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Athena Media is making a new one hour radio documentary tracking a fascinating music and culture project centred around regeneration in Ballymun. Called ‘Tower Songs’ the idea is to capture the music, the song of the collapsing towers and the new landscape which is emerging in Ballymun. The radio documentary will be broadcast on RTE Lyric FM and will follow the project to the culmination in a concert next February. The project is partly supported by the BCI Sound and Vision Scheme.

Just to give you an update on our current slate. We’re finishing editing our tv series on young people called ‘is it just me?’ which is for RTE 2. We have a radio series ‘urban beauty, urban blight’ for newstalk 106 in the final stages before editing and we have two new radio commissions under Sound & Vision funding for RTE Lyric fm and Newstalk. We’ve a BBC world service radio commission and two shortlisted proposals with BBC Radio 4. Our weekly podcast channel 02 Making Waves has also just launched its new bite sized version 02 Making Waves Mobile. New developments include a research project for the BCI on digital radio and we’ve a range of corporate audio-visual work.

From this Friday we’ll be releasing a new short version 2-3 minutes of 02 Making Waves showcasing the artist of the week and one leading track from that performer. The new short version will suit mobile phone users looking for music content and this week’s artist Duke Special will mark the new twin track approach to 02 Making Waves. Check www.podcastingireland.ie or look for it in iTunes from today, Friday 24/10/2008

Athena Media has been awarded two production grants for radio documentaries under Round 7 of Sound and Vision, the BCI scheme, one for a sports series with Newstalk 106 and the other for an arts documentary with Lyric FM. This will be Athena Media’s fourth and fifth radio production under the scheme following the Last Wake for Newstalk which was shortlisted for a PPI award, ‘ women and words’ for RTE Lyric FM and Urban Beauty Urban Blight for Newstalk. The two new programmes, ‘Field of Dreams’ for Newstalk and ‘Tower Songs’ for Lyric FM are likely to go into production later this year. A total of E30,000 has been awarded to Athena Media in this radio round.

We’re celebrating a new phase on our podcast channel 02 Making Waves - with a new short version 2-3 minutes which will be released with the full length episode from this week. Coming up next week is a special with Duke Special to coincide with his new album release. Watch out for more news and updates on developments on our new music channel which is enjoying its third year in cyberspace. Our sponsors 02 are supporting the podcast since its March 2006 and we’re working with them on developments.

Athena Media has had two radio documentary submissions accepted in BBC Radio 4’s short offers round - the two projects (one in the My Story strand and the other in popular arts) will now be developed for the full commission round deadline of November 6th. Athena Media is a registered supplier to BBC Radio 4 and our previous radio documentaries will now be broadcast for Irish audiences on RTE Digital Radio on RTE Choice one of RTE’s DAB channels.
We’ll let you know the dates.

we’re finally in an edit phase on ‘is it just me?’ - our 10 part series on young people and positive journeys through their teens. The brief for the series is around youth mental health and we deal with first person stories in a range of challenging areas like depression and bullying. The series is for RTE 2 and will broadcast in TTV. We’re editing at Lotus Films in Sandymount who are handling the full editing process.
We’re started editing with the first episodes and will continue for some weeks to come.

Big winning night for all our former colleagues in RTE Radio 1 at the PPI - and while we lost out in the documentary award to Radio 1 - we couldnt have lost to nicer people. Particular congrats to Kay Sheehy of Today with PK and the presenter of our series Women and Words for RTE Lyric FM who picked up the very nice current affairs award for a PK special in Finglas. And another talented producer and former colleague who won is Ronan Kelly who always makes the most interesting radio on the airwaves in Ireland. Well done Kay and Ronan!

Athena Media’s The Last Wake is up for a PPI radio award in the documentary category at the awards ceremony on Friday Oct 10th in Kilkenny. The documentary was broadcast on Newstalk 106 and supported by the BCI Sound and Vision Fund.

we’ve been recruiting recently at Athena Media and we’d like to introduce our new crew - Chris Clarke - content creator/production coordinator and Susan Bourke - production secretary/assistant. Chris and Susan joined in the past month and are now part of our permanent crew and we’re happy to say that Niamh Kinane is working with us full time for the next while on radio projects and supporting 02 Making Waves - our online music podcast channel. Our freelance crew include Yvonne Redmond, journalist and TV presenter, Barry MacNeill, videographer, Andrew Clancy, production coordinator, Conor Bowe, multimedia and presenters Claire O Dowd, Rory Dungan and Richie Chakra. Contact Susan at 01 4885851 for more information on Athena Media offerings and to request a quote for production services whether online or broadcast.
Athena Media has also been awarded a research - digital media project by the BCI - in partnership with Dr Brian O Neill of DIT and we’ll we developing research on that in the coming months.