252's audience began to decline. Attempts at repositioning followed, including "Real Music, Real Radio", when the station attempted to tackle BBC Radio 1's "new music" format. At the peak of its popularity in 1993, Atlantic 252 had 6 million listeners aged 15+ in the UK and Ireland, but vastly increased competition from local radio stations with similar formats saw this decline yearly. Relaunch attempts In late 1998 under the direction of David Dunne the station responded to dropping audiences by shifting its format to concentrate on indie and dance music, but it continued to lose listeners. This included 30 hours of 'specialist' music including programmes from The Wise Guys, Eddy Temple Morris and the Trade nightclub. Money was spent on advertising and a high-profile breakfast show was attempted fronted by Marc Brow (including several innovative ideas like travel news backed by new age chill out music called 'Traffic Calming', and specially re-formatted youth news presented by Specialist Producer Mark Ovenden which included one of the first broadcast uses of the term 'The Noughties'), in 1999 the station suffered its lowest Rajar ratings since it first came on the air, with the audience falling to just under 1 million UK listeners in the last quarter of the year. In November 1999, with the arrival of John O'Hara as the new managing director, the station re-launched in February 2000 as "The New Atlantic 252". The format was changed to urban contemporary music (such as garage, house, hip hop and R&B) and the station was rebranded with the slogan "Non-stop Rhythm and Dance". There was over £1million spent on rebranding and marketing the station to a new audience and media buyers, including a new website. Under the new format RAJAR ratings rose once more above the 1 million mark, the station had a better market value and the sale of the station was announced in early 2001 by its owners RTÉ and CLT. Last broadcast The last show on Atlantic was presented by Enda Caldwell on Thursday 20 December 2001. This was followed by a tribute show produced by Enda Caldwell and Eric Murphy celebrating the station's 12-year history of broadcasting and featuring classic airchecks of each year of Atlantic 252's history. The station then transitioned to automation, and continued broadcasting music without continuity, along with pre-booked commercials, until midnight on 2 January 2002, when transmissions ceased. Notable DJs Many of the original