Midlands 103, formerly Midlands Radio 3, is an Irish local independent radio station serving the counties of Laois, Offaly, and Westmeath. Its main broadcast studios and offices are located in Tullamore, County Offaly, with additional studios in Athlone Towncentre Shopping Centre, Athlone, and the Bridge Shopping Centre, Tullamore, as well as a studio in Harbour Place Shopping Centre, Mullingar. The station regularly broadcasts from these locations and operates two outside broadcast units. As of 2021, Midlands 103 reached 122,000 weekly listeners, with 73,000 tuning in daily according to Joint National Listenership Research.
History
The station was established as "Radio 3" in 1990 having operated as an unlicenced broadcaster "Radio West" between 1982 and 1988.
In March 2025, Midlands 103 acquired the Wexford-based station South East Radio.2
Station output
The prime-time weekday schedule includes breakfast programming, a daily current affairs magazine show, music-driven programmes in the afternoon and "drive time" programming until 7pm.
The weekend schedule is a mixture of music programmes and sports coverage, which sometimes includes full commentary of local and inter-county Gaelic games. Ireland's longest running love songs show, "Twilight Time", is broadcast on Sunday nights.
News
The newsroom is staffed by two full-time newsreaders and a sports correspondent. Midlands 103 also uses its own reporters and freelancers to cover events across the broadcast area. A sports reporter and commentators provide sports updates. The station produces its own local news bulletins for the region during peak times, with evening and weekend network bulletins produced by Bauer Media Audio Ireland.
Sales and promotion
Midlands 103 is part of the group of independent stations affiliated with the IRS+ national media sales and marketing bureau, which provides national and international branded advertising.3 The station runs two annual awards ceremonies: the "Hospitality Awards"4 (which gives awards to pubs/bars, hotels, restaurants and the tourism sector), and the "Customer Service Awards" (which focus on customer service in retail and other business in the area).
External links
References
"Midlands 103 Celebrating Highest Ever Listenership". Midlands 103 News. Retrieved 8 December 2021. https://www.midlands103.com/news/midlands-news/midlands-103-celebrating-highest-ever-listenership/ ↩
"Midlands 103 buys Wexford radio station South East Radio". rte.ie. 18 March 2025. Retrieved 23 June 2025. Midlands 103 has announced an agreement to acquire Wexford radio station South East Radio [..] Midlands 103 is part of the Tindle Group https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2025/0318/1502685-midlands-103-buys-wexford-radio-station-south-east-radio/ ↩
"Midlands 103, the home of local radio for Offaly, Laois and Westmeath". irsplus.ie. IRS+. Retrieved 3 November 2022. https://irsplus.ie/radio-station/midlands-103/ ↩
"Midlands 103 Hospitality Awards honour more locals". radiotoday.ie. Radio Today. 29 May 2019. Retrieved 21 March 2020. https://radiotoday.ie/2019/05/midlands-103-hospitality-awards-honour-more-locals/ ↩