Northern Ireland non pirate scene.

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Fudgebar
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Northern Ireland non pirate scene.

Post by Fudgebar » Thu Jan 16, 2025 9:28 pm

Does anybody know why nobody has set up any pirate radio stations in Northern Ireland for years. Loads of space on fm where I live. 🤔

dancemusicdj
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Re: Northern Ireland non pirate scene.

Post by dancemusicdj » Thu Jan 16, 2025 11:21 pm

I guess it's similar to the republic. Hard to get sites, risks of raids are high, listenership on fm is decreasing and it's more worth while to just go online. Or go legal on the small scale muxes in the case of northern ireland.

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Persona Non Grata
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Re: Northern Ireland non pirate scene.

Post by Persona Non Grata » Sat Jan 18, 2025 12:44 pm

OFCOM (UK regulator) has more draconian powers than COMREG (Irish regulators) which means that most prospective operators tend to locate across the border. (The troubles-era Emergency powers act also has provisions against "unlicensed transmitters" and "scanning receivers" Not sure if it's still on the books ?)

In Belfast there are over 90 stations available on DAB which (along with online and other options) eats into the potential audience for any pirates.

Nevertheless there are a couple of gospel/country music pirates operating on the medium wave band (846 and 981) The programming is not exactly to my (urban infidel) taste but theyre been there for nearly 40 years so they must have a following

Another factor in the decline (somewhat) in interest in radio among younger people is that nowadays they have more stuff competing for their time/attention like gaming, social media, streaming etc.

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Re: Northern Ireland non pirate scene.

Post by radionortheast » Wed Jan 22, 2025 9:57 am

I’m guessing there must of been the odd rave pirate back in the era, dosen’t seem to be much record of it, like most places none exist, likely the odd transmitter relaying stuff. 8-) I get the impression station set up by someone with djs wouldn’t survive just like else were in the uk, most people are doing online things, no longer have just an am/fm radio to frost them selfs on, I guess thats it.

I always though the situation was worst, when Energy started there was a few weeks of weekend transmissions before sounded like the army showed up, so stations could only transmit over the boarder, (the only thing they cut do was cut the power they had no jurisdiction over transmissions coming over the border) now I think they can’t exist because of comreg, get the impression only low power part time operations can exist. Theres evidence before Energy of big commercial sounding pop stations been there in the past. You need money to finance such operations, infrastruture land rental, transmitter, tower, electricity, without advertizers its dead in the water

Energy was able to run ads at the beginning, think also they made it difficult for businesses advertise on the station, LJ mostly ran ads for compilations in the shop in the end, got events canceled, someone also transmitted over the top of it for a while in Belfast, he was threatened with legal action, the big raid in 2005 finished them off, a few stations continued afterwards, pretty sure they ended too.

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Re: Northern Ireland non pirate scene.

Post by Persona Non Grata » Thu Jan 23, 2025 4:17 am

"I’m guessing there must of been the odd rave pirate back in the era"

Main ones were Energy (Monaghan) and Kiss (Dundalk) both stations primarily targeting Belfast (and the towns in-between) there were other stations targeting Derry/Londonderry and some rural areas (Tyrone mostly) as well as rave Oldies, Country and Gospel were popular formats.

There was also an Irish/Gaelic language pirate in West Belfast but they're licenced now.

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