ATLANTIC 252
If you where about age 11-14 growing up listening to Atlantic 252 in Ireland you would have had very limited knowledgeable access to the internet at this stage, meaning the majority of the population maintained a specific type of innocence about them and ideologies that settled the mind at ease.
"non-stop rhythm and dance"
One example being that listeners believed in their mind that Atlantic 252 was being broadcasted to their home personal compact disc radio's from an island somewhere in the Atlantic, possibly near where titanic sunk.
But if you did not read print newpapers back in the late 90's, what was even better was to later find out in the days of wikipedia that Atlantic 252 was a product created by the great European country that is Luxembourg! Knowing that their government allows its under-35 age group population to have fun and knowing how passionate the people there are at raving clubbing and getting the great techno crazed party goers crazed up, the nostalgic feeling felt at an even greater ease.
The concept of Atlantic 252 can be traced back as far as August 1986, when Radio Luxembourg contacted state broadcaster RTÉ about setting up a joint venture to serve English language listeners with a pop music radio station.
RTÉ announced it was to use their allocated longwave frequency channel for a new pop music station. They teamed up with Radio Luxembourg to form Radio Tara–the trading name of Atlantic 252.
One of the reasons for Radio Luxembourg parent company' RTL's early success was that the Luxembourg government allowed licensing permits for commercial radio and TV stations long before other European countries, such as the UK and Ireland.
This flexibility enabled RTL to transmit to other countries (such as the Ireland, United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the Netherlands) in their own languages.
Many British radio presenters began their careers on Radio Luxembourg before moving back home to work for the likes of the BBC and to newly emerging commercial broadcasters in the UK after the relaxation of its own licensing to the area of which it served which occurred in the mid-90s.
England-born presenter Gary King, already an upcoming actor and had 1 previous major radio job in Oxford, London with connections to BBC Radio 1. The man himself was called upon to launch Atlantic 252.
The creation of Atlantic 252 has happened. Jointly run by RTL Group and Irish broadcaster RTÉ, the station launched and went live-on-air from Mornington House, Summerhill Road, Trim in County Meath on Friday September 1st 1989.
The creation of Atlantic 252 has happened. Jointly run by RTL Group and Irish broadcaster RTÉ, the station launched and went live-on-air from Mornington House, Summerhill Road, Trim in County Meath on Friday September 1st 1989.
The station's official "first record ever played" – on the launch date of 1 September 1989 – was "Sowing the Seeds of Love" by Tears for Fears, followed by "Monkey" by George Michael.
The station cost £6 million to set up.
47.0 million people were in the station's broadcast range. However, some listeners far away will have suffered from weakened signal. Being longwave, the transmitter mast in Trim was able to feed through into mainland Europe. Reception reports were received from such locations as Berlin, Finland, Ibiza, and Moscow. The signal had even been received in Brazil at night-time.
Also vice-versa when Radio Luxembourg transmitted from mainland Europe to Ireland and the UK in the early hours of the morning on a different frequency between 7pm and 6am when broadcasting ceased for the work day from Trim. At 7PM every day - a year later changed to 2AM, Atlantic 252 ended with an announcement specifically encouraging listeners to switch to Radio Luxembourg on 1440 kHz medium wave.
The Scottish musician Mylo has claimed that Atlantic 252 was the only radio station with listenable reception on the Isle of Skye.
The music format consisted of high-rotation mainstream pop and rock music, with influences borrowed heavily from American chart radio.
Two years later in September 1991, Radio Luxembourg shut down its medium wave broadcast and Atlantic 252 became a full-time radio station broadcasting 24 hours a day from Trim.
At the peak of its popularity in 1993, Atlantic 252 had 6 million listeners in the UK and Ireland.
Although the station and transmitter was based in Ireland, RTL Group and Raidió Teilifís Éireann agreed that advertising content where to be aimed at a UK-central audience. The stations target reach meant that it was often looked upon as a "UK national station" in Ireland.
