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YOU WOULD BE forgiven for thinking that after 15 years at the helm of Christmas FM, the station’s veteran staff might be a bit weary of the festive hits that propelled their station to success.
However, as co-founder Garvan Rigby explains, he continues to “love all Christmas songs equally.”
Having recently relocated to a new home in Liffey Valley’s Clayton Hotel, the station is now what Rigby calls “quasi-national” in its FM format, and available globally online.
Halfway through its second decade, Christmas FM now boasts 10 million annual streams, more than half of which come from outside of Ireland.
“Even in May and June, people are listening online.”
So, how did we get here?
“The idea came about in August 2008 when four of us – me, Paul Shepard, Walter Hegarty, and Daragh O’Sullivan were sitting in the pub. The BAI was making temporary licenses available, so we thought, ‘what could we do with a 30-day radio station?’”
After briefly considering other themes, such as disco, the quartet prudently settled on Christmas, and have seen the idea grow into a staple of Ireland’s festive culture.
Nowadays, all of the station’s costs are covered by sponsorship deals with major brands, such as Coca-Cola, Cadbury’s and An Post, whose products decorate the studio and give it the feel of a post-Christmas living room. The Leo Suite of the Clayton Hotel is being used rent-free in exchange for the occasional on-air shoutout for Dalata Hotel Group.
It’s a business model that allows Christmas FM to focus on raising funds for charity.
“Our listeners are very generous,” says Ann-Marie Walsh, a presenter and part of the core management team. “Over the last 14 years, they have donated over €3 million.”
Typically, the station partners with a single charity each year, but Walsh explains that the station has set a goal of raising €1 million over the next three years as part of their Magic of Christmas Initiative, in partnership with Barnardo’s, Barretstown, Make A Wish Ireland and the Community Foundation for Ireland.
A key element of the fundraising is the station’s Donation Day, which is a radiothon from 7am to 7pm during which regular programming is sidelined, to give service users and charities a chance to communicate their stories to listeners.
“On that day the phones will be hopping, the studio will be full, we’ll be giving regular updates about the donations coming in,” Walsh says.
While the station represents a major Irish success story, its popularity is hardly a mystery.
“It really is a beacon for a lot of people at Christmas. It’s a comfort factor, it’s nostalgia. It’s like no other radio station I’ve ever been on,” Walsh says.
Asked how things have changed in the last 15 years, Rigby says:
“There’s a lot more work. We’re looking after prize-winners in January, doing reports for sponsors, planning in March and April. The core management team of seven or eight is working part-time on Christmas FM throughout the year.”
In recent years, certain Christmas lyrics – such as those in Baby, It’s Cold Outside and Fairytale of New York – have come under scrutiny, with some stations playing a censored version of the latter. Rigby says that Christmas FM has not received much communication from listeners on the subject.
“We’ve had a few people ask about it. We review all songs every year, it’s something we keep on review all the time.”
While the station operates on a library of “a few hundred” songs, Rigby says they are always trying to add covers by Irish artists – and the occasional new Christmas hit, or unearthed gem.
With some pride, Rigby says: “José Feliciano’s Feliz Navidad … That was a song that never really got played in Ireland. I would say 15 years ago, that song had almost never been played in Ireland. Now it’s one of our most popular, it’s in the top five.”
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War On Drugs is already lost. Time to come up with some new ideas. so people should welcome this.
@ericm: Years of excessive alcohol consumption damages the liver. The mental capacity is altered for a number of hours. Drugs on the other hand cause permanent changes to the brain. Trying to conflate the two is devious.
@Tom Molloy: you don’t think alcohol abuse causes permanent damage to the brain? Long term, alcohol is far more damaging, mentally and physically, than heroin
@Tom Molloy: Twit. Please study some biochemistry and neurobiology before you comment. Alternatively (and I recommend this), don’t comment.
@George Salter: because of my work I have met on a weekly bases heroin addicts over periods and out of the dozens I got to know only one has recovered to their former selves, many have died and the others show now indication of ever reaching the potential they once had pre addiction.
@Tom Molloy: “permanent changes to the brain” ,thats called growing up,m’kay
@Tom Molloy: Quite. That doesn’t justify your statement that alcohol is transitory.
A baby step in the right direction.
And yet a Child still gets refused a legal cannabis to treat her severe epilepsy and her mother has to travel with her to Holland while junkies with no one to blame but themselves for being hopeless addicts have a blind eye turned so their evil dealers can keep making money from them… That sounds like a standard “fantastic” FG plan… What a bunch of clowns
@Jay Warner: with comments like this it’s a shame that the journal have removed their thumbs down option
@Jay Warner: FG = short term solutions for long term problems
@Jay Warner: hear hear..they should of just decriminalised cannabis..but why would a neo liberal right wing party piss off the pharmaceutical company’s that are here in Ireland instead of listening to the people regarding this matter
@Medbh Peavoy: why red thumb? Are you saying a person who choses to become an addict should get treated before a child who is sick through no fault of her own. why should a druggie get free Methadone but the poor child can’t get medical cannabis?
@Meadbh Peavoy: With comments like yours, I agree about the thumbs down option. Bleeding hearts like yours never care about the real victims of drug addiction.
It’s high time we started cuddling junkies and inviting them to schools to try and get rid of the stigma
Why should the Irish taxpayer fund this
Put the junkies on the bottom of every list
Use the money for those who are really sick
@in the paper
The taxpayer should fund addiction services and treatment because it is far far cheaper than funding jail spaces.
Besides, this could easily be funded from savings from reduced gardai /court time currently wasted on prosecuting people for personal use of drugs when we do go agead and decriminalise / regulate all drugs.
@In the paper: Take the tax from where I buy my pot. You’re forcing people to give 100% of the money to criminals, by refusing to regulate the market.
