Local Hero

t’s a fact of local radio life that, no matter how successful you are, it is unlikely you will achieve national recognition. This is despite the fact that you may eclipse the big boys in quality. One of Ireland’s most seasoned regional broadcasters is Neil Prendeville, the mid-morning presenter of Cork 96FM’s The Opinion Line. But the route to success hasn’t been an easy one, as he revealed in a recent conversation.

Jackie Hayden: How did you first get into radio?
Neil Prendeville: Crikey, that would have been at the back end of the ‘70s, about ’78, when a load of pirate stations came on nationally. There was no legislation at the time and there was only RTE Radio 1 until 2FM came on. Because of the non-availability of choice, music fans were either listening to Radio Luxembourg or maybe one or two hours a week on the BBC. That encouraged pirate radio to take off and a lot of guys like me got started that way.
And that included Cork?
Oh yeah, although there weren’t as many pirates in Cork as in Dublin. ERI was the biggest in Cork. It went for a license when licenses were later being granted, but they didn’t get it because they had a big VAT bill that wasn’t paid. They had ready-made studios all set to go and the station that got the license used the pirate’s premises.
So have you always worked in Cork radio?
No. After I did about five years on the pirates here, I went to Canada in the ‘80s to get overseas experience. I had tried to get work with RTE, but it was such a closed shop there was nothing happening. They had a small operation in Cork but it too was a completely closed house. But it was difficult to find work in Canada too, by virtue of my accent apart from other reasons, so I worked in bars and stuff like that until I got a job in a small AM station way up north in Moosonee on Hudson Bay, a small gold-mining town of about 18,000 people. I started as a morning news anchor. And I moved eventually to Toronto.
It was great experience and I learned more there than I ever learned, but you wouldn’t make a huge amount of money there. The cost of living and rents were very high, and it was at times hard for me to relate to an audience and a culture I knew nothing about.
In the pirate days were you doing the kind of talk show you do now?
I was doing everything. I played music, I did news reading and a combination of both, almost like I do now, but on a smaller scale. You couldn’t get people to interact with you on pirate radio say for an interview because there was this blanket ban from RTE. If anybody was interviewed by the pirates they would automatically be banned from RTE. That allowed us very little room to manoeuvre. I spent years trying to get an NUJ card and...eventually I got one through the [NUJ’s] London office.
Did you resent RTE at the time?
Absolutely. And I still have gripes about how RTE operate and how they squander money. At that time were no opportunities for people to get involved in broadcasting. No matter how talented you were they didn’t want to know.
What differences did you spot between Canadian radio and Ireland?
There were huge differences. In Canada I was blown away by the choice. In Toronto you had 27 stations doing 27 different things, pop stations, talk stations, rock stations, classic stations, country and western, sports channels. Here it was RTE and nothing.
Why did you come back from Canada?
When you’re away you always think things are a lot better back home. But they had given out some licenses by then and I got a call from Capital, the station run by Mike Hogan in Dublin that eventually became FM 104, and then I moved to Cork 96FM as presenter and programme controller when people like Mick Mulcahy were doing programmes here. There were really three stations in Cork covering different areas until it became one group.
Was there a point when you felt “at last, I think I’ve cracked this radio thing”?
No. I don’t think you ever crack it. Every day is a new day, with new problems and new challenges.
So what changes have you seen in radio since the early days?
We learned how digital technology and computers can be part of what we do.Years ago you could have five or six DJs or presenters, all playing whatever they felt like playing. That was useless. There was no point in having a station that was controlled by each presenter’s choice. Now it’s much more scheduled and researched with our listeners.
But a lot of DJs resent that.
They do, but I’m very comfortable with it, because I know we’re playing the best choice of music for the listener. It takes all the headaches away. Presenters should realise that it allows them to be a lot more creative.
What changes have you seen in Cork as a city?
