July 25th, 2006
Why Today FM should archive Donal Dineen’s show
For all the flak RTE has taken recently for axing John Kelly’s Mystery Train and Rattlebag, there is one thing it has consistently gotten right and is still way ahead of its competitors on - archiving shows. Admittedly not every show is archived but you can listen to two years worth of Rattlebag if you’re so inclined, or the now defunct Audioscope. The Mystery Train may have departed, but at least there are seven years worth of playlist to poke around.
So I got very excited to see that Today FM have started to publish Donal Dineen’s playlists, with an archive page. I’ve been a fan of Dineen since his Radio Ireland days (where he had a show alongside John Kelly) and even if he was the most atypical of TV presenters on No Disco, Dineen has an affable, soft-spoken approach. On radio, he is knowledgable and engaging, offering some of the most obscure cuts, along with RnG’s An Taobh Tuathail, you’ll hear on a national radio station. When Dineen started his Small Hours on Today FM in the 10-midnight slot, I got to hear it most nights. Since he’s been inexplicably relegated to the graveyard slot at 12-2am, I don’t get to hear it as much, and it’s rare to hear the entire show.
Now at least, I can plunder the playlists and look for some recommendations, but with such a quality show on at such a listener-unfriendly time, wouldn’t it make sense for Today FM to make it available for listeners online by the next day? If not, he may just be snapped up by another broadcaster (if the rumours are anything to go by).
July 25th, 2006 at 8:48 am
Probably a copyright issue there
July 25th, 2006 at 9:02 am
I know what you’re saying about copyright, but it could be set up as a ‘listen only’, not downloadable option.
Rattlebag regularly features music on the show, and yet it doesn’t seem to run in to the same issues as the show is archived online.
If it was up to me, Donal would be back to his 10pm slot.
July 25th, 2006 at 9:03 am
Not so much copyright as licensing I would think. On the other hand, Lyric make all their specialist programmes available in streaming audio for a week and maybe Today FM could do that. BBC likewise manages this.
July 25th, 2006 at 9:04 am
Hear, hear Treasa.
July 25th, 2006 at 9:28 am
Cool. He used to do this before on his own site (I think) but it had disappeared. Good to see because I have the radio on low at night and can never hear what he’s saying!
July 25th, 2006 at 9:37 am
Sinéad, I wholeheartedly agree with you, this is something that has bugged me for ages. The archiving would be good, but my preference would be for him to go back to a listener-friendly hour. If he needs to move shop to do that then I hope he goes for it.
July 25th, 2006 at 10:30 am
I used to listen to Dineen in Melbourne - his show was on from 10am to midday and was a great way to ease yourself into the working day. I rarely hear his show now. Its a shame Today FM moved him later to make way for that unlistenable twat Ray Foley. Lets hope the rumours about a move are true.
July 25th, 2006 at 2:06 pm
why oh why do people always lump donal dineen in with ATT on Radio na Gaeltachta? Dineen’s shows is MILES and MILES better - its like comparing the guy who mans the fryer in your local chipper (ATT) with a chef at El Bulli in barcelona (dineen). i think ATT gain more from this association than Dineen.
July 25th, 2006 at 2:31 pm
“why oh why do people always lump donal dineen in with ATT on Radio na Gaeltachta?”
Because, as I mentioned, they’re the only two shows of that kind on mainstream station.
Think you’re being a bit harsh on the ATT guys, who have a strong reputation in their own right. There’s a lot of crossover in both shows, and both have very low key presenting styles.
July 25th, 2006 at 5:28 pm
nope sinead, theres very little comparison except that theyre both radio DJs.
July 25th, 2006 at 5:50 pm
A lot of people, myself included, rate them both.
Either way, it’s a shame that we’re only down to two shows like this on mainstream radio. Hopefully Phantom will offer more of this kind of stuff.
July 25th, 2006 at 6:09 pm
i have a sinking feeling that people are going to be very underwhelmed by phantom when it returns. during its absence, what phantom has become in people’s minds bears no resemblance to what it actually was when it was on air. unless they ship in new DJs who are not the Whelan’s set and puts some interesting shows in place, the backlash may start very early. i really, really hope the station does well but i think people’s expectations are a mite unrealistic - phantom cannot and will not sort everyone’s radio woes for them.
July 27th, 2006 at 12:40 pm
I’m one of those people who rate both Dineen’s show and ATT
Dineen is liable to play literally anything from Bulgarian gyspy folk to Kraftwerk and everything in between whilst Cian ‘O Ciobháin plays some great mixes, electronic stuff and bit of alternative too - plus I now know what the word ‘lipéad’ means!
Looking forward to Phantom but hope they try and push the envelope a bit more this time round and not just stick to alternative music - gets pretty boring after a while
July 30th, 2006 at 9:04 pm
Dineen was on in place of Alison Curtis tonight! What a great show he turned in to. The best part - he’s on in Curtis’ slot next weekend again, w00t! (No disrespect to Ms. Curtis intended).
July 30th, 2006 at 9:09 pm
Paul, I heard that, he played some great stuff (Tunng, Sufjan, Architecture in Helsinki, Final Fantasy) and he seemed to love being on in an earlier slot.
July 30th, 2006 at 11:30 pm
Big fan of Dineen here too. Can tell you why he was moved to later slot and that was of course numbers. Commercial radio lives and dies by audience figures and Today FM figured they could increase the audience by putting on a more mainstream show (”The Blast”).
Dineens show is very good, but despite its critical acclaim (and that of John Kellys Mystery train), it doesnt translate into the numbers they are looking for. Rightly or wrongly, thats how the business operates. On the rumour front, its still just internet gossip.
On the Phantom expanding its musical envelope front, we will of course do our best, but it does have to be remembered that “alternative rock” is what we are licenced and contractually obliged to do! As we develop though, we hope to expand as much as we can. I know it won’t please everyone, and there will inevitably be a backlash (particularly from those who have a very odd view of what Phantom was and played) but all we can do is our best and work from there.
Pete @ Phantom
December 14th, 2006 at 12:47 am
Hi all,
I think Donal Dineen is a polished and complete DJ.He is the John Peel of Ireland.I have been listening to his show for almost 10 years now and every show oozes with quality, his hunger not just for the music but also for the artist and their background is to be commended.Yes I miss the format of HCTN but those are the breaks I guess. If Today FM let him slip from their fingers then it will not be long before they come to regret that decision when they see the audience he can pull in a more broadminded broadcaster.Keep on rocking Mr Dineen, the Thin Man is a fan.
January 11th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Hi Sinead,
Came across this item while searching for donal on google.
You probably know this already but Donal’s show are now archived on the TodayFM website [2]. The links on that page don’t work but if you edit the URLs to look like this they work [3]. They out up a weeks worth of shows as .WMV files. Shows older than a week are still available but you have to work out the URL in order to access the show in question. I used this mechanism to download the show where he had Milosh in the studio and they had a chat and did and an acoustic set which I really liked.
The files aren’t high quality but it’s better than nothing. If you wanted better quality a device like the Griffin RadioShark 2 might be the way to go.
[1] http://www.sineadgleeson.com/blog/2006/07/25/why-today-fm-sh
ould-archive-donal-dineens-show/
[2] http://www.todayfm.com/Article.asp?id=448129
[3] http://audio.todayfm.com/audio/1112008-00.wmv
February 22nd, 2008 at 8:13 am
Hi din0saur,
thanks for that info about the audio streams. Todayfm is a real buggy website, awful to look at. I found it impossible to listen to it in firefox…until now. Thanks.