Nova for the soul

It’s just slipped past 6 o’clock on an uncharacteristically balmy Tuesday evening in Dublin. For a fleet of commuters still beholden to the guitar classics of yesteryear, that can mean only one thing. Radio dial tuned to 100.3fm, it’s time for the Rock Report on Radio Nova. Hot Press is sitting in the production booth at Nova HQ, with a bird’s eye view of Marty Miller and Carol Dooley preparing to bring us all the classic rock news that’s fit to air. Van Halen’s ‘Jump’ comes to a close and we’re on, treated to 20 minutes of Noel Gallagher info, Brett Michaels updates and no small amount of good-natured banter between the two presenters. Fun, informative and interspersed with good-time tunes – this is Radio Nova one year on from their launch.

Having secured a BCI license for the over-25 market in 2008, the first 12 months on air have been an exercise in building a loyal audience, and fast. “Never in my life have I seen such an outpour of love for a radio station. That’s blown me away,” confesses seasoned DJ Marty Miller, as he prepares to wrap up the final hour of his slot. “People walk in with handmade T-shirts. Right now, I’ve got a listener who is building a stained-glass light box with the Nova logo on it, just for the good of his health!”
Having got his start in a hospital station at the tender age of 16, Miller knows his Irish radio. He’s also a DJ in love with the rock ‘n’ roll of yesteryear (his Dad Rock show on Today FM had a cult following). With that in mind, Nova’s classic rock remit must be a dream come true for Marty. “It totally is. I’d made my way around the city’s stations, playing one guitar-y track an hour. It was just head-wrecking because you were surrounded by the equivalents of today’s Katie Perrys, Sugababes, David Guetta… That’s all fine, it has its own market, but for me to be able to get on the radio and play AC/DC, or my favorite band in the world, The Doors, is just incredible.”

That enthusiasm translates to the audience. The feelgood factor is massive for Nova’s more mature listenership. “Every time you turn on Nova, you’re going to hear a guitar tune that you like,” Miller continues. “It’s about bringing you back to a time when you felt really good about yourself and recapturing that feeling.”
Not that it’s an easy job, with most of the presenters working longer-than-average hours. “The radio station was definitely built with the economy in mind. It’s hands-on. Somebody said to me recently, and I quite like their take on it, that it’s pretty cool because they always know who’s on. ‘I know afternoons are Marty, I know mid-mornings are Greg, I know they pop up over the weekend.’”
It also allows listeners to get to know the Nova crew intimately, road offences and all. “Yesterday I got busted for driving too fast,” says Miller. “It was great because I was able to come in here, moan about it on the radio and play Sammy Hagar’s ‘I Can’t Drive Past 55’. You get things going with the listeners where they call up and say, ‘Hey, play this, because you’re a rebel!’, that sort of stuff. It’s only messing but it’s fun. The whole idea of Nova coming at this moment in time is that we’re putting a spin on things, saying, ‘It’s not that bad’. There are people who are crippled with debt, can’t pay the mortgage, the ESB bill… The music might just give somebody that edge, make them feel better because they’re listening to Steely Dan… I’ve gotta talk.”

With that, Marty moves seamlessly back to on-air mode and, fittingly, introduces ‘Ricky Don’t Lose That Number’. With the Rock Report complete, we catch up with Carol Dooley, who, as well as putting her hard rock news hat on twice daily, takes care of programming and promotions. “With the Rock Report, it’s imperative for us to have our fingers on the pulse every day. That is a challenge.” Surely it’s tough finding fresh material on these decades-old bands? “Yeah, but also it’s more interesting, you know?” Carol counters. “A lot of these bands from the classic rock era really are more interesting!” Not only the bands, but also their crew. One of the highlights of the year for Carol was securing a chat with Howard Ungerleider, Rush’s road manager. “I was sitting in the Gibson bar when Rush came to town – this was just after the Eric Clapton gig – and I noticed that there were piles of guys and gals who just looked like roadies. We didn’t want to appear overly nosy so we very slowly eased our way into the group. Eventually they did admit that they were the roadies for Rush. The stage manager, who had set up the whole Rush show, agreed to come on with us the following night. He was absolutely fascinating in the studio, very willing to talk about absolutely everything.”

With 7pm approaching, Dee Woods will soon take to the mic. A different beast to the drivetime spot, her show aims to ease people into the night. Woods has been enjoying the freedom to simply ‘be herself’ on Nova. “Certainly, as presenters, we’re not being forced into very tight roles,” she nods. “We have some general housekeeping but we’re allowed be ourselves, which is important because there are so many robots on air. It’s a real shame, because they’re talented people, but they’re given these memos and scripts.” Echoing her fellow jocks, Woods reckons this authenticity creates a bond with the listener. “This sounds really corny,” she ventures. “But it is just like one big happy family.”
Head of the household then, would be Mr. Kevin Branigan, the current chief executive of Nova. He backs his DJ’s enthusiasm up with some hard fact about the station’s first year. Initial signs are promising. “It’s been a fantastic year for us,” says Branigan. “The figures so far are great. We said in our application that we were going to get 4% daily reach by the end of 2011 and we’d already achieved 5% by the summer. It’s the first Irish station in 15 years that’s actually exceeded its audience projections.”

What does Branigan put it down to? “First of all, we’ve a unique music proposition. The music we play is completely different to the music on every other station. We play the greatest artists of all time. If you look at all those million-sellers – The Stones, Bowie, all these huge artists no-one else is playing.” Branigan has noticed that changing in recent months, however. Nova’s success is having a knock-on effect. “It’s only since we’ve come on that the likes of 98, Q and all these stations are playing rock music. There was never a trace of a single rock song before us but now it’s a different story. I heard 98fm playing ‘The Boys Are Back In Town’ at 8.45 in the morning the other day.”
The next step for Nova is an ambitious one – the old-school station is embracing new technology. “We’re just about to launch ten new digital channels in mid-to-late September. They’ll be on the air 24 hours a day, available to the 75,000 who have downloaded the app, available on the website. We’ve been working on this for months and have invested a five figure sum into the technology. We couldn’t possibly keep every rock listener in Dublin happy as it stands. So these ten new channels will cover all the genres – a pro rock channel, an American channel, ‘70s channel, British Invasion… The thing about rock music is that it’s such a broad church.”
Sounds like the start of a new radio religion.