Radio South was relaunched in July 1990 as 96FM[1] and eventually bought out by County Sound in February 1991, with the original four shareholders selling all their shares to the Mallow-based station.
The close-down night of NCCR in Mallow on 31 December 1988, was struck by tragedy, when local farmer and former presenter and shareholder of the station - Pat O'Connor - who was participating in an interview - collapsed and died suddenly during a commercial break.
NCCR had come into being in 1985 when a community co-operative took over the ownership of a previous station – NCLR (North Cork Local Radio) that had been in existence since 1981.
Same air started its life broadcasting from a ground-floor apartment in Togher in the southside on 98.8 FM, moving later in 1982 to an upstairs studio in Cornmarket Street for a few weeks before returning to a mobile home studio based back in Togher and adding a mW transmitter to its transmission side on 253 AM, later changing the frequency to 1557 kHz or 194 mW.
A lot of well-known names in broadcasting today passed through its studio doors down over the years, moving on later in life to carve out careers on local and national radio and TV.
Another big station in the late 1990s and early 2000s was Kiss 105.5FM, which had a more commercial side than Radio Friendly and was aimed at a younger audience.
DJs such as Colin Edwards, Damien Sreenan, Dave Newman, and Derek O Keefe were regulars on this until the station's closure in 2001.
One reason for this was the large Max Power Event that was advertised on the station, attracting hundreds of cars and thousands of people.
This was the main pirate station in Cork and was more known on Kiss 94.8, but they were the subject of much Comreg attention and had been raided three times having broadcasting equipment confiscated.
In 2007 the owner of Kiss launched a second station Play 87.7FM which broadcast house, techno & trance music and remained on air for a year.
At its peak, Radio NOW hosted a collective of up to 25 DJs, offering a rich blend of genres including house, dance, trance, techno, drum and bass, R’n’B, hip hop, and dubstep.