Lyric FM is a leading light in essential public service
ATEXTER to the Movies And Musical show on Lyric FM last Saturday captured some of the preciousness of a station celebrating 25 years on air today.
The listener said they encouraged their children to have Lyric on in their homes ‘so that our small grandchildren will grow up surrounded by beautiful music bringing a feeling of security and peace’.
For a quarter of a century, Lyric FM has provided not so much entertainment as sanctuary, from a world that feels like it’s in a frenetic spiral.
The consistency of its output is remarkably high not merely in musical terms, or in its production standards, but in the mood it conveys.
Every day, beginning with the marvellous Marty In The Morning at 7am, the station provides a sense of decency, of dignity, and of beauty.
Triumph
It is a triumph of public service broadcasting, providing listeners with the sort of music and shows that would not necessarily withstand the squeeze of commercial demands, and which is an undoubted force for good in Irish life.
There is no institution in Irish life as embattled as RTÉ over the past year but with Lyric, it facilitates radio that is engaging and erudite but also understated and unshowy. And it nearly stopped doing so. In the autumn of 2019, with the national broadcaster enduring one of its recurring funding crises, news broke that the future of Lyric was under consideration.
This was accompanied by grave briefings about nothing being off the table, the sombre talk of corporate ruthlessness that is unmoved by the cultural impact of an organisation; the bottom line was what mattered.
The threat to Lyric’s future was first revealed on Prime Time, with speculation thereafter about it becoming an online offering.
Then-director general of RTÉ Dee Forbes wrote to staff at the time, announcing that times were indeed grim.
‘With commercial revenues and public funding both significantly below what is needed to operate the organisation in its current form, our current financial situation is not like anything we have seen before,’ she revealed.
Given what we now know about how RTÉ was being managed, how some of those diminishing public funds were being wasted on indulgent corporate memberships, luxury trips and, unforgettably, flip-flops, reference to the cost of running the place ‘in its current form’ reads hollow.
In November that year, RTÉ management declared that as part of a restructuring across the broadcaster that would cost 200 jobs, the Limerick studio, where Lyric is based, would go.
Job losses would follow as production was to be split between Cork and Dublin.
The reaction from within the station was one of horror, but even more decisive was the force of the public backlash.
Listeners were aghast, but protest at such cold calculation found more a general voice, too. People may not tune in to Lyric in the numbers attracted to RTÉ Radio 1, but they appreciate its place in Irish life.
Such was the scale of the reaction that Leo Varadkar was forced to intervene, the Taoiseach of the day asking management to reconsider.
A day after he did so, the decision was deferred and Lyric was saved.
A letter from Lyric staff to RTÉ management from that time later emerged, in which they observed that in a time of instability in journalism, ‘public trust in RTÉ is at a premium and we think anything other than supporting RTÉ Lyric FM at this time would deal a devastating blow to that trust, and would lead to a perception that RTÉ no longer takes its public service obligations seriously’.
Those observations remain true, and it is telling that in all of the often drastic solutions proposed for reforming the national broadcaster over the last year, none has seriously suggested interfering with Lyric.
That’s because even in the most brutal and unsparing financial calculations, the station provides tremendous value for money. There are no issues with influencers or the ‘talent’ to which RTÉ was too long in thrall.
Powerhouse
But its value goes far beyond gauging in euro and cent.
It is a cultural powerhouse, providing an outlet for indigenous talent but also celebrating the wonders of composing and creation and performance, that have elevated humankind for centuries.
It is also, as that texter to Movies And Musicals implied, a place of calm and certainty in a diffuse and clamorous world.
From Marty Whelan’s brilliant breakfast show, to the understated expertise of Aedín Gormley and George Hamilton, to the more eclectic night-time broadcasts, it provides shows of high quality with little fuss.
This feels especially valuable in times of wider crisis, with many finding particular solace in the station’s output in the years after the economic crash.
And in those tumultuous months last summer when scandal beset RTÉ and public trust in it reached alarmingly low levels, Lyric felt an untroubled oasis in a time of churn.
The reality was doubtlessly different, but that capacity for providing class and quality no matter what feels priceless. Lyric FM manifests much of what is good about public service.
Its birthday is cause for national celebration – and gratitude.