Éist a while
Éist is a new Cork-city based community radio station with over 250 members. It's worth a listen.
Éist is an online community radio station which aims to bring people together from all walks of life, both here in Cork and beyond, through the ever popular medium of digital radio. The station was launched in Plugd Records on Cornmarket Street in December of last year and is entirely volunteer-led.
But what began with twenty five people in a room discussing how to start broadcasting, has now swelled to over 250 members and is growing all the time.
With that many people on board, getting anything off the ground, or on air is an achievement in itself and this week T+D spoke with three Éist members, Úna Hennessy, Alannah Matthews and Japhet Santana to discuss how this project came about, how it’s all been going so far and where they see this initiative developing in the future.
“Last October Radio Solstice were holding one of their bi-annual events and there was such a great reaction to it that its organiser Elinor O’ Donovan put out a forum about starting a new project” Matthews said.
Radio Solstice is an online pop up station which featured in the Cork Midsummer festival last year and broadcast from Test Site, located just across the street from Plugd Records. And from this forum Matthews mentions, Éist was born.
“It’s not that the two are linked however, it’s more like they are cousins”
“How we structure is through a community collective and the management of the radio is just as important as the content” said Matthews.
“There are no specific roles” Hennessy added, “We have a committee and anyone who is involved in comms can get involved with the tech team and vice versa, so we’re trying not to be hierarchical. We want this to be fair and for everyone, although we do have a placeholder chairman and secretary for meetings and filling out bank forms and things like that.”
So how do they make decisions about how to run the station on a day to day basis?
“A lot of polls on our discord channel, we try not to leave the decision making to just a small number of people and try to include everyone” Matthews said.
“It’s surprisingly ego free, which is what has kept everything harmonious” she added.
Before they began broadcasting Éist put out an open call for programming and received ninety seven submissions, most of which they programmed.
“A lot of the shows are remote, but the station is officially based on the second floor of Plugd and the studio is also used for some meetings that we have” Matthews said.
“One of the topics early on was that we wanted Éist to be inclusive and reach different communities and not just be something for the in-crowd in Cork. So we have shows about history, theatre, techno, trees” Hennesy told us.
“Éist is like a focal point for bringing people together,” she added.
Has it been difficult then having so many presenters and teaching them how to pre record a show or broadcast live?
“Making a show can be as complex as you like or as simple as just having a laptop and a mic,” Santana said. “Some of the members made different guides to help out, but a lot of the artists just figured it out for themselves.”
“Dublin Digital Radio has also been a big help. They grew from the same idea and lent us some tech which we’re really grateful for,” he added.
The range of programmes on Éist is certainly very broad, which makes it tricky to categorise the station in any concrete way.
“We always thought that we wouldn’t tell people what it is, but let the audience reflect what they want it to be” Matthews said.
“We’re very open to anyone who has a project, not only radio, but how to translate images into audio, any idea really, we’d like to hear about it.”
As for the future of Éist, the three members are keen for it to grow in an organic way, especially one which doesn’t depend on any single individual.
“It would be good for us to have our own space and be able to host events.” Santana said.
“We want to keep the ethos of community first and part of this model is that it’s not just concentrated on one group. If people fall away then it still continues.”
“It’s important for us to stay curious and playful and be open to change” Matthews added.
“Radio is our skeleton but other things will come from that.”
If you would like to listen to Éist, get involved or help support them you can do so here
Brilliant. look forward to listening to it