RTÉ and 1986

simu

What's the big deal with this? All week, they've had programmes on about how much Ireland has changed since 1986. Is it just because it was 20 years ago?

whiskeyman

http://www.rte.ie/thetimeofourlives/index.html

there yee go.
Big "Test The Nation" thingie on next Monday, with Ray Darcy and Miriam O'Callaghan being Philip Schofield and Anne Robinson for the night..

simu

OK, the country has changes in 20 years. But 1986 was also very different from 1966. Gimmick?

Dudess

Probably. Or maybe they were stretched for ideas and though "Hey! What about a bunch of 20th anniversary-themed shows?" Why wasn't there a similar 1985/2005 strategy, or 1984/2004 etc. Maybe it's because 1986 was a particularly bad year for music - Cutting Crew, Mister Mister, Europe, Boris "I Want to Wake up With You" Gardiner. Who knows?

whiskeyman

simu wrote:

Gimmick?

probably.... they just know all next months schedule will be taken up with sport!

Have to keep the other licence payers happy

lostexpectation

eh I think there was some big survey or report carried out on 86-06.

the test the nation thing is absolute crud, it was crud on BBC it will be crud on RTE

simu

I'm not very impressed by it tbh. Seems to be a rehash of the usual clichés and talking heads. What did others think?

whiskeyman

simu wrote:

I'm not very impressed by it tbh. Seems to be a rehash of the usual clichés and talking heads. What did others think?

was looking forward to the bit yesterday from 9.30 to 11.00, but was sorely disappointed.
Seemed to be more an ego trip for each of the 9 contributors. The John Waters bit was cringeworthy.
Missed the Prime Time special on Tues, so cant say much about it. Like you said, it's all mostly rehash of "Celtic Tiger" blah blah tbh...

Wertz

whiskeyman wrote:

http://www.rte.ie/thetimeofourlives/index.html

there yee go.
Big "Test The Nation" thingie on next Monday, with Ray Darcy and Miriam O'Callaghan being Philip Schofield and Anne Robinson for the night..

Oh how original :rolleyes:

I'll be sure to have swotted up on my factoids and will keep my mobile within easy reach for those crucial txt entrys come monday

flogen

Taking wild guesses here, but this article would suggest that 1986 was the trough in the delapidated Irish economy (and, perhaps the highest unemployment rate too... not sure on this though), and of course improvements in our economy have been at the heart of a changing Ireland.
Maybe the concept is to compare Ireland at its lowest ebb to its highest peak so far? Or maybe it's just a poorly tacked together concept; I did like some of the 2-hour special featuring Waters, Irvine, Robinson etc. though.

scargill

I thought some of the programmes this week were quite good. Fair enough, some of them just featured the usual talking heads but I think it did serve to remind us of how far we have come in a short space of time.

I especially liked George 'the end is nigh' Lee's programme 'Boom' last night. It is amazing how things turned round in a few years.

Mossy Monk

RT&#201 wrote: »

With celebrity contestants also in studio

the cast of Fair City and Twink are busy Monday night then

Dustaz

Boom last night was a great programme and it brought back a lot of horrible memories from the 80's. Some of the younger contributors to this board should have watched it to realise just how far weve come (and how far we could drop)

Telefís

Agreed, an excellent programme. Indeed all three were excellently directed and produced, with Lee's in particular very balanced and informative. Beautifully shot too.
Yes Wednesday's was a bit weary at times, but broadly very good and would disagree that 'the usual talking heads' were dragged out. We got quite a wide range of individuals, and most not that commonly seen on our screens.


I'm glad RTÉ have taken on board the Test the Nation format. Who cares if the BBC came up with the idea- a franchise still makes for good television. It doesn't all have to be original.
Though admittedly only the IQ and 'the year that was' versions appeal to me. Testing people on such a broad range of issues like Monday's show doesn't really have a great level of accuracy or direction to it.

It'll be interesting to see how they handle it - the biggest studio operation RTÉ will have done probably since Election 2002. Note it coincides with the Late Late vacating Studio 4 for the summer - RTÉ's largest regular production facility.
They're also not used to so much computer operation in a programme, and less again in a live setup! Should be fun

Their site is here:

http://www.rte.ie/tv/testthenation/

simu

Ah! I thought it would be an on-air IQ test! Well, it'll certainly rake in a bit of cash from all the texts, anyway.

Wertz

An IQ test might actually have been somewhat productive....couldn't have that now could we...
A nostalgia test? Inter-county rivalry? RTÉ jerry-rig the text machine and the met eireann weather computers for some statistical analyses of the results.
Good clean family fun.

Yes yes, I'm being negative about RTÉ again. Yawn, etc.

Telefís

Well a lot of investment is being made in this programme, so we're definitely going to see more of it, undoubtedly the IQ Test being the hot favourite as the next version.

It'll either be in the dead August period to try and bring things back to life, or act as one of the big guns of the autumn schedule around the October bank holiday...

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Cork

scargill wrote:

I especially liked George 'the end is nigh' Lee's programme 'Boom' last night. It is amazing how things turned round in a few years.

This was a good programme that pointed out the economy is shakey.

It was good as it pointed out that we were not investing fast enough in broadband, r+d, training etc.

All the rest of the programmes were garbage.

I'm glad RTÉ have taken on board the Test the Nation format. Who cares if the BBC came up with the idea- a franchise still makes for good television. It doesn't all have to be original.

But it would be nice if RTE did something original.