Massive changes. Like, the '80s were dreadful. When I left we had massive unemployment, 27% at one stage. We’d had the closure of Dunlops, Fords, (shipbuilders) Verolme. The decimation of the harbour area. Cork was a dank and a dour place to be. Buildings were run-down. There have been massive changes in the infrastructure, huge investment in the old torn-down and derelict areas of town, and the main drainage scheme. Ideally, in a few years you should be able to swim in the Lee! There are huge opportunities in employment. Anybody who wants to work now can work, there’s little excuse not to. The city has got better and better. I wouldn’t have stayed if I thought different. Cork was once a relatively small city, but now it’s surrounded by very affluent suburbs.
So you regard the Celtic Tiger as a positive thing?
I don’t know about Celtic Tigers. Any city or country is a good place to be if you’ve got money and a job. I still see lots of homeless people and winos on the streets. For whatever reason they’re there. The Celtic Tiger was great for some, but not for young people trying to afford their first house. Property is out of reach of the young people. There’s been a lot of investment that has driven the price of property up.
Do you see multi-culturalism in Cork as a good thing?
It is now, but it wasn’t a few years ago. Five or six years ago I could have filled my programme day after day with people bitching on about asylum seekers and refugees. They saw it as people coming in and robbing us of our culture and our cash. We had a problem with Romanians who were seen in a very negative light because of thefts and begging on the streets.
People seem to have become a lot more tolerant and we have more and more east Europeans and Africans and that’s fine. I can come to work in the morning and walk up the street and not hear an English-speaking voice. I can hear Estonian, Latvians, Poles, all working as builders and carpenters on the new complexes here.
Do you welcome that?
I love it and the criticism I mentioned has by and large gone away. People fear change. Walking into a restaurant or pub or service station and being served by people who don’t speak good English can be a little frustrating from a practical point of view. But I would hate to think that the stories I hear of exploitation are as true as people claim.
What impression is Cork 2005 making outside Cork?
Very little. Reading the newspapers, whether the Irish Independent or the Irish Times or even The Irish Examiner, it all seems to be quite negative. I see where the Capital of Culture management people are being threatened with being sued by the Where’s Me Culture? fringe group, so that’s being covered in the papers and it’s negative once again. I met people yesterday who had come down from Dublin to see the Gold And Silver Of Cork exhibition and it had already closed. But they were given information in Dublin to say it was still on. That’s got to be very annoying. The papers are printing letters from people in the UK and overseas who’ve come over at the weekend and found everything’s closed. Even the car parks are closed. It’s been very negative and it seems to be their own fault by just catering for a tiny percentage. It’s going over people’s heads. Viewing culture as something elitist is missing the point. Anything worthwhile that seems to be happening seems to be done by private enterprise.
They opened the Capital of Culture office in June. It’s Liverpool’s turn in 2008 and they’re already planning it.
But maybe it’s also an Irish thing, or even a Cork thing, that no matter what you do some people will find fault anyway?
It’s very much a Cork thing. They say that about Corkonians, that for every Corkonian that does well you have a half-dozen pulling him back down again. It’s this insecurity we have. I try not to do it!
Is that reflected in the Cork-Dublin relationship? Is there resentment that Cork doesn’t get its full share of the limelight on a national level?
Historically that’s always been the case. Look at the Arts Council budget for (Cork) Opera House and the arts in Cork. But Cork people go on about Cork being the real capital of Ireland, but that’s a load of bollocks. Dublin is the capital. We need to stand up and work on our own merit. Dublin tends to forget that anything exists outside Dublin.
You can see that almost every day in the programming of RTE, how insular they can be. But the more RTE keep getting it wrong the more opportunities there are for me to exploit it by getting it right. That’s what I focus on every day, and it doesn’t have to be parochial or parish pump stuff, just stuff that people interact with.
Yesterday we had a broadcast with a single woman who was being evicted from her house live on air, with three bailiffs and four Gardai outside her door. People can relate to a woman being kicked out of her house by bureaucracy. It’s Cork people talking about things that matter to Cork people.
