Spin South West

Spin South West is an Irish radio station broadcasting from Raheen in Limerick city to the South West. It launched on 23 July 2007, and holds an Independent Regional Radio contract from the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland to broadcast to County Kerry, County Limerick, County Clare, North Tipperary and south-west County Laois. It is operated by Spin South West Limited, a consortium including Denis O'Brien's Communicorp Group Limited. SPIN South West was nominated for 3 PPI radio Awards in 2009, for chat show Spin Talk, Station Imaging, and breakfast show Breafast Xpresso. In 2009 The Zoo Crew, then presented by Michelle McMahon & Conor Quaid was nominated for a Meteor Ireland Music Award for best Regional DJ. In 2010 Michelle McMahon was again nominated, this time for her new time-slot on SPIN @ Work.

Sister Station

Spin South West's format is taken from Dublin's Spin 1038, the original Spin station started in 2002, also owned by Denis O'Brien's Communicorp Group Limited. The South West station has recently also been simulcasting programmes from its Dublin sister station. The primary example of this is SPIN Hits with Nikki Hayes, which is broadcast from 9:45am to 12:45am daily. However, this is no longer broadcast since SPIN Now began. The stations make use of split links to regionalise the show, however generic jingles referring to the station as SPIN are used. Other programmes such as Club Educate and Hit 30 na hEireann are also syndicated. In mid-2012, Spin South West began using the same imaging as Spin 1038, and also stopped its own news in favour of syndicated news from its Dublin counterpart.

Format

The stations caters to a mainly young provincial audience with a potential listenership of 150 thousand*. It is aimed at 15-34 year olds ^[1] and plays mainly popular music. The first song played was by Seamus Barry and it was Timbaland The Way I Are

The station CEO is Limerick business woman, Aevann Upton, while Programme Director is Nessa McGann. Music Director of the station is Eoghain Fitzgerald.

Latest JNLR Listenership Figures as of 17/02/2011 show SPIN South West have a weekly audience of 143,000, an increase of 4000 since the last figures. The station has received nominations for the National PPI Radio Awards for its Breakfast show, Breakfast Espresso with Seamus Barry, SPIN Talk with John & Muireann, and a nomination for station imaging as well as one for an insert for The Lisbon Treaty which featured Peter Curtin, Jacqui Leahy, John Hayes & Ciara Revins.

Broadcasting

SPIN South West is a Regional radio station for 15- 34 year olds based in Limerick and broadcasting to Clare, Limerick, Kerry. North Tipperary and South West Laois. It is backed by a mixture of local and national expertise in media. It is owned by a group of shareholders including Clare Community Radio Holdings plc, Communicorp Group Ltd, Jerry Kennelly, John O’Connor, Liam O’Shea and Keith Wood.

The station broadcasts to the Munster region on 102-103 and 94.7 MHz FM. It is on air 24/7 playing popular music during most of the day and dance or techno music during the night. Specialist weekend shows hosted by Paul Webb, Peter Curtin and Code cover house, techno, hip-hop and drum'n'bass respectively.

Schedule

Weekdays

• 00.45 SPIN Now Rewind with Nessa Harney (Monday-Friday)
• 02.45 SPIN Perpetual Motion
• 06.45 Fully Charged with Colm O'Sullivan
• 10.45 SPIN Now with Nessa Harney
• 14.45 SPIN Hits with Eoghain Fitzgerald
• 18.45 Zoo Crew Hot 30 with Ed Roche and Sheena Faughnan
• 20.45 Total Request Live (TRL) (Sunday-Thursday)
• 21.45 Balance with Paul Webb (Fridays)
• 23.45 Spin Session (Sunday-Thursday)

Weekends

Website

The radio station's website features many of the stations unique attractions such as 'The Spinis' who are a group of people who drive around the South-West region in 'bright pink Minis'. They often stop at workplaces. It has a photo gallery where you can see photos from OBs/gigs and everything else. It also has a unique feature - SPIN TV where you can watch everything that goes on in studio live. It has Dj blogs and the interactive pick the hits section where listeners can rate the music whether they like or loath it.

Presenters

The station started with a total of 47 staff, including an on air line up of Seamus Barry (now of Cork's Red FM), Dan Mooney, Jacqui Leahy, Muireann O'Connell now of Dublin's 98FM), Chloe Liddy Judge,Michelle Mc Mahon (now editor of her.ie), Conor Quaid, John Hayes, Aiden McAuliffe, Caroline Smith (now of Dublin's 98FM).

Many of the presenters came from student radio stations in the region, with 3 coming from local staton Live 95FM (Dan Mooney, Muireann O'Connell & John Hayes), Seamus Barry joined SPIN from Cork's 96FM. The Programme Director, Nessa McGann joined SPIN from a similar role in Wired FM, a student station in Limerick.

None of the original presenters remain at SPIN, aside from Alan who became the presenter of SPIN Talk in 2011, following the departure of both John Hayes & Muireann O'Connell from the station.

Frequencies

References