RTÉ and breakfast time news on TV

rlogue

So, can someone enlighten me as to why RTÉ do not provide a live news based breakfast time TV service? Surely our state broadcaster is capable of it?

Genghis

AFAIK this has something to do, believe it or not, with ancient union rules. In other words, either staff won't work that early, or that they demand so much for working that earlu that it becomes infeasible for RTE to do it.

marclt

Maybe it has something to do with the copious amounts of make up RTE would have to invest in, to make some of its presenters - 'TV friendly' THAT EARLY IN THE MORNING!!! ... I am, of course, only joking!!!!

It Would be rather nice to wake up to Sharon Ni Bheolain at 7am - dont ya think? http://www.guidedogs.ie/shades/images/shades_3.jpg

Cannot stand TV3 - too many presenters on that show...

flogen

Let TV3 do the breakfast fluff, I'd rather see something like the BBC's breakfast show; it's hardly hard news all the time, but at least it isn't just cookery tips, make up tips and phone ins.

Mossy Monk

i am not bothered by RTÉ's lack of a live breakfast show. all the others are rubbish and it is a format i feel that's not needed

rlogue

Genghis wrote:

AFAIK this has something to do, believe it or not, with ancient union rules. In other words, either staff won't work that early, or that they demand so much for working that earlu that it becomes infeasible for RTE to do it.

Well, then a easy solution to that problem - hire some new staff. There's plenty across the road in Belfield or in DCU who'd like some work experience.

On the other hand - RTÉ were about to launch a breakfast time news show in the late 90s. I believe Frontier Films were involved in some kind of contracted out approach, but nothing came of it.

And if the majority of RTÉ's staff these days are contract staff then surely the trade unions wouldn't be involved? After all, they are very effective agents against progress in Irish Rail...

marclt

flogen wrote:

Let TV3 do the breakfast fluff, I'd rather see something like the BBC's breakfast show; it's hardly hard news all the time, but at least it isn't just cookery tips, make up tips and phone ins.

Some of the BBC presenters give it a 'hard news' front tho.. especially Kate Silverton! If only it was Bill and Sian everyday... they make the breakfast show feel more relaxed...

marclt

rlogue wrote:

On the other hand - RTÉ were about to launch a breakfast time news show in the late 90s.

I recall a programme being on the agenda.. but then TV3 got in there first, and RTE lost heart.

Anything would be better than the mish mash on at the moment... without straying off topic, RTE don't seem to get their schedule right. Most people have a heavily structured breakfast time, up and out to be in work for the same time everyday. But RTE's morning programmes are all over the shop. If anyone did want to watch Neighbours at 7am everday while eating their corn flakes they'd have a hard time trying to do that across the week.

Today its on at 7.15, tomorrow 7.05, then back to 7.15 other days its on at 6.55.. it makes no sense!

DMC

marclt wrote:

It Would be rather nice to wake up to Sharon Ni Bheolain at 7am - dont ya think? http://www.guidedogs.ie/shades/images/shades_3.jpg

Ooh. Puppies.

rlogue, you are right in that Frontier Films were approached in 1999, they even had Flor McCarthy lined up.

But really, I can't see any point in it. Like Mossy, I'm not bothered that RTÉ haven't done it. 10 years ago, I would've been all for it, but nowadays I find breakfast TV quite distracting, on the whole, it is something I can do without. I'll turn to Today on Radio 4 or Morning Ireland, and keep busy getting myself out the house.

One arguement that RTÉ could raise is, why self inflict damage to Morning Ireland, when you are competing for the same audience with a hard-ish news agenda?

Plus... its a tