Introduction
BCR (Blackrock College Radio) is a radio station run by the Transition Year students of Blackrock College every year in aid of St Vincent de Paul. BCR has been running for about 10 years now. Transition Year is granted a special event licence by the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) to broadcast over a five mile radius for a week. BCR is a major undertaking involving the production of over 45 hours of radio in one week.
This year the station was run from Monday 20th to Friday 25th November 2006 and broadcast each day from 8am to 5pm. BCR is broadcast through a transmitter on top of the Tower in the school connected to “AV” room where the studio is. It was broadcast on 92.1fm over a 5 mile radius and for the first time ever the station was available all week live on the internet from www.blackrockcollege.com
The majority of the year (200 students) was involved in this huge project, either by being on one of the BCR teams or through making a programme in one or more of their classes.
Click here for photos
 The BCR teams this year were as follows:
News, Sports, Technical, Advertising, Noon Show, Showcase, Guests & Requests, Continuity & Security.
News Team
The main News show was broadcast live each morning between 8 and 9am. On this programme the news was covered in detail and live guests were interviewed. Some of the main people interviewed included Minister Mary Hanafin, Joe Higgins, Cllr. John Bailey, Oisín and Ruairí Quinn, and Barry Andrews. Each day there was also a news broadcast at 12.10pm and again at 4.45pm just before the station closed each day.
The news team was managed by Fredrick Gilligan and was made up of the following 4th year students: Owen Bennett, Raymond Carley, David Crowley, Robert Ellis, David Glasgow, Stephen Grogan, Rory Heskin, Robert Humphries, Ian Kelly, Zeno Kelly, Robbie Lawton, Richard Liddy, Andrew Lockhart, Liam McHugh, Robert Molloy, Jack Monahan, Alan O’Mahony, Andrew Patton, David Rafferty, Christopher Riordan, David Ryan, Cormac Stafford, David Sheehan & David Young
 The Sports Team
The sports team produced 5 “Talking Sport” programmes which were aired each day between 1.15pm and 2pm. Each day a different topic was discussed. The Sports team was divided into 5 sub-teams, Rugby, Soccer, GAA, Golf and Athletics and each of these teams produced a 45 minute programme.
On the sports team were: Conor Beauchamp, Denis Buckley, Richard Byrne, Michael Cassells, Andrew Conway, Stephen Costello, Stephen Costigan, Daniel Daly, Killian Doherty, Colm Dolan, Stephen Duff, Dylan Fawsitt, Darragh Feiritear, Robert Fleck, Conor Gallagher, David Heffernan, Brian Kingston, Rory Liston, Ian MacHugh, Brendan Macken, Barney McAleer, Adam McCusker, Eoin Miley, Ian Moloney, David Molumby, Paul Murphy, Gareth O’Shea, Sam Pauley, Darragh Roberts and David Scott-Lennon.
Technical Team
 The backbone of the station was made up of the technical team; they were the guys responsible for not only managing the sound levels during the show but also doing all the editing and pre-recording of all the shows and ads. So basically without them there would have been no station and would have put the rest of the teams out of a job. The team was trained in and organised by Mr Gary Sullivan.
Again the Technical team was divided into smaller teams. The Sound desk team obviously were running all the sound and broadcasting in the studio. The Mini-disk team, managed by Niall Kilcullen and Shane Clarke, went out with the people to record interviews. And finally the editing team headed up by Patrick Kilcoyne and Rory O’Neill were responsible for editing every interview and show before it went on air. This was a long and tough job that required a lot of patience most of the time waiting for interviews or shows to record from the Mini Disc to the computer and then listening to it all taking out all the “ehhhs” and “ emmms” before finally waiting for it to record back to a Mini Disc but they did a great job.
The Technical Team consisted of the following students: Scott Brady, Aidan Carrick, Stephen Carton, Colm Coughlan, Colm Ferrari, Hugh Foyle, Karl Hickey, Niall Kilcullen, James O’Beirne, Lance Thompson, Ronald Carroll, Shane Clarke, Karl Curran, Richard Diggin, Mark Duncan, Cathal Heavey,Andrew Hickey, Ross Kavanagh, Patrick Kilcoyne, Ricardo Gaviria, Jack Lehane, Peter LeMasney, James McElroy, Stephen Mooney, Jordi Murphy, Conor O’Brien, Brian O’Brolchain, Eoin O’Doherty, Paul O’Donohue, Rory O’Neill, Karl Ringrose, Matt Sweeney and Conor Walsh
 Advertising
You can probably guess or else noticed the Advertising team were responsible for advertising and publicising the station. Their work begun well before anyone else’s they had to contact different businesses and ask for sponsorship for each show. It was from this money that running costs of BCR were paid and then the rest of the money was donated to the St Vincent de Paul. When all the sponsorship had been received they recorded ads for all the companies that sponsored the station, which were played during the course of the week. They also produced and distributed hundreds if not thousands of leaflets promoting BCR and stuck up posters absolutely everywhere!
