Christmas FM
So Christmas is here and for me this means one thing. Christmas FM is back on air!! Since being a teenager I was in love with the world of Radio and although I no longer and involved full time in the industry, every Christmas for the last three years I fall back in love with it.
This year we are broadcasting in 5 regions in Ireland a huge increase as our first year was just in Dublin and the second in only Cork and Dublin. This year we broadcast on the following frequencies:
Dublin – 89.9 | Limerick -105.5 | Cork -106.7 | Galway -89.5 | South East -103.8
We also had the No1 downloaded I-phone App on itunes in Ireland within 2 days of launching it.
Christmas FM is a social enterprise. A business set up to run a temporary radio station for 1 month a year, with all the proceeds going to charity and run by volunteers. There are three simple aims:
1. Make as much money as possible for our chosen charity each year and help raise awareness for the work they do – This year our Charity Partner is Barnardos.
2. Spread a bit of Christmas joy to everyone who wants to tune in.
3. Have a lot of fun with all the volunteers who help make the station happen.
Last year Christmas FM won awards for “PR Excellence for a Non Profit” from the PRCA.
For me it’s a great way to leverage charitable donations, so we raise money for the stations operation costs via the Christmas FM online store and put money forward to cover the operation costs. Then the station itself builds a huge listenership who text message in to have requests and everytime they text €1 goes to the charity directly. Also by raising awareness for the charity (Barnardos’s) good work, our listeners give generously to their cause and we have street teams to raise cash in all the major cities.
People love the radio station, feel under no obligation to give to the charity if they don’t want to. And yet we often get people who find the station from all corners of the world, listen online and then want to give back to a cause that brought them a small piece of Christmas happiness.