the drivetine show. Commercial Radio and the BBC initially objected to the station, seeing it as a commercial pirate. However, as UK commercial radio developed and deregulation saw many more stations launching, formats similar to Atlantic's began to appear on FM and Atlantic 252's audience began to decline. Attempts at repositioning followed, including "Real Music, Real Radio", when the station attempted to tackle BBC Radio 1's "new music" format. At the peak of its popularity in 1993, Atlantic 252 had six million listeners aged 15+ in the UK and Ireland, but vastly increased competition from local radio stations with similar formats saw this decline yearly.

Relaunch attempts

In late 1998, under the direction of David Dunne, the station responded to dropping audiences by shifting its format to concentrate on indie and dance music, but it continued to lose listeners. This included 30 hours of "specialist" music, including programmes from The Wise Guys, Eddy Temple Morris and the Trade nightclub. Money was spent on advertising and a high-profile breakfast show was attempted fronted by Marc Brow (including several innovative ideas like travel news backed by new age chill out music called 'Traffic Calming', and specially re-formatted youth news presented by Specialist Producer Mark Ovenden which included one of the first broadcast uses of the term 'The Noughties'), in 1999 the station suffered its lowest Rajar ratings since it first came on the air, with the audience falling to just under one million UK listeners in the last quarter of the year.

In November 1999, with the arrival of John O'Hara as the new managing director, the station re-launched in February 2000 as "The New Atlantic 252". The format was changed to urban contemporary music (such as garage, house, hip hop and R&B) and the station was rebranded with the slogan "Non-stop Rhythm and Dance". There was over £1million spent on rebranding and marketing the station to a new audience and media buyers, including a new website. Under the new format RAJAR ratings rose once more above the one million mark, the station had a better market value, and the sale of the station was announced in early 2001 by its owners RTÉ and CLT.

Last broadcast

The last show on Atlantic was presented by Enda Caldwell on 20 December 2001. This was followed by a tribute show produced by Enda Caldwell and Eric Murphy celebrating the station's twelve-year history of broadcasting and featuring classic airchecks of each year of Atlantic 252's history. The station then transitioned to automation, and continued broadcasting music without continuity, along with pre-booked commercials, until midnight on 2 January 2002, when transmissions ceased.

Notable DJs

Many of the original presenters line-up came from Laser 558/UK Commercial Radio and BBC Radio One and the Irish presenters came from Dublin Superpirates like Sunshine 101 and SuperQ 102. During the early years the presenters that worked utilised funny names, an idea originated in the US at stations like WHTZ FM Z100. Notable presenters included:

Post-closure

Teamtalk 252

Atlantic 252 was briefly replaced by a sports station TEAMtalk 252, which opened in the early days of January 2002. This faced competition from BBC Radio 5 Live and talkSPORT, and was itself closed in the summer of 2002, just a few months after its launch. [5] [6]

RTE's use of the frequency

From 2004, [6] the frequency was used by RTÉ to provide a version of RTÉ Radio 1 to the expatriate community in Britain.

(DRM) tests have also been heard on this frequency since 2007.

In 2008, Radio 1 stopped broadcasting on MW and the opt-outs, mostly for weekend sports coverage and for religious programming, were transferred to 252 long wave. It also meant that listeners in Northern Ireland, who had previously relied on the MW transmission, were still able to hear Radio 1.

The LW service was due to be withdrawn in 2014 [7] but this was postponed several times and long wave transmissions continued until Friday night into Saturday morning of 14/15 April 2023. The daily cost of transmission was the primary reason for ending the service. [8]

The transmitter mast was demolished on 27 July 2023, three months after it had fallen silent for the final time. [9]

Mornington House is now used as regional offices for Meath County Council.

UK DAB station

In June 2024, a new station using the Atlantic 252 name and playing similar music to the original 1990s station launched on a number of DAB digital radio multiplexes in North West England. [10] Other than the use of the name, this station is not connected to the original Atlantic 252.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BBC Radio 4</span> British national radio station

BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasting House, London. Since 2019, the station controller has been Mohit Bakaya. He replaced Gwyneth Williams, who had been the station controller since 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AM broadcasting</span> Radio broadcasting using amplitude modulation

AM broadcasting is radio broadcasting using amplitude modulation (AM) transmissions. It was the first method developed for making audio radio transmissions, and is still used worldwide, primarily for medium wave transmissions, but also on the longwave and shortwave radio bands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Longwave</span> Radio transmission using wavelengths above 1000 m

In radio, longwave, long wave or long-wave, and commonly abbreviated LW, refers to parts of the radio spectrum with wavelengths longer than what was originally called the medium-wave broadcasting band. The term is historic, dating from the early 20th century, when the radio spectrum was considered to consist of longwave (LW), medium-wave (MW), and short-wave (SW) radio bands. Most modern radio systems and devices use wavelengths which would then have been considered 'ultra-short'.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital Radio Mondiale</span> Digital radio broadcasting standard

Digital Radio Mondiale is a set of digital audio broadcasting technologies designed to work over the bands currently used for analogue radio broadcasting including AM broadcasting—particularly shortwave—and FM broadcasting. DRM is more spectrally efficient than AM and FM, allowing more stations, at higher quality, into a given amount of bandwidth, using xHE-AAC audio coding format. Various other MPEG-4 codecs and Opus are also compatible, but the standard now specifies xHE-AAC.

