Cork's 96FM

Cork's 96FM is one of three local radio stations licensed by the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland for Cork City and County in Ireland (the other two being its sister station C103 and youth music station Red FM). It broadcasts from studios at Broadcasting House, St. Patrick's Place in Cork City.

96FM is operated as a dual franchise with C103 by County Media Limited which is owned by Onic which is in turn owned by News Broadcasting. The station's sound broadcasting contract (and thus its broadcasting licence) is advertised together with that of C103 and one company is required to operate the two stations, in a similar situation to that of Shannonside FM and Northern Sound Radio in the north-west of Ireland.

Founded by four former Cork Examiner journalists, with backing from a number of Cork business people, Cork's 96FM launched as "Radio South" at midday on Thursday 10 August 1989. However, that name lasted for less than a year. Radio South was the third of the newly licensed commercial stations to come on air in the country (Dublin's Capital Radio and County Mayo's Mid West Radio being first and second respectively).^{[citation needed]}

The first voice heard on air was the station's first Head of Programming Frank Murphy who introduced the new station in both Irish and English. This was followed by Neil Prendeville's first show, the first song played was "A New Flame" by Simply Red – a chart hit at the time. The then Lord Mayor of Cork – Councillor Chrissie Aherne, who had been flown by helicopter to the station's studio (located just to the north of the city at Whites Cross), then officially opened the station for business.^{[citation needed]}

The first day's broadcasting featured several outside broadcasts from across the coverage area. Local dignitaries, were invited by the station to an event that night in Cork's Imperial Hotel which was attended by several hundred people. The attendance included the then chairman of the IRTC (now the BCI) former Supreme Court Judge Séamus Henchy.^{[citation needed]}

Many of the original voices on the new station were familiar to Cork listeners; Tadgh Dolan was formerly of RTÉ's local radio service, RTÉ Radio Cork, while Neil Prendeville, Tony Magnier, Joe O'Reilly, Gerry McLoughlin, Paul Byrne, Rob Allen and others had formerly been heard on now defunct local pirate stations, such as ERI, the major pirate station in the area which closed around midnight 30 December 1988.^{[citation needed]}

The initial Radio South provided a wide-ranging format, and a number of special interest programmes, including an hour-long country music show at 18:00 every weeknight presented by local country music authority Roger Ryan. Joe O'Reilly presented the 'Oldies and Irish' show on Sundays, a vestige from Radio ERI. Radio South broadcast 24 hours a day from the outset, unlike many other of the new local stations who closed overnight in their early days.^{[citation needed]}

Mediocre listenership figures for Radio South led to a relaunch in July 1990 and a name change to 'Hits and Memories 96FM'. The station was now under a 'Classic Hits' format imported from Australia, similar to that of the by then successful 'Classic Hits 98FM' in Dublin. By this stage the original special interest programmes of Radio South were gone (except the 'Oldies and Irish' show on Sundays which, thanks to public support, survived the upheaval).^{[citation needed]} The programme, presented since 1991 by Derry O' Callaghan, was the most listened to show on local radio in Ireland as of 2015. The new format lead to a gradual increase in listenership.^{[citation needed]}