Anna Livia - Dublin's Third Voice

According to John Furlong, a director of Anna Livia, the station was set up to do three things. "First," he explains, "the intention was to give Dublin a county station. Secondly, we were to provide access to the substantial number of voluntary organisations in the area, and thirdly to broadcast music which might not otherwise be heard on Dublin stations."

In relation to that last point, their Saturday morning show, City Limits has been supportive of Irish rock bands at demo level in a way that other Dublin stations choose not to, and the freewheelin' approach of presenters like Joe Conway and Brian Larry deserves an even bigger audience.

Anna Livia's required broadcast content includes 70% speech, the remainder being music which Director of Programmes Fergus Lynch would describe as "very definitely non-main stream," and includes a number of specialist programmes of the type that RTE 1 has swept off its schedule as part of Cathal McCabe's recent ethnic music cleansing of the station.

The station owes its genesis to the time when Ray Burke's ill-conceived and ill-fated Broadcast Bill was winging its way through the Dail and before being a card carrying member of Fianna Fail was seen as a crucial asset for anyone seeking a radio license. "But unlike elsewhere in the country," reflects John Furlong, "the expected license for a Dublin community station did not materialise. But during Dublin's tenure as Europe's city of culture a number of like-minded enthusiasts got permission to broadcast Anna Livia Mark One for a fortnight in 1990."

liFe in the metropolis

The success of that short broadcasting burst inspired the enthusiasts to look for a permanent license and in time applications were invited for a license for a Dublin Community station. Dublin Public Service Radio Associated Limited were granted that license and hence Anna Livia Radio as we know it, a Dublin station run by volunteer Dublin people and endeavouring to reflect all aspects of life in the metropolis.

"Initially," explains Lynch, "there was a general scepticism about the ability of volunteers to run a radio station. But the two weeks of Anna Livia during Dublin's Year of Culture proved what could be achieved and irrefutably demonstrated that there was a constituency not being catered for by the existing classic-hits based stations. We proved that there was a Dublin identity common to people from Finglas to Foxrock and that they could be reached by a volunteer-run station with content that acts as a balance with the two existing stations."

Unfortunately, the voluntary aspect of the station limits its broadcasting hours and their franchise does not allow them to accept direct advertising, but the general in-house philosophy seems to favour high-quality short broadcasting rather than spreading the quality too thinly over a longer period. That attention to quality is reflected in such flagship programmes as Heading Home or Evening Edition and in that context it may be unfair to compare Anna Livia with pirate stations broadcasting all day.

Programme presenter Brian Lally makes the point that it is easier for such pirate stations because they invariably have a music-only output and have a very specific and limited target audience, whereas Anna Livia's brief is much broader and the programme content much more imaginative and consequently more time-consuming and labour intensive. "Our programming is aimed at the active, intelligent listener," Lally explains, adding "it is quite separate from the aural hogwash that just washes over you."

Lynch recounts stories of several commercial and voluntary interests offering to fill the empty hours in the day with wall-to-wall music, but they have dismissed such entreaties as being unworkable, and their collective feeling is that any move to increase Anna Livia's broadcasting hours should be made carefully and gradually.

"The voluntary structure also means that the station invariably attracts producers and presenters with real enthusiasm for the job, and I believe that shows in what you hear on your radio," maintains Brian Lally.

Which might make it even more regrettable that the station cannot take advertising, a fact which in turn makes life more difficult for Anna Livia's marketing manager Robbie Cousins. Cousins explained to Hot Press that there are legal difficulties attaching to the station running commercials, but accepts that the income would go a long way towards the £50,000 he feels the station could improve its operating facilities at its Grafton Street location. But he also emphasises that there was no desire to be a commercial station in their initial thinking and there is a somewhat unexpressed fear, perhaps, that an element of commerciality might radically change the focus of the operation.

"We are not market driven," claims Furlong, "we are not here to provide advertising space for advertisers. This is real public service broadcasting. When the RTE cap on advertising revenue was lifted it was supposed to free about £20 million. We wrote to the relevant ministers pointing out that we were providing public service broadcasting to the densest population area in the country and asking if some money could be allocated to us in the same way that £4 million can be set aside for the Irish television channel and we got no response whatsoever. Michael D. Higgins has made a lot of pronouncements about Community Radio but we would call on the minister to match his words with action. We operate a superb station on a shoestring so imagine if we had modest resources, as little as £60,000 per year, what could be achieved."

hugely popular

By some twist in the legislation Anna Livia can accept sponsorship and that falls into Cousins area of responsibility. "Sponsors are finally beginning to see the contribution Anna Livia is making to the Dublin community. Similarly our outside broadcasts have proven to be hugely popular, and that now makes it easier to market the station. But we have to remember that we exist as a broadcasting medium and not as a mere advertising medium which some stations seem to have become," he told Hot Press.

Given their lack of real finance the station cannot undertake any expensive marketing campaign, and have to rely largely on word of mouth comment inspired by good programmes. One would also wonder what kind of political chicanery has contrived a situation whereby Dublin's community station cannot take ads whereas other community stations, like Bray's Horizon Radio before it became East Coast, was allowed to run ads!

But Fergus Lynch acknowledges that a lack of financial resources make it extremely difficult for Anna Livia to remind Dublin people of its existence while its competitors in the Dublin area can plan elaborate marketing campaigns on buses costing £7,000 per display. In reality, Anna Livia would be prepared to take advertising under any restrictions the IRTC would lay down, but only to extend to the covering of costs and not with a view to turning in a profit.

Lynch is also aware of the pressures advertisers can then put on you as they try to dictate that your programming moves towards attracting the audience they wish to target, and when pressed he finds it hard to deny that this type of surreptitious advertising pressure has worked to the detriment of other stations.

Furlong maintains that RTE has actually stolen programme ideas from Anna Livia, citing the Live Register as one example. He takes this as a compliment and points out that in some respects RTE is every bit as much a competitor for Anna Livia as the other two Dublin stations.

The stations growing audience prestige in the Dublin area means that, according to Brian Lally, they can ring virtually any public figure and have him or her on the air almost immediately. "There's no doubt they know exactly who we are and how important we are to the Dublin community. The same attitude is reflected in the way sports people, for example, make sure we get results from them as soon as possible. When you constantly get that kind of positive response from people you know you're on the right track," he argues.

Cousins backs Lally's point by adding that the station has also interviewed an impressive number of international names, like actor William Dafoe or Monty Python star Eric Idle as well as internationally successful Irish sports figures and pop and rock stars. "In fact," he says, "I cannot recall anyone of note turning us down."

But its not only the bigwigs who get coverage. Ample space is given over to reports of local sports events, amateur league football matches and so forth, in a way that no other station operating in Dublin even attempts to do. Furlong points to their live link-ups to the Guinness Temple Bar Blues Festival as another example of Anna Livia doing what their better-resourced competitors cannot or will not do, and they employ a degree of self-criticism quite rare in Irish broadcasting where indifference to errors and foul-ups seems to be the norm.

Anna Livia Radio broadcasts on 103.8FM, 5pm to 11.45pm Monday to Friday, 10am to 11.45 on Saturday and 9am to 11.45pm on Sunday.