Licensed radio broadcasting in Ireland is one element of the wider media of Ireland, with 85% of the population listening to a licensed radio broadcasting service on any given day.

RTÉ Radio 1 is an Irish national radio station owned and operated by RTÉ and is the direct descendant of Dublin radio station 2RN, which began broadcasting on a regular basis on 1 January 1926.

TEAMtalk 252 was a short-lived UK national commercial sports radio station, based in Leeds in West Yorkshire with long wave transmission coming from the Clarkstown radio transmitter in Trim, County Meath in Ireland, formerly used by Atlantic 252.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BBC Radio Wales</span> Welsh national radio station

BBC Radio Wales is a Welsh national radio station owned and operated by BBC Cymru Wales, a division of the BBC. It began broadcasting on 13 November 1978, replacing the Welsh opt-out service of BBC Radio 4.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clarkstown radio transmitter</span> Demolished longwave transmitter in Ireland

The Clarkstown radio transmitter was a longwave radio transmitter in County Meath, Ireland. The mast was located approximately 3.5 kilometres (2.2 mi) east of the village of Summerhill, in a field south of the R156 regional road at Clarkstown. At 248 metres high, it was more than double the height of the Spire in Dublin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FM broadcasting</span> Radio transmission of audio by frequency modulation

FM broadcasting is a method of radio broadcasting that uses frequency modulation (FM) of the radio broadcast carrier wave. Invented in 1933 by American engineer Edwin Armstrong, wide-band FM is used worldwide to transmit high-fidelity sound over broadcast radio. FM broadcasting offers higher fidelity—more accurate reproduction of the original program sound—than other broadcasting techniques, such as AM broadcasting. It is also less susceptible to common forms of interference, having less static and popping sounds than are often heard on AM. Therefore, FM is used for most broadcasts of music and general audio. FM radio stations use the very high frequency range of radio frequencies.

Deutschlandfunk is a public-broadcasting radio station in Germany, concentrating on news and current affairs. It is one of the four national radio channels produced by Deutschlandradio.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Europe 1</span> Radio station in Paris and Geneva

Europe 1, formerly known as Europe n° 1, is a privately owned radio station created in 1955. It was owned and operated by Lagardère Active, a subsidiary of the Lagardère Group, it was one of the leading radio broadcasting stations in France and its programmes were received throughout the country. In January 2022, the right-wing populist media mogul Vincent Bolloré took over the station.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BBC National Programme</span> Former British national radio service (1930–1939)

The BBC National Programme was a radio service which was on the air from 9 March 1930 – replacing the earlier BBC's experimental station 5XX – until 1 September 1939 when it was subsumed into the BBC Home Service, two days before the outbreak of World War II.

Country 1035 was a country music based Independent Local Radio station based in London, England.

The Tullamore transmitter was an AM radio transmission mast located near Tullamore, Ireland. Built in 1975 to replace the Athlone transmitter, it always carried RTÉ Radio 1 on 567 kHz, at 500 kW. The old Athlone mast was used to carry RTÉ 2fm, and was later decommissioned. The Tullamore transmitter was demolished in 2023.

Radio Luxembourg was a multilingual commercial broadcaster in Luxembourg. It is known in most non-English languages as RTL.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RTÉ Radio</span> Radio division of Irish broadcaster, Raidió Teilifís Éireann

RTÉ Radio is a division and service of Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), which broadcasts four analogue channels and five digital channels across Ireland and beyond.

This is a list of events in British radio during 1989.

The following radio stations broadcast on Longwave, AM frequency 252 kHz :

This is a timeline of RTÉ Radio.

References

  1. ↑ Radio Tara Service - Written Answers, Dáil Éireann debates. Vol. 383 No. 6. www.oireachtas.ie, Wednesday, 2 Nov 1988.
  2. ↑ Radio Tara Ltd Volume 151: debated on Thursday 27 April 1989, Hansard, UK Parliament.
  3. ↑ "RADIO NOVA - DUBLIN - LONG WAVE". dxarchive.com. Retrieved 13 April 2023.
  4. ↑ Remembering Atlantic 252 25 years on www.radiotoday.ie
  5. ↑ RTE pulls the plug on round the clock sport radio by Fergus Black, Irish Independent, August 2, 2002.
  6. 1 2 "RTÉ to end longwave broadcasts on 252 kHz". RadioToday.ie. September 2014. Archived from the original on 15 September 2015. [RTE Radio 1] has been on 252kHZ since 17th March 2004 and is of course the frequency previously used by Atlantic 252 in the late 80s and 90s. [..] The 252 frequency was briefly used by UK sports station TeamTalk 252 for a few months in 2002 before being returned to RTÉ.
  7. ↑ Press release: RTÉ Radio 1 Moves from Longwave Transmission
  8. ↑ Pepper, Diarmuid (31 March 2023). "RTÉ to stop broadcasting on longwave 252 bandwidth from next month". MSN . Retrieved 31 March 2023.
  9. ↑ Casey, Ann (27 July 2023). "Crowds gathered to watch the 248-metre high longwave mast topple 37 years after controversial construction". Meath Chronicle.
  10. ↑ "Atlantic 252 name to return as digital radio station". RadioToday. 12 June 2024. Retrieved 23 September 2024.

53°27′47″N6°40′37″W / 53.463°N 6.677°W / 53.463; -6.677

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.