Breakfast Club on Nova Power 103 FM

Breakfast Club on Nova Power 103 FM
Exterior of Energy Power 103 in 1988 (courtesy Andy Carter). The auctioneer’s sign indicates this was taken after the station’s closure in April.

This is a snippet from the Breakfast Club on the short-lived Nova Power 103 FM, a merger of the ‘new’ Radio Nova and existing Dublin pirate Energy 103 in late 1987. Sounding crisp and professional are Cassidy Jones, Lisa Moore (Fionnuala Sweeney) and Bob Gallico (RIP) with a mixture of music, chat, papers, sports and news. On a freezing Friday morning in Dublin, Bob Gallico presents the review of the papers and shares his racing tips for the day, while Lisa reads news. The familiar high-level adverts are heard, including for brands, and the classic Nova jingles are played, creating something of an identity problem as they differ from the station’s name. Although Nova founder Chris Cary had promised new jingles on the day the merger was announced (25th November), there was not enough time to complete the imaging of the new station as it was promptly prevented by an interlocutory injunction from using the valuable Nova name, and eventually reverted to Energy Power 103, as in the image above.

This recording was made by Kieran Murray between 0728-0748 on 27th November 1987 and is from the Anoraks Ireland Collection. It is not clear if it was made from 99.9 or 103 FM.