RTÉ Lyric FM (stylised as RTÉ lyric fm) is an

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

classical-music and

arts The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...

radio station, owned and operated by RTÉ. The station, which is based in

Limerick Limerick ( ; ga, Luimneach ) is a western city in Ireland situated within County Limerick. It is in the province of Munster and is located in the Mid-West which comprises part of the Southern Region. With a population of 94,192 at the 2016 ...

, was launched in 1999 and is available on FM throughout Ireland (in some areas also on DAB), on Sky Digital satellite in Ireland and the

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, and via the

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worldwide. As of 2021, RTÉ Lyric FM attracts a weekday audience share of 2.1%. The current head of the station is Sinéad Wylde.

History

RTÉ Lyric FM developed from FM3 Classical Music, which began broadcasting on 6 November 1984. FM3 broadcast classical music on the

RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta (; "Radio of the Gaeltacht"), abbreviated RnaG, is an Irish language radio station owned and operated by Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ). The station is available on FM in Ireland and via satellite and on the Inter ...

network at breakfast time, lunchtime and in the evenings. The station was rarely marketed, except via promotions on

RTÉ Radio 1 RTÉ Radio 1 ( ga, RTÉ Raidió 1) is an Irish national radio station owned and operated by RTÉ and is the direct descendant of Dublin radio station 2RN, which began broadcasting on a regular basis on 1 January 1926. The total budget for th ...

, and had low listenership ratings. It was probably best known for occasionally

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simulta ...

ing the stereo sound track of movies being shown on the RTÉ television channels prior to RTÉ's deployment of

NICAM Near Instantaneous Companded Audio Multiplex (NICAM) is an early form of lossy compression for digital audio. It was originally developed in the early 1970s for point-to-point links within broadcasting networks.Croll, M.G., Osborne, D.W. and Spi ...

digital stereo. As Raidió na Gaeltachta expanded broadcast hours FM3's service hours changed to 19:30 'til 01:00 and 06:30 'til 08:00. Eventually it stayed on air until breakfast time when RnaG came back on. On 1 May 1999, RTÉ put in place an additional national FM transmitter network, and it was decided to separate FM3 from Radio na Gaeltachta, and expand its remit to include other types of minority music. The resulting station was Lyric FM (currently styled ''RTÉ lyric fm''). It also moved from

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

to Limerick as part of a policy of regionalisation. At the time of the station's launch, RTÉ lyric fm's digital studios in Cornmarket Row, Limerick, were the most advanced in the country. RTÉ Lyric FM won PPI National Station of the Year for the second time in 2004. In May 2009, the station celebrated 10 years broadcasting. This was celebrated with a concert by the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and RTÉ Philharmonic Choir. Current presenters include

Marty Whelan Marty may refer to: Names * Marty (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters, also includes stage names * Marty (surname), a list of people Places in the United States * Marty, California, a former settlement * Marty, Min ...

, George Hamilton, John Kelly, Liz Nolan, Paul Herriott, Niall Carroll, Lorcan Murray, Bernard Clarke, Aedín Gormley, and Ellen Cranitch. As part of RTÉ's calls for better funding a Prime Time report was produced about the closing of the service, this caused public reaction calling for the service to be saved. RTÉ refuted these claims saying that they planned to move the service from Limerick city and maintain it out of Dublin and Cork. Later RTÉ attended the Oireachtas communications committee were various local representatives complained to RTÉ that the service should not be moved from Limerick City. This was followed by a large debate on funding public service broadcasters/media in Dáil Éireann, as a stop gap measure the Government granted RTÉ an extra €10 million in funding to help them fund services such as RTÉ Lyric FM, in 2020 RTÉ cut funding to Lyric FM by 16%. Funding in 2020 was €5.5m down from €6.5m in the previous year.

References

External links

RTÉ lyric fm — Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rte Lyric Fm Classical music in Ireland Classical music radio stations Culture in Limerick (city) Mass media in County Limerick Radio stations established in 1999 Lyric 1999 establishments in Ireland