More on Hannan's RLO

FACTSHEET

Location:
Limerick
Frequency:
95.0 FM





RLO, broadcasting on 95FM, was Limerick's first legal independent radio station, and it
came on air in November 1989. After years of various pirate activity around the region, RLO had a hard
act to follow to cater for all music tastes, but it also had quite an amount of experience to choose from.
Once the main audio clip is complete, click on the RLO logo opposite to hear more audio from the station. RLO NEWS



RLO's launch was accompanied by an eight-page newspaper detailing the station, its backroom team and presenters, and its programme schedule. Many of the faces and names were familiar to Limerick listeners from pirates such as RLWE, Raidio Luimni, Big L, CCR, Soundchannel and Hits 954, so the station's list included a large number of well-known and experienced broadcasters from day one.

One main memory from RLO's opening that I'd forgotten to mention here was the unfortunate startup that RLO had! Their advertised launch was on a Saturday at 10am, and the scheduled programming was to be the news followed by the weekly sports preview show. The stormy weather that weekend (as headlined in the main news bulletin from the station contained in the audio clip above) was to play a major part, and the station only lasted on-air about 10 minutes before going off the air due to a serious power fault in the area. It returned later that afternoon.

The jingles on the station were from the same jingle package as ERI's JAM package, and were a major feature in the the identity of the station. In fact, listening to these makes you wonder why stations don't use them anymore. The entire package consisted of many excellent "straight" jingles, as well as a great collection of pacers and transition cuts.


Click on the title page of the newspaper (above right) to view the programme schedule as listed in the RLO news - note that the file is
130K, and so will take a while to download, but it is a piece of radio history. The newspaper also included photographs of all of
the presenters, but since I know most of them (or more importantly, since they know me!) I'll refrain from uploading the photographs.

RLO went through a number of incarnations - the station had originally been named to allow for a second licensed Limerick station, and rumour has it that "Radio Limerick One" was being confused with "Radio One" by older folk. Whatever the actual reason, RLO was soon rechristened to become Radio Limerick 95FM - the station was also taken over by new owners. It was during this transition period around this time that I joined the station, and I subsequently worked there for over 2 years. During this time, RLO launched "Irish Satellite Radio", which broadcast to Europe on Satellite, and also allowed the "Overnight Network" to be relayed to other local stations in Ireland which had previously not provided a 24-hour service. A second name change, to "Limerick 95" came soon afterwards.

After I left the station, it lost its license and a new station, "The New 95FM" (now Live 95FM) commenced broadcasting on the 95.0 frequency. RLO moved up the FM band to 98FM, an unlicensed frequency that they disclaimed all knowledge of. A subsequent ad campaign cheekily declared "95 is a thing of the past - 98 is the future", before a tag line of "Windows 98 - coming to a PC near you!"

While the station initially retained it's name of "Limerick 95", just adding the "...on Satellite" tag, this caused some confusion, so the station later returned to its original name of RLO, and found a new home at 105FM.
RLO has since been rechristened RLO 105, and has a web presence at www.rlo105.com. The station is once again using the original jingle package, with the "95FM" and "Stereo 95FM" sections edited out. This incarnation of the station is regularly in the news due to it's ongoing feud with the IRTC/BCI and ComReg, and it has been raided on numerous occasions. The most recent raid was the most significant, and it resulted in the station moving premises and changing its telephone number. The station's current output is aimed solely at the over-50 age group, with phone-ins, on-air singalongs and nostalgia being a regular feature, although much of the output seems to be aimed with the sole purpose of being controversial.