Two Johnnies
THE 2 JOHNNIES embarked on their shiny new RTÉ 2fm show by saying, “We look forward to trying not to crash every day.” Even so, the bombastic duo could hardly have expected that the wheels would come off the cart a mere three days later.
The histrionics that ensued after the boggers’ Ant and Dec were taken off air certainly enlivened the short gap between the pandemic ending and World War III beginning. That aside, the debacle is embarrassing for 2fm, which seems to lurch seamlessly from one PR disaster to another.
Installing the Tipperary comedy act as drivetime presenters was presumably viewed as a coup within the station. Even though they are virtually unknown outside a certain demographic, the lads have managed to attract a solid following. Johnny McMahon (30) is a former butcher and Johnny O’Brien (35) previously worked as a hurley maker. Their double act kicked off in 2016 when they were asked to MC a fundraiser at Cahir GAA.
This humble gig convinced the banter brothers that they deserved a bigger stage and their podcast was born. That their audience is a predominantly young, rural one may have ticked another box for Montrose, which is regularly accused of being Dublin-centric.
They have been allowed to keep broadcasting their weekly Spotify podcast, which they say has more than a million listens each month. This has raised eyebrows in many quarters, as it suggests RTÉ was prepared to make concessions to get the duo on board. They’re no strangers to RTÉ, as their terrible four-part series, The 2 Johnnies Do America, aired on RTÉ 2 in 2020, followed by The 2 Johnnies Take On in 2021.
They are also no strangers to self-promotion, describing themselves as “Ireland’s favourite musical comedy duo”. They released a self-help book, Dear Johnnies, and boast of “releasing 10 No 1 Irish singles” and “bringing live podcast shows to four continents around the world”.
A closer look at the official Irish charts suggests that the lads may be prone to exaggeration. Their big hit Sinéad peaked at No 37 in August 2019, which, in Irish terms, means it was probably only bought by the members of their immediate family. It was the only one of their songs to trouble the official charts, which are comprised of both physical sales and digital downloads over a one-week period.
The Johnnies were determined to get The Silage Song to the top of the charts in 2018, raffling a bale of silage as an incentive to those buying the single.
Whether the pair have made any money is not yet known, as their company, the 2 Johnnies Productions Ltd, was only set up in December 2020.
The new hosts are replacing Jenny Greene, even though her drivetime show added 7,000 listeners in the last JNLR to achieve an audience of 129,000.
According to 2FM boss Dan Healy, the rationale for replacing the acclaimed DJ with the Johnnies was to create “a second breakfast show, essentially, at drivetime”. Listeners may wonder why this is a desirable strategy, considering Doireann Garrihy’s 2FM Breakfast show with Donncha O’Callaghan and Carl Mullan only has 111,000 listeners. “An aural assault of inanity”, is how Larissa Nolan described it in the Indo.
These ratings are a considerable drop from the 188,000 listeners Keith Walsh, Jennifer Zamparelli and Bernard O’Shea attracted in March 2019. Walsh recently put the boot in by describing RTÉ as a “toxic environment” in which to work.
Garrihy and Eoghan McDermott took over in May 2019, and figures in the final quarter of 2019 stood at 142,000. McDermott disappeared from the show in February 2021 and RTÉ released a statement weeks later saying he would not be back, adding that his contract was “due to expire shortly”. His departure coincided with unfounded allegations made against him on social media.
Now that he has been fully vindicated of all allegations, he has launched legal action against Twitter. While RTÉ has so far refused to comment, the development presents another bit of bother for Healy to navigate.
With the broadcaster naturally jittery around issues to do with misogyny, all hell broke loose when the Johnnies read out car bumper stickers that included derogatory references to women on their podcast.
While this kind of material is a staple of the online show, a clip was used on the Johnnies’ social media platforms to promote the new 2fm radio show. After perpetually outraged media commentators and politicians put their spoke in, the lads were taken off air and given some time to bone up on how not to land the station in the doo-doo. After some contrite mea culpa-ing, the boyos are poised to be restored to the airwaves to resume their blokey and occasionally puerile banter.
Even so, whether advertisers can be convinced that the show is a good fit for their brands may be challenging, particularly as the hosts have gotten off to such an inauspicious start. Advertisers may also choose to steer clear of the station in light of its unhappy penchant for attracting bad press.
The latest rumpus gave Healy yet another headache, just as the ones caused by erstwhile presenters Louise McSharry and Keith Walsh were beginning to subside. McSharry was dropped before Christmas, although her show was pulling in 104,000 listeners on Saturday mornings. She was also providing something rather less inane than the weekday schedule offering.
Now installed as an Indo columnist, McSharry entered into a war of words with Healy over the manner in which her weekend show was culled. While she described how she felt “like a piece of trash that had been used up”, Healy said that she should “take responsibility for [her] own actions”.
Healy is also head of overall RTÉ radio strategy, but the strategy behind 2fm continues to baffle listeners. When 2fm was launched in 1988, it had broadcasters like Ian Dempsey, Gerry Ryan, Larry Gogan, Gareth O’Callaghan, Tony Fenton and Dave Fanning on its schedule in the early years. They had proven presenting chops and appealed to a large swathe of listeners around the country.
Healy’s analysis of the latest JNLR figures was that “Doireann, Donncha and Carl have done well at breakfast, with 15- to 34-year-olds coming to listen to the show”. If the station is haemorrhaging listeners from its target audience, and the message is continually being reinforced that older listeners needn’t bother tuning in, where does the station go from there?
The question of whether licence payers are entitled to ask for a more inclusive offering than the 2 Johnnies et al is surely one that needs to be asked.
