It’s official. “Maniac 2008”, i102-104’s remake of the Mark McCabe classic, has made it into the Irish Christmas single charts at number 23 while raising vital cash for charity at the same time.
The PPI award-winning regional radio station, which broadcasts to counties Galway, Mayo, Roscommon, Longford, Sligo, Leitrim and Donegal, is celebrating its massive achievement which comes on the back of a very successful first year for i102-104.
Since i102-104 launched on February 7 2008, the station has won a national PR award for business to business communications and three PPI/BCI broadcasting awards (equivalent to the Oscars ) including Fergal D’Arcy’s evening drive programme called I Go Home, beating seasoned national broadcasters.
Now i102-104 has done it again by cruising into the Irish single charts at number 23 with its own west and north west version of “Maniac 2008”, produced by presenter Peter Ganley and featuring the voices of station staff. All proceeds from each download of the song will go directly to the Samaritans, which provides confidential emotional support for those experiencing feelings of distress or despair. This is just one of a number of charity initiatives that i102-104 has undertaken since it launched earlier this year. i102-104’s naked bus, which saw the radio station bring people to their workplaces naked, raised over €32,000 for charity in the process.
Peter Ganley, who wrote and produced i102-104’s “Maniac 2008” is thrilled with their chart success: “It’s fantastic, the support has been overwhelming. It is notoriously hard to make it to number one in the Irish Christmas charts so to reach number 23 is brilliant.”
Peter, who co-presents the award winning I Go Home show on the station on weekdays from 3.50pm to 7pm with Fergal D’Arcy, explains the concept for the song: “We wanted to do something coming up to Christmas that would be a bit of craic but would also raise a lot of money for the Samaritans which is a very worthy cause. ‘Maniac’ was a song we all knew so it was a case of going into the studio and seeing what ‘craic’ we could knock out of it.”
He also has high hopes that the song will make it to number one yet: “It is catching on. It is being playing in pubs and nightclubs across the west and north west which is great.”
Nuala Dalton of the Samaritans in Galway is thrilled with the reaction to the song: “It is fantastic. We would like to thank everyone at i102-104 for all their support - we just can’t believe it. We are totally reliant on money which is raised voluntarily so it means a lot to us.”
i102-104 programme director Dave Alsybury added: “This is just the start of great things to come from i102-104, we have many more plans for 2009.” While i102-104 General Manager Rena Maycock is delighted with the response to the charity single: “We want to thank our loyal listeners who took the time to download the single, it is their generosity which has made us get to number 23 in the charts.”
i102 104 is also the home of Tommy Tiernan and Hector O’hEochagain who broadcast on Friday from 4pm to 7pm from the Galway studios.
I Radio recently launched its second station, i105-107, which broadcasts to the north east and the midlands. This covers the counties Cavan, Monaghan, Louth, Meath, Westmeath, Kildare, Offaly and north Laois. For more information log onto www.i102104.ie
