Thursday, February 9th 2012

In the latest JNLR (Joint National Listenership Research - 02/02/12), the Mooney show increased its audience by a whopping 27,000 listeners year-on-year, putting us into 12th position on the table of the top 20 programmes listened to in Ireland. We now have a daily reach of 238,000 listeners - thanks for listening!!

On today's programme: we have the first airplay of the five songs vying for the honour of representing Ireland at this year's Eurovision Song Contest in Azerbaijan, and Amal Fashanu, niece of soccer player Justin Fashanu (who took his own life), discusses why being gay is still taboo in sport.

Premiere of Songs For Eurosong 2012

Yesterday, RTÉ announced the five Eurosong 2012 contenders, as decided by 5 mentors selected internally late last year. These 5 songs will be premiered on Mooney, this afternoon, from 3pm, when Derek is joined by Rory Cowen, Brenda Donohue, and our very own Euro Guru, Paul G. Sheridan. On Friday, February 24th, they will be performed live on The Late Late Show Eurosong 2012 Special, hosted by Ryan Tubridy. The songs are as follows, in order of appearance:

For more information on Eurovision, including a downloadable Eurosong Score Card and Paul G's Eurovision Blog, click here.

Win €5000 with Mooney's Money!

Tune in from 3pm to find out how you could win five thousand euro on the show today, with thanks to Mooney's Money and AA Home Emergency Response - click here to find out more!

Britain's Gay Footballers

Documentary maker Amal Fashanu

Fourteen years ago, football's only openly gay footballer, Justin Fashanu, hung himself. Now his niece has made a documentary that looks back at the careers of her uncle, and her father, the footballer John Fashanu, and examines why so few footballers feel comfortable in coming out... For more information about the documentary, click here: www.bbc.co.uk. And to visit Amal's website, click here.