ON WEDNESDAY, IT was announced that TXFM, Dublin’s alternative rock station, had not applied to have its broadcasting licence renewed and will cease broadcasting this year.

The news came as a blow to many of the station’s devoted listeners.

This afternoon, Joe Donnelly, host of the station’s drivetime show TXFM Drive, published a loving tribute to the station.

“On one occasion when Terry Wogan met the Queen at the BBC, she asked him what he worked at with the broadcasting organisation. ‘Ma’am,’ he replied, ‘I have never worked a day in my life here.’

“Wogan was alluding to the old saying that if you truly love your job, then you’ll never work a day in your life. Presenting the drive time show on TXFM was like that. In fact, I’m pretty sure I can speak for all of my colleagues in saying we truly loved doing what we’ve been doing for the past two years.”

Donnelly described the experience of producing and presenting his own show as “a big challenge” but “rewarding” and wrote about the relationship between presenters and their listeners.

The most satisfying aspect was the relationship with listeners, and I really had no idea how strong this was until I had the horrible task of announcing the bad news on Wednesday evening. There has been an overwhelming reaction from listeners, friends, family, industry figures, random strangers, listeners overseas, music people, band members, promoters, bloggers, journalists, and countless other people.

“We have been flooded with heartbreaking, joyous, funny, moving, genuine, poignant, sad, philosophical and reassuring messages,” he wrote. “I couldn’t pick out one message from all of them; it would be impossible.”

People talked about how the station got them through their day or their job or their commute. How we helped them through a tough time in their lives. People talked about how we were ‘the best friends they’d never met’. Many of you thanked us for introducing you to new music or reminding you of the brilliance of old forgotten classics. Some people explained they had given up on radio but had their relationship reacquainted thanks to TXFM and its presenters.

Loads of you expressed how gutted you were for us personally, for obvious reasons. Being part of people’s lives, and not even knowing how much, is a tremendous and humbling feeling.

It’s been a privilege playing music for you. In this job, happiness is when you play a random song, and then suddenly you get a load of texts from listeners saying how much they love it, or it reminds them of something, or they’re hearing it for the first time and they want to know who it’s from and so on. There is no feeling like it.

While you may be sad that TXFM will soon be no more, you can take some solace from the fact that there’s still a few months left.

Let’s not be sad that it’s over; let’s be glad it happened. I said this to my two boys last night when I explained what was going on. They nodded sagely and then asked: ‘Does this mean you’ll be home to do our homework with us?’ They know I’m a bit of a soft touch on the homework. But they understood the sentiment. The innocence of being young, and having an uncluttered mind, made it perfect sense.

Come on, let’s enjoy these next few weeks or months or whatever it will be. Let’s play our favourite songs and make playlists and chat about gigs and keep each other company. We want to do that for as long as we can. We hope you’ll share it with us and enjoy it as much as you have been.

Damn straight.

Bloxi / Tumblr Bloxi / Tumblr / Tumblr

(h/t TXFM and Joe Donnelly)

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