'Atlantic 252' was a
long wave,
pirate radio station broadcasting to
Ireland,
Britain, north west of
France and the
Channel Islands on 252
kHz (1190.4
metres), which provided service from 1989 until 2002.
The frequency was re-subsumed by RTÉ in 2002 to provide a version of
RTÉ Radio 1 to the
expatriate community in Britain.
Early history
The concept of 'Atlantic 252' can be traced back as far as August 1986 when Irish state broadcaster
RTÉ announced it was to use their allocated
longwave channel for a new pop music station. They teamed up with
Radio Luxembourg to form 'Radio Tara' - the trading name of ''Atlantic 252'', which being long wave would enable reception in Britain as well as Ireland. This was following Chris Cary's test transmissions from Clogher Head Co. Louth in the mid 1980s with 254 kHz Longwave as "'Radio Exidy'"
In 1987
RTÉ commenced building a giant 3-sided 248
metre broadcast
mast in Clarkestown,
County Meath using a specially built pair of both air and water cooled 300 kilowatt solid state transmitters built by Varian Associates, Texas despite protests from local residents. Studios were set up in Mornington House, in the nearby village of
Trim. The station cost £6m to set up. Just over 47m people were in the station's broadcast area.
On
September 1 1989,
Gary King announced on 252 kHz longwave, "''Mine is the first voice you will ever hear on Atlantic 252.''" This was followed by a specially produced pre-recorded introduction tape which 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 lineup including ex-
Laser 558 presenter
Charlie Wolf, MaryEllen O'Brien, Andrew Turner, Nicky Schiller, Henry Owens, Al Dunne, Tony West, Jeff Graham, and even an appearance was made by Rosalyn Reilly - who was to remain the station's cleaning lady for its entire twelve year history. The first record ever played on Atlantic 252's test transmission was "Ain't Nobody" by Rufus and
Chaka Khan ('89 Remix) and the station's official "first record ever played" was "Sowing The Seeds of Love" by
Tears for Fears shortly after 08:00 local time on 1 September, 1989. The second record played was "Monkey" by
George Michael[1].
Although the transmitter was in the Republic of Ireland, the signal's reach meant that it was often considered to be a "UK" national station - the signal had even been received in
Brazil at night-time, with other reception reports from such locations as
Berlin,
Finland,
Ibiza, and
Moscow. The
Scottish musician Mylo has claimed it was the only station with listenable reception on the
Isle of Skye. At launch there were no UK-wide commercial stations (the first being "
Classic FM" in 1992), and the lack of a UK broadcast licence attracted the attention of the
IBA.
Mid-1990s peak
Initially, the station transmitted only from 06:00 until 19:00, outside of which listeners were invited to tune to
Radio Luxembourg. Later, the station began broadcasting until midnight, then until 02:00, and eventually by September 1991, overnight with "The Big Mattress". The music format consisted of high-rotation mainstream pop and rock music, with influences borrowed heavily from American Radio, and through to 1993, the station was known to play much of the music mostly 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" and you got it every time you hit the LW or Longwave button on your radio and tuned to 252.
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 offering superior audio quality. Atlantic 252's audience began the inevitable 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 the mid-1990s, Atlantic 252 had in excess of four million listeners, but vastly increased competition from local radio stations with similar formats and superior
FM audio quality, as well as the renaissance of
BBC Radio 1 and the repositioning of
BBC Radio 2, saw this take a dive below one million by 2000.
Decline in popularity
During the 1980s and 1990s
Long wave suffered a gradual decline in listenership, partially because of the reduction of signal quality and also due to more choice on higher quality platforms. In late 1998 under the direction of
David Dunne the station responded by shifting its format to concentrate on indie and other dance music, but continued to lose listeners. In 1999 the station suffered its lowest Rajar ratings since the station first came on the air with the audience falling to just under 1 million listeners in Q.4. '99. Then in November 1999 with the arrival of John O'Hara as the new Managing Director the station found a new focus and re-launched in February 2000 as "'The New Atlantic 252'" The format was Rhythmic CHR and the station was repositioned as "Nonstop Rhythm and Dance" The station played 12 songs in a row and featured Tony and Becky at Brekkie plus a brand new website at 'www.atlantic252.com'. There was over £1million pounds spent on rebranding and marketing the station to a new audience and media buyers. However, although the station did see a rise in audience again back to around 2 million listeners during 2000 and 2001, the writing was on the wall when the sale of the station was announced in early 2001 by its owners 'RTÉ' and 'CLT'. The very last show on Atlantic was presented by Enda Caldwell on Thursday
December 20 2001, This was followed by a Tribute show produced by Eric Murphy celebrating the station's 12 year history of broadcasting and featuring classic airchecks of each year of Atlantic 252's history then the station went into automation and continued broadcasting music without continuity and just commercials that had been booked for the month of January 2002 for about two to three weeks afterwards until the carrier fell dead and the music stopped playing.
Replacements
It 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. The frequency is now used by
RTÉ Radio 1.
Presenters
The presenters that worked at Atlantic 252 were what made the station so popular and different. The funny names idea originated in the USA at stations like
WHTZ FM Z100. Many of the original presenter line-up came from
Laser 558/UK Commercial Radio and
BBC Radio One.
The Irish presenters on the air came from
Dublin Superpirates like
Sunshine 101 and SuperQ 102.
On-air identity
Station straplines included:
"The Best Music"
"Today's Best Music Variety"
"The Big Mix Of Today's Hits"
"Today's Hits Nonstop"
"Real Music,Real Radio"
"Nonstop Rhythm and Dance"
Other frequently used phrases on the station were:
"we've got another Long Wave of nonstop hits on the way"
"this is the radio station with a wavelength all of it's own"
The station had a sung
jingle package called "Euro-Power".
The last station jingle package was a re - sing of the WKTU New York 1997 package.
Station voices included: Larry Thompson (first station imaging voice), Gary Gears,
Bumper Morgan, Henry Owens, Merkle,Bill Cunningham (aka Wild Bill), Olga Kinsman (Whisper), Paul Bacon,
David Kaye, Eddie Temple-Morris,
Claire Sturgess (who was produced by
Cameron Prudames & Eric Murphy) and Clara Lane (last station imaging voice).
External links
★
Enda Caldwell video clip.
★
Henry Owen Video Clip.
★
Unofficial tribute site.
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