Anlantic 252 started to decline in 1994.
At Atlantic 252 launch date, there were no UK-wide commercial stations (the first would be Classic FM in 1992), and the lack of UK broadcast licences attracted the attention of the IBA who were closely monitoring activity happening in Ireland and mainland Europe in the spectrum of radio transmitting activity for commercial use.
UK commercial radio developed and deregulation saw many more stations launching formats similar to Atlantic 252.
Increased competition from local radio stations with similar formats saw Atlantic 252 decline yearly.
These rival stations began to appear on FM Radio and Atlantic 252's audience further declined. Attempts at repositioning Atlantic 252 followed, including a new jingle and tagline "Real Music, Real Radio", when the station attempted to tackle BBC Radio 1's "new music" format.
In Winter 1998, the station responded to dropping audiences by shifting its format to concentrate on indie and dance music.
It was in 1999 the station suffered its lowest audience ratings since it first came on the air almost 10 years earlier, with the audience figures falling under 1 million listeners for the first time.
In February 2000 Atlantic 252 re-launched for a 3rd time as "The New Atlantic 252".
The format was changed to urban contemporary music (such as garage, house, hip hop and R&B) and the station was rebranded with the slogan "Non-stop Rhythm and Dance".
There was over £1million spent on rebranding and marketing the station to a new audience and media buyers, including a new website.
However, this 3rd and 2nd major attempt to maintain and attract new audiences of course failed due to rivals using FM and the rise of local radio stations in the UK and Ireland.
It was untimately decided in 2001 that Atlantic 252 cannot continue in any shape or form.
The last live show was produced on Atlantic 252 on Thursday 20 December 2001 and was presented by Enda Caldwell. This was followed immediately by a Tribute show produced by Enda Caldwell and Eric Murphy celebrating the station's 12-year history of broadcasting and featuring classic jingles broadcast each year of Atlantic 252's history.
Between then and the end of the Christmas and New year holiday period, the station transmitted an automated playback sequence, and continued broadcasting for a further 12 days playing music without continuity, along with pre-booked commercials paid for in advance.
Atlantic 252 ceased to exist as of 00:00 hours in the first minute of Wednesday 2 January 2002, when transmissions ceased.
Gary King, whom we referred to earlier in the article, said about Atlantic 252:-
"Atlantic[252] the biggest commercial radio station in the world on Long Wave!"
"A great station with a piratical edge. Heady days, exciting times, I’ll always be proud of what we did in Trim.”
"Was an amazing baptism in radio, and was surrounded by creative, passionate and good people, all with the aim to make a great radio station."
The origins of the decision making process that led RTL's Radio Luxembourg to set up shop in Ireland was the fact that Ireland had great talent in the radio transmitting industry, and more relaxed attitude from the Irish authorities at the time around licensing.
The joint venture by RTL and RTÉ is seen as a potential growth area to gain listeners in Ireland (and UK) more from a hobby point of view (almost like an experiment) rather than doing so to make a tidy sum.
RTL Group were very keen to have an all-only English-language orientated pop music station due to the English language being the most common language throughout mainland Europe, which is essential with the free movement of people travelling around Europe.
Outside of house where Atlantic 252
broadcasted from for 13 years.
Mornington House is now a regional office for Meath County Council.
Still shot of RTÉ 1 newscast of the launch of Atlantic 252.
Gary also appeared on QVC, the UK Satellite TV shopping channel as their consumer electronics expert.
Not much is wrote up about Antaltic 252' 3rd reboot, but one thing for sure is that we were all listening.
The station's longest in-house employee was Rosalyn Reilly – who remained as the station's cleaning lady for its entire twelve-year history in total existance.
You will be able to find out more information archived online from 1989-1998 where the music played out on the station was of pop and rock music. The station done alot of cool things like mixing the best songs from the last few years along with the best songs from the week's top 40 – this was called "Today's Best Music Variety".