@john doe: would you be saying that if a junkie broke into you home…robbed you… or tried to attack one of your family….dont think so…….
@In the paper: Why do you think that “junkies” aren’t really sick? Is it based on science, or some half-assed opinion that you picked up?
@in the paper
If anyone broke into my house I would hope that there would be gardai with enough time to catch and prosecute them. Not for being a junkie but for breaking and entering.
Instead at the moment gardai time is being wasted chasing addicts to arrest them for their next fix. When this is confiscated they will just go get more anyway.
Arresting someone for being a junkie doesn’t make them better. Only a health based drug policy will do that.
About time, we have been fighting a lost cause for a number of years. I have seen a friend on mine get a €1000 fine for having makings of one joint, absolutely ridiculous.
@Gary O’Brien: Did your friend know it was against the law?
@Gary O’Brien: that is simply not true. Have you ever been to the courts?
@Scundered: Just because something is illegal doesn’t make it immoral? Did you know that?
@Daniel Carson: we’re discussing law here though, he’s not complaining that his morals were disrespected.
It’s a joke. A druggie immediately gets free medical treatment and free medication, and free travel cause they have a “disease”. Where as people who are genuinely sick through no fault of there own have to wait years for treatment and pay there own way.
@Roy Dowling: Why do you assume that “druggies” want to be sick?
Go and do some research before spouting opinions that you learned from others…
Te fight against drugs has been lost because it was never properly tackled, people caught smuggling drugs on planes etc should have been charged with a dangering a nation; drug suppliers could not care less who gets their hand on their drugs, methadone is a joke, many junkies take it and then proceed to shoot up with the real thing and as for personal use, this is a handy way for pushers to avoid prosecution and too many judges take a softy softy approach. Cold turkey is what is needed not pampering, it might reduction of crime and cost of treating junkies. Cannabis is a step on the way to hard drugs regardless of how you feel about habitually breaking the law on drugs.
@Jho Harris: Cannabis has not been proved to be a gateway to harder drug use. That myth has been debunked many years ago. You are living in the past
@Jho Harris: funny how many people think that but for me(at least)it was the opposite I’ve been smoking weed for about 10 years now every night and the last thing i would want to do after a smoke is go on the something harder like cocaine! This “gateway drug” crap is painful to listen to- the only time I’ve ever done a few lines was years ago (before i took up smoking) and only after a pile of pints (at least 3 nights a week) so i suppose you could say alcohol was my “gateway drug” its so funny to me that it seems socially acceptable here in Ireland to go out binge drinking and fall around the place rotten drunk but the thought of someone sitting in their own house smoking a dube causing no harm to anyone-watching a bit of TV eating a few sweets is unacceptable to some! The mind boggles
@Jho Harris: Almost all drug addicts took alcohol and nicotine first. So, ban them.
@Jho Harris: that approach is working so well in the US of course
@Luke Moore: I never used the term “gateway drug” I did write that it was a step on the way to hard drugs and that has not been debunked for the dealers who can make bigger profits. It is ironic that a few people want to make the likes of John Gilligan rich beyond their dreams and see their toking as innocent. Michael Farrelly accuses me of living in the past yet he seems to think he looks like David Bowie or is just too scared to show his real face.
@Jho Harris:sorry gateway drug and step on the way sound like the same thing to me! And making drug dealers rich IS the problem! why not just legalize create real jobs for farmers and take the profit out of the dealers pocket? And i don’t buy from the john Gilligan type anyway, don’t need to!
@Damo: The likes of Gilligan or somebody like him is somewhere along the supply chain you use.
@Jho Harris: i don’t use a supply chain is my point! Its a plant! It grows!
Past policies to address this issue ,have failed,a new approach should be welcomed
Its good news but all i can see is working group to look at this and that and protocol for the other.
Lets hope its the start of some thing good.
Leo Varadkar organised community opposition to methadone dispensing from a boots pharmacy in castleknock in 2007.
This republic knows no prejudice unless your opiate dependent and you need easy access to treatment in a middle class area.
So much talking, so many committees,so little action!!
Nice to see compassionate Ireland in full flow in black and white heaven, junkie bad self obsessed me good, many addicts rob many don’t, plenty with mental health issues who can’t access any services whose week would go like so, paid pay dealers score get some tick starve cold turkey paid again rinse repeat. We need new ways of thinking rather than just defaulting to that person is sub human.
Did they forget to include nationwide treatment centers as part oft this new compassionate plan?
These people should be ticketed for small amount of drugs. These people need to be given a reason to hit rock bottom and to be sick and tired of being sick and tired.drug court works very well choice between Jail or rehab. Fines Than can be used to pay for treatment centers and follow up treatment.
@Leanne Behan: That’s not a totally irrational opinion. Thanks.
Really hope the government do get this plan right and actually start to listen to those associations that help people in addiction and not just leave the situation as us going on. I mean Dublin itself has large addiction problem but i hope they stratigise and come up with better options for rural areas with little transport links day programmes drop ins. Addicts need help just like any human being and at the end the day that has not been happening iv seen the decline in staffing in clinics and the way staff treat clients can be demoralizing iv had people tell me doctor said I’m a no hoper who in their life needs to hear that. We need more in programmes and after care aswel so really the government should be listening to the people that have been through systems or are going through systems and act on trying to make these changes viable
Everything is toxic , sure where do you stop ? theyd be sniffin glue anyway , probably need help but ive enough to do meself let tax pay for something like dole and social housing and a slap
Anyone who believes its no ones fault but a junkies as to where they find themselves and they should be punished accordingly, or anyone who is pro “strict drug laws” such as the War on Drugs should really watch these videos and try learn something
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