New ‘youth’ radio service for west of Ireland
January 15th, 2008 | by aobaoill |i102-104, the group that won the tender for a youth service for the North-West, recently signed their contract with the BCI. The related press release promises us ‘contemporary hits’ and that the schedule “will also give prominence to new music and more specialist genres such as alternative rock and RnB/urban sounds.” We’ll have to wait to see how it works out in practice. More intriguing is this teaser:
i102-104 will have a strong emphasis on interactivity with its listeners and is committed to providing relevant engaging news and current affairs programming for 15-34 year olds.
It remains to be seen whether they merely mean soliciting text messages from listeners – the cursory nod to ‘interactivity’ and ‘feedback’ now required of all media outlets – or whether they’ll invest the time and effort required to make it somewhat more meaningful. Just what they mean by ‘relevant engaging news and current affairs’ is also interesting – will they retreat to celebrity gossip-style content, or take on the real challenge of tackling important social issues in a manner that draws in their target audience?