The 2006 leaflet can be downloaded by clicking here (Please note this is a PDF file so Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to view it.)
The Advertising Team was made up of the following people: Freddie Browne, Martin Browne, Conor Callan, Kieran Coughlan, Richard Cullen, Kieran Ennis, Paul Feeney, Robert Fitzgerald, Tim Flood, Peter Foley, John Flynn, Mark Graham, David Kane, Colm Keaveny, Frank Kelly, Stephen Kelly, Brian Kennedy, Colm Kieran, Christopher Lynch, Arthur Lyons, Aidan Maguire, Barry McCarthy, Matthew Merriman, David Mooney, Declan Moore, Cormac O’Brolchain, Mark O’Connor, Conor O’Dea, Andrew O’Farrell, Rory O Huiginn, Shane O’Neill, Tom Parsons, Stephen Reynolds, Mark Rooney, Calum Rowden, Julian Shovlin, David Smyth and Michael Stapleton.
 Noonshow
The Noonshow broadcast each day from 12.15pm to 1.15pm. They played music and ran competitions each day.
Students on the noonshow were: Kieran Coughlan, Ben Fagan, Kealan Flynn, Patrick Gallagher, Robbie Hinkson, David Kane, Dermot Littlefield, James Maher, Joe Maume, Robert McDowell, Daniel McGann, Tyrone McNelis, Declan Moore, Ross Moylan, Cian Moynihan, James Murphy, Mark O’Connor, Hugh Torpey, Hugh Woods, David Zimmerman.
Showcase
Showcase was broadcast each day between 2 and 2.30pm. Each day they played music by a different band or genre for the half hour.
Showcase was produced by: Stephen Cooke, Patrick Costello, Philip Courtney, Dylan Fawsitt, Karl Hickey, Reuben Kaye-Coyle, Colm Keaveny, Brian Kennedy, Colin Kieran, Leo Kilroy, Christopher Lynch, Barry McCarthy, Cormac O’Brolchain, Conor O’Dea, Brian O’Driscoll, Eoin O’Malley, Calum Rowden, Matthew Smyth, Julian Shovlin and David Zimmerman.
Guests & Requests
Guests and Requests was 45minute show each day from 10.30 to 11.15am on which a famous person was interviewed and their 5 requests were played. The guests included Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, Des Cahill, David McWilliams, Ronnie Delaney and Craig Doyle. Podge and Rodge were due to appear on the show but due to our strict license, after the interview had been edited to make it suitable there was barely any left so as a result it wasn’t aired.
Guests & Requests Team: Conor Callan, Rory Coffey, Peter Dinneen, David Dunne, Lorcan Farrell, Allan Jenkinson, Brendan Kennedy, Stephen McGann, Conor McGuinness, Daniel McQuaid, Matthew Merriman, Daniel Murray, Conal O’Doherty, Harrison O’Gorman, Rory O’Huiginn, Shane O’Neill, Paul O’Shea, Jack Power, Mark Rooney, and David Sheehan.
Continuity
This team of 4, Allan Jenkinson, David Molumby, Cormac O’Brolchain and Cian Carroll, were responsible for saying the morning and evening prayer each day before broadcasting began and before it finished respectively. But their job didn’t stop here they had to introduce each show and occasionally do a bit of improvisation if we were running ahead of time or when people weren’t in place or when Mini Discs couldn’t be found.
 Security
As I mentioned earlier BCR was run exactly like a professional radio station so that meant we required security, not only to look the part but to keep dossers out of the AV room to give those actually working a bit of space to move.
Security: Ian Moloney, Stephen Reynolds, Colin Kieran, Cameron Folens, Arthur Lyons, and Calum Rowden
There were many other important jobs in BCR these included. Studio Managers: Ketih Groeger and Jeremy Crothers, Photographers: David Sheehan and Mick Brennan and Maintenance: Andrew Hickey. Finally to fulfil our licence everything broadcast on the air had to be recorded and this was done by John Flynn, Tom Parsons and Paddy Shanley.
Overall BCR was a huge success this year and I’d like to thank everyone involved, fellow students, the teachers and guests for all their time, effort and hard work.
(Click here for photos) |
