Atlantic 252

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Atlantic 252 (defunct)
Broadcast area	Republic of Ireland (official) Britain and Ireland (de facto)
First air date	September 1, 1989
Frequency	252 kHz
Format	Contemporary
Owner	Radio Tara Ltd (RTÉ/RTL)

Atlantic 252 was a long wave radio station broadcasting to Britain and Ireland on 252 kHz (1190.4 metres) which ran from 1989 until 2002.

Contents 1 Early History 2 Mid-'90s peak 3 Decline in popularity 4 Replacements 5 Presenters

[edit] 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 longwave 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 prerecorded 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 8am local time on September 1 1989. The second record played was "Monkey" by George Michael.

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.

[edit] Mid-'90s peak

Initially, the station transmitted only from 6 am until 7 pm, outside of which listeners were invited to tune to Radio Luxembourg. Later, the station began broadcasting until midnight, then until 2 am, and eventually overnight with Jo King on 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. From 1993 on, the station would play mainly UK chart music. 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.

[edit] Decline in popularity

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. The station did see a rise in audience again back to around 2 million listeners during 2000 and 2001 but 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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 New York and over the history of U.S. Contemporary Hit Radio. Many of the Presenters in the original on air lineup came originally from Laser 558/UK Commercial Radio, BBC Radio One with the Irish presenters previously being on the air at Dublin Superpirates like Sunshine 101 Dublin and SuperQ 102. Paul Kavanagh (Classic Rock Sunday), Gary King(first live presenter September 1 '89) Henry Owens, Dusty Rhodes, Tony West, Charlie Wolf, Nicky Schiller (News and Presentation), Ray Billings(News), Maryellen O'Brien (News and Presentation), Al Dunne, Jeff Graham, James Whale (radio), Captain Kevin (aka Kevin Palmer), Batman Gomez (aka Liam Coburn), Robin Banks, Mark Collins, Hilary The Spinnery, Rosie The Cleaner, Sandy Beech, Cousin Matty, Cass Jones, David Lee Stone, Andrew Turner(News), Jo King aka Jus' Plain Jo, Nails (Cool Cat) Mahoney, Hollywood Haze (aka Steve Haze), Simon Bates(Our Tune), Mark Byrne, Bam Bam, Simon Nicks (aka Nicksy), Dickie Bow (aka Mark Whelan), Beverley Hills, Lois Lane(aka Katherine Orman), Cousin Brucie, Rick O'Shea, The Pizzaman (aka Gary Wilkinson), Yorkie, Dan The Hitman, Magic Marc Henry, The Cisco Kid, Jammin' Matt Finlay, Elvis O'Brien (aka Steven Cooper), Nice Guy Eddie, Wayne Scales, Tony Dibbin, Mark Little, Will Clarke, David Dunne, Eddy Temple-Morris, Mark Colvendent, Chris Coco, The Wise Guys, Ben & Elliot, Janice B & Lorraine Ashdown, Jamie Wood, Greg Parke, Tony Wrighton, Becky Chippendale, Simon Hardwick, Dave James, Matt Mackay, Harvey Lee, Alison Mulrooney, and Enda Caldwell(last live presenter Dec. 20th '01)

Station i.d. imaging voices included: Larry Thompson(first station imaging voice),Gary Gears,Bumper Morgan,Henry Owens,Bill Cunningham (aka Wild Bill), Olga Kinsman(Whisper),Gary Bacon,David Kaye,Eddie Temple-Morris, Claire Sturgess (produced by Cameron Prudames & Eric Murphy) and Clara Lane(last station imaging voice)