Radio Limerick One
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Radio Limerick One, also called Limerick 95FM and RLO at times, was an Irish pirate radio station, which was the licensed radio station serving Limerick city and county. Licenced by the Independent Radio and Television Commission in 1989, its licence was removed in 1996 for misbehaviour, although the station did not leave the airwaves. It was eventually replaced by Limerick's Live 95FM as the licenced operator.
[edit] History
The station started broadcasting in October 1989 from studios in Dooradoyle, Limerick. An 4 page flyer was distributed to every household in Limerick promoting the new station before it started. It's early days were the most memorable as the station had separate radio shows covering about 20 different topics; given Limerick's tradition for a multitude of high-quality pirates covering a wide range of tastes, having a single station to cater for everybody was a task, but one which RLO took to with ease, assisted by the talents of many of those former pirates.
The jingles provided by Alfasound were especially memorable. Initially the main presenters at the station were Dr. John Moloney, Declan Copues, Pamela Wilson, Francis Jones and Ger Bradshaw. "Stereo 95 FM, Radio Limerick One" was how one of their main jingles used to go, with the station's catchphrase, "Closer to You", being the main thrust in the promotion of the station to a community that had been starved of local, non-Dublin-focussed radio.
Due to falling ratings the station rebranded itself as Limerick 95FM and moved to 100 O'Connell St. in the centre of Limerick city, around 1992. Changes in ownership occurred through the years as well. During this period, the station became among the first Irish radio stations to transmit via satellite - a service called "Ireland's Overnight Network", allowing other stations to air its generic overnight content to either allow them to operate 24 hours without relying on automated playlists.
[edit] Pirate operation
In controversial circumstances which would see court actions continuing in to the next century, the station lost its license in 1996. However, it continued broadcasting almost continuously as a pirate broadcaster, both on FM and satellite. Its satellite licence was removed [1] in 1999 by the Radio Authority in the UK (who had issued it) due to intervention by the then IRTC in Ireland; although its FM broadcasts stayed near continuous until the Comreg clamp-downs on pirate broadcasting in the early 2000s, and has continued sporadically since. In 2002, it applied for, was refused, and appealed to no effect a licence to operate a mediumwave service in the city of Limerick, which ironically never went on air.
During its period as a pirate, much use has been made of the Radio Data System to provide politically loaded messages to users with suitable equipment, ranging from "NO RLO NO VOTE" during a protest at the 2002 Irish General Election to "HELP RLO STOP BCI SLEEZE", a message of such length as to require scrolling.
It reverted back to its old name Radio Limerick One and those memorable jingles were once again refreshed in the minds of the people of Limerick. It was recently under the management on Gerry Hannan who also hosted a popular night time chat show.
On December 13th, 2006, the station was closed down by ComReg and is currently off the air. The previous engineers and 'community groups' or individuals, GM and DC.. are on other projects and current Owner Gerry Hannon has announced he intends to go the legal route of IP broadcasting, or wi-fi locally.[2].