How does RTE’s insularity manifest itself on air?
For example, some weeks ago Joe Duffy dedicated an entire hour to some socialite couple, a couple of lawyers whose name escapes me, the Keanes, is it? Either they’re breaking up or they aren’t breaking up. We have no idea who these people are down here! Are we that much in the dark down here?
No you’re better off not knowing, believe me. This might be one case where you’re winning by being ignored!
Yeah (laughs) National newspapers also do it, and I don’t think it’s right.
Would decentralisation help?
The government has done some of that, spreading civil servants around the country. But that’s just moving chess pieces on a board.
Do you still have ambitions to have a programme on RTE?
No. Not now. Maybe it’s better to be a big fish in a small pond than the other way round. But I’d like to have done a little more television apart from what I’ve done with Chorus and the local channel. If you’re not in Dublin you haven’t a rat’s arse chance of ever getting into RTE which has never been decentralised really.
But people like John Creedon from Cork have made it in RTE.
But John went and worked in Dublin and started in Dublin, not in Cork. He broadcasts for an hour every day from Cork and it’s really tokenism from RTE trying to warrant keeping their Cork studio open. No more than that.
RTE used to have an opt-out period on Radio 1 for programmes from Cork. Was its closure due to 96FM’s success?
Very much so. They had just rolled on, never changed, never got with it. We were hungrier and leaner. When we came on first they had 27% of the local audience and we had 12%, but with every survey their audience dissipated and ours increased.
You’re on at the same time as Gerry Ryan on 2FM and Pat Kenny on Radio 1. Do you get much time to listen to your rivals?
I’m told what Gerry Ryan is doing and what Kenny is doing, and Finucane, who’s also on at the same time. With all due respects, Pat Kenny is not a threat to anything we’re doing. Ryan is to an extent, Finucane certainly isn’t. Ryan Tubridy might be. Ray Darcy certainly is, very much more so than any of the others. If I’ve seen anybody’s light going into the ascendant it’s Darcy’s. I’d be more clued in to what he’s doing than to Gerry or Kenny.
What do you think of Gerry Ryan?
He’s got to be doing something right. His figures are massive, although not so huge here in Cork. None of the national players are terribly big here. Their profile is high, but it’s not reflected in listenership figures. But I admire anybody who can pull in big numbers.
Do you see Ryan Tubridy as a big star of the future?
I do. On radio and television. But you need to regard anybody coming into the marketplace as a threat. Remember, RTE have massive resources, they’re big guns. That’s why nothing has ever worked in taking on Morning Ireland because people don’t have the resources.
Would you be regarded as a fairly high profile celebrity in Cork?
Yeah, apparently.
Does it impinge on your life?
Not really. It’s great to have achieved what I’ve achieved and it’s a nice compliment that so many people listen or know who I am.
Do you ever have people having a go at you in public?
Absolutely. But then they’re supposed to. I’m not reading the weather or introducing the new single by Boyzone or any shite like that. What I do matters.
Has it ever become unpleasant?
Not really. You might get people making derogatory comments. That goes with the territory. But I’ve never felt physically at risk. I’ve been called a langer, an asshole, a gobshite, a self-opinionated prick. If I wasn’t getting any of that I wouldn’t be doing the job right. I’m there to pull strings and to tweek emotions.
Ever been tempted to use hard drugs?
No. Never. I couldn’t function if I did. But it wasn’t around when I was growing up when your first pint of Harp would be a big deal. But I fear for my son and daughter now because they will be so exposed to it.
How would you then feel about the decriminalisation of cannabis?
I’d have no problem with that. I don’t see it as a big deal.
Is there much cocaine around Cork?
There is, yeah. Oh yeah. It has now become as normal to be offered this kind of stuff as to be offered a fag or a pint. As I was going into a loo in Cork a few weeks ago there was a young guy was wiping the top of the cistern and I only realised later he was cleaning the cocaine off. It’s very, very available. All of the hard drugs are.
