Three decades on from the ‘gold rush’ of commercial radio, Denis O’Brien is cashing in his chips
COMMERCIAL Radio was the ‘gold rush’ of the late 1980s, and everyone and anyone wanted a piece of the action. There were rock stars, impresarios, lawyers, sportsmen, public relations gurus, stockbrokers and socialites, all prospecting for a licence to print money.
These licences, awarded by the Independent Radio & Television Commission (IRTC), were cheap and they held the promise of easy money for the influential and the favoured.
The reality turned out to be a little different. The road to radio riches was eventually littered with casualties, but only after the initial euphoria had worn off.
The way it worked was that the ‘movers and shakers’ formed themselves into competing groups, appeared before hearings in the National Concert Hall in Dublin and eventually the licences were doled out. If you weren’t involved you weren’t really a player in the Dublin financial/ entertainment scene of the time.
To be in with a shout your team needed to have a financier, a lawyer and the whiff of political influence with Fianna Fáil. Knowledge of media was not essential as there were plenty of radio personalities out there with inflated egos waiting for a phone call and a big cheque.
A relatively unknown 30-year-old of great ambition called Denis O’Brien, then domiciled in London, put together such a consortium, called it Radio Two Thousand and made his pitch. He went on to become the biggest player and, until this week, the last man standing in commercial radio from those pioneering days.
The board of Radio 2000 back in 1988 reflects a flavour of what was needed to get a licence. There was Denis, his solicitor Paul Meagher, accountant Brendan O’Kelly; Labhrás Ó Murchú, of Ceoltas Ceoltóirí Éireann; Eamonn Doherty, a former Garda Commissioner; Liz Howard, a sports commentator; Liam Ó Murchú, a bi-lingual RTÉ broadcaster; Luke Mooney, a businessman, and Michael Smurfit Jr, scion of the wealthiest family in Ireland of that era.
They covered all the bases of what Eamon Dunphy called ‘Official Ireland’ and most of them disappeared in the afterburn of DOB’s ambition.
O’Brien was, however, swimming in shark-infested waters. At any day in the National Concert Hall you could run into film-maker Noel Pearson, barrister Gerry Danaher, solicitor Ivor Fitzpatrick, band managers Louis Walsh and John Reynolds, U2’s accountant Ossie Kilkenny, U2’s manager Paul McGuinness, Dublin footballer Brian Mullins, aviation tycoons Des and Ulick McEvaddy, socialite Ann Smurfit, promoter Jim Aiken, stockbroker Brian Davy, the Hon. Desmond Guinness, Dickie Rock and many others – all participating in syndicates hunting for a coveted broadcasting licence.
There were two reasons for this licence mania of 1989.
The first was that ‘the youth’ as they were known, were fed up with RTÉ Radio and its boring programmes. They wanted pop and rock music
and this pent-up desire had spawned an illegal but unstoppable pirate radio industry. The second was that Charlie Haughey, his lieutenant Ray Burke and Fianna Fáil in general hated RTÉ and what they considered its patronising and hostile attitude to them. Burke established the IRTC and kept the radio brief under his wing as Minister for Communications and Energy, Minister for Industry and Commerce and bizarrely, as Minister for Justice.
The group who granted the licences were almost as diverse as the applicants. It was chaired by judge Seamus Henchy and its members included impresario Fred O’Donovan, public relations guru Terry Prone, glamorous travel agent Gillian Bowler and Frank Cullen, now better know as father of Leo, the Leinster rugby coach.
While there were plenty of glittering prizes up for grabs – and indeed some of those turned out to be very lucrative in the long run – the jewel in the crown was the first national commercial radio station. O’Brien’s Radio 2000 got through to the last four, up against Oliver Barry’s Century Radio, Radio Nova run by maverick ‘pirate’ Chris Carey (who later ended up in jail in England) and a group of ambitious ex-RTÉ types.
Controversially, the licence went to Century Radio. But even the combined talents of accountant Laurence Crowley, businessman Jim Stafford, Charlie Haughey’s son-in-law John Mulhern, Terry Wogan, Chris de Burgh and others couldn’t make a go of it.
Denis O’Brien, a supporter and contributor to Fine Gael, may have had to settle for one of the minor prizes, Classic Hits 98fm. But it was enough to launch his career. As he plotted his rise to telecoms billionaire he bolted on radio stations in Eastern Europe, Today FM, Newstalk and the 13 commercial enterprises that now comprise his broadcasting empire, Communicorp.
It hasn’t been plain sailing, but while commercial radio turned out to be fool’s gold for so many, he is now cashing in his chips for an estimated €100m. After more than 30 years on the rocky road of the airwaves he is retreating into the ether reserved for plutocrats who have lost all desire to remain in the public eye.