Belfield FM is University College Dublin's

student radio Campus radio (also known as college radio, university radio or student radio) is a type of radio station that is run by the students of a college, university or other educational institution. Programming may be exclusively created or produced ...

station. The station began broadcasting in 1990. It was initially run as a part of the

UCD Students' Union University College Dublin Students' Union (UCDSU; ga, Aontas na Mac Léinn COBÁC) is the students' union of University College Dublin. It is the largest students' union in Ireland. The Union was founded in 1975 as the successor of the Student Re ...

, under the remit of the entertainments office, before becoming an independent entity within the Students' Union (SU). Belfield FM disaffiliated with the SU at the end of the 2011/2012 college year, and is now run independently within the UCD Societies Council framework. The station forms part of UCD's "Student Media Network", along with ''

The University Observer ''The University Observer'' is a broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the campus of University College Dublin, Ireland, once every three weeks. Launched in 1994 by University College Dublin Students' Union, the newspaper was an immedia ...

'' and '' The College Tribune''. The station is run by volunteer staff and contributors, and broadcasts on week-days.

Awards

Belfield FM have participated in the

National Student Media Awards The National Student Media Awards or Smedias are an annual All-Ireland student journalism competition run by the Oxygen.ie website. The awards have been labelled "Ireland's premier student awards". History and format Since 2000, Oxygen.ie, a webs ...

and have won a number of awards. These included a People's Choice Award for William McCartney in 2018, a Radio Journalist award for Patrick Power in 2019, and a People's Choice Award for Aisling Grennan in 2019.

Controversies

In 2015 the Societies Council temporarily closed the station due to it being unsupervised for lengths of time. In late 2018, "Keepin' it Country" was criticised by the ''

College Tribune The ''College Tribune'' is a student newspaper which serves Ireland's largest third level institution, University College Dublin. It was established in 1989 with the assistance of journalist and broadcaster Vincent Browne who was attending the ...

'' for inappropriate comments regarding named students live on air, and the show's podcasts were subsequently removed. In the subsequent semester of broadcasting, the controversial show was absent from the schedule of programming. In 2019, the show "Up Late with Dave" featured an interview with John Connors to discuss the travelling community in Ireland. During the interview, Connors supposedly raised concerns of a disconnect between the travelling community and

Pavee Point Pavee Point (PP) is a government-funded non-governmental organisation based in Dublin, Ireland that was formed to improve the human rights of Irish Travellers and to bridge the economic and social inequalities between Travellers and settled peopl ...

. The station later published an apology on their website.

References

{{University College Dublin Student radio in the Republic of Ireland University College Dublin