Are you religious?
I wouldn’t think so. I was brought up a Catholic and was an altar-boy. Right now I’m probably in some kind of limbo land. I’m not a practising Catholic.
How do you feel about the new Pope?
I think the jury’s out on that guy. I’d be very wary of him. I loved John Paul II as a guy, but I couldn’t get into this contraception stuff and not allowing condoms in the African nations. I think women should be very pissed off about their treatment by the Catholic Church. This guy’s even more dictatorial than the last fella. I’ve been to countries where I see fierce poverty. I’m just back from Banda Ache in the Pacific and after the tsunami. These people living on nothing. The African continent must be the same, with famine and AIDS and so on.
The BCI (Broadcasting Commission of Ireland) have been asking for views on the news and current affairs content on radio so there many be a reduction in the 20% rule. Would that affect your programme?
No. Not what I do. But I think all radio stations should cover news and current affairs in whatever way suits their franchise area.
Some cynics are suggesting that it’s all part of a BCI plan to offer a reduction in that 20% stipulation in return for local stations accepting (Dublin talk-radio station) Newstalk being given a national license.
The problem with that would be a revenue-generating thing. It would be a worry for other stations. If Newstalk was given a license as a Dublin station, so be it. But I don’t think a national talk station for a country the size of Ireland would work. Newstalk need to get right what they’re doing now, although they’re paying (Eamon) Dunphy telephone figures.
Are those types of restrictions, or the pressure to play more Irish music, good or bad for radio stations?
I suppose you have to have some kind of a benchmark, otherwise you’d have a free for all. Otherwise you’d have stations with 30 second headlines and nothing more. If there was no stipulation you’d have no newsrooms and no journalists and every station would be a 24-hour jukebox and what good would that be? It’s great for Irish music now that there’s so much great Irish music around, compared to what it used to be. So much of it was so bad. There are great local acts I love playing on air. Ten years ago it wouldn’t have been given a chance because the demo would have been shite.
Are there specific topics that regularly strike a chord with Cork listeners?
Yeah. One would be clamping. And parking. Or the city centre. Parking fines. Towing away people’s cars. The price of booze. How much money publicans make. The northside-southside divide. They all push that button.
Can you recall an item that caused a bit of a sensation?
One time a file was sent to the DPP over a piece that involved two northside families and a feud that included hatchets and machetes and blood everywhere. I got a phone in to the house where there was a Garda stand-off going on. It made fantastic radio, but one member of one of the families said that he was going out there and heads were going to be lifted off shoulders and it was felt that this was an incitement to violence. I think we were right to broadcast it. Was it responsible? I don’t know.
Any problems with slander?
Ah yeah (laughs). It’s got a lot better. It was terrible years ago. Everybody had a pop. Maybe there aren’t as many have-a-go solicitors. I got a solicitor’s letter for saying McDonalds serve cold chips. Now everybody knows that McDonalds serve cold chips and they don’t seem to be terribly bothered about it. Ten years ago you’d have sales reps roaring at you about losing advertising revenue. I have a couple of libel issues still outstanding, but it comes with the territory. I did stuff last week about nursing homes and we’ve had a few solicitors on about that.
Are there any topics you’d still like to get around to covering or somebody you’d like to interview?
Recent surveys shows that people in this area dislike celebrity interviews and prefer human interest stories. That said, I’d love to get a really coherent interview with George Best. I just see him unravelling before my eyes and I’d love to know why. I interviewed him when he opened an Ideal Homes exhibition here about six years ago but he was very drunk and it was a shame and a wasted opportunity.
Have you ever been tempted to go down the Howard Stern shock-jock route?
No. It’s an instinctive thing. There’s stuff I’d pass on because I wouldn’t be comfortable with it. I don’t want to demean sections of society just to get more listeners.
Does that mean you might be a little conservative?
Yes, I think I’ve probably mellowed a little. I used to be a bit of a rebel.