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A limited rotation of participants in their embry
onic period saw them struggle to fill a week’s worth of programming. This meant that, initially, broadcasting was isolated to the weekends, before regular shows populated the schedule during the week. Unexpectedly, Finnan and McNamara were met with a critical mass of people pitching to the station. Early on, the pair put out a call across their social media inviting more women to get involved in DDR. With that, Carson contacted them. “I was interested in working on the organisational side of the station. I’d been involved in a lot of arts organisations before joining so I was happy to bring my experience from that to DDR.” The wealth of experience each member of DDR brings to the table has been vital in the expansion and regulation of the station. As Carson points out, “There are some people where you can see an obvious link between a need in the station and what they do.” The reward and return in the station’s relationship with its volunteers is twofold, as Owens explains, “Often, people volunteer for things they aren’t doing in their day job. If someone is a software engineer, they might say, ‘I’d actually love to get into design,’ and use DDR as a way of gaining experience in that field.” Furthermore, the quantity and quality of volunteers enables the organisation to stay fresh and relevant as demonstrated from the tremendous diversity in the shows it delivers. Whether it’s cultural round-ups (Anu Review or Art in the Contemporary World), explorations in soul, hip-hop and sampling in film and television (Hipdrop), or an assortment of ambient electronic tunes (Moot Tapes and Death Culture Blues), there’s something to satisfy all sonic proclivities. This is something the station prides itself on and is constantly seeking to expand upon. “I think what distinguishes DDR from previous iterations of pirate or digital radio is that it’s not just a bunch of DJs with a show. You can present an idea for a show, it could be current affairs, a documentary series, or field recordings. Naturally, this makes for a really interesting mix,” explains O’Brien. The freedom enabling Dublin Digital Radio to hold onto their unique stance, compared to commercial media outlets, stems from a principle of staying afloat via the valued assistance of volunteers selflessly sparing time to the station rather than negotiating with external investment opportunities. This decision was made early as Carson tells me, “We’ve certainly had advertisers and brands approach us, regarding investors, it’s mostly been on a quid-pro-quo basis where they want to get a lot out of the relationship with DDR. We’re a voluntary community organisation so we’re against the capitalisation of it because, to a certain degree, once it starts to lose its DIY feel it, it loses what makes it special.” That’s not to say, however, that the organisation is opposed to building some sort of fund for future developments in forming a company structure, striding towards the professionalisation of DDR. “Currently, our subscriber model is a good way to [generate a sustainable flow of income] because the minute you have someone offering a substantial amount of money, you have to question what the contingencies are and if that funding is taken away does that mean that the whole thing collapses?” rationalises Carson of the complex nature of responsible financial resourcing. Should the independent body find itself with a steady flow of money in the future, Carson reveals some exciting preliminary plans, “We’d love to do more community outreach, to mentor people who possibly wouldn’t feel as though they’re in a position to do a show, people from disadvantaged communities or from areas that wouldn’t necessarily have access to the studio equipment.” Elsewhere, she says that from an internal perspective, the studio would greatly benefit from hiring a handful of people to manage the space full-time. In a similar vein, the DDR crew have become familiar with fundraising for various causes. Most recently, they were overwhelmed by the response they received from a campaign they launched via FundIt to fund the build of their studio in The Complex. In the space of a week, they reached (and substantially surpassed) their target of €15,000. The surplus money is going back into the station in the form of commissioned documentaries, Current Casts, which are due to be aired across 2020. Rewards to contributors were as varied as the station’s merchandise to dinner with the DDR family. Further down the tier of rewards was a training and recording session in their new space. In the near future, to broaden DDR’s annual 24 Hours of Womxn’s Voices, coinciding with International Women’s Day on March 8th, the station is looking to develop a separate programme which they’re hoping to run from April. Carson teases their plan, “We want more women, trans and non-binary people’s voices on air; that’s what 24 Hours of Womxn’s voices was about and we realised that we had to go further. We have to offer training services to give people an entry point because that’s part of the whole outreach side of DDR.” With one project completed and more brewing in the pipeline, DDR are looking forward to the next event in their 2020 calendar; Alternating Current Festival, taking place between March 13th to 15th. What began as a sort of offshoot to the DDR brand – it originally took form as a commemorative zine coinciding with the station’s first birthday – has manifested into three nights of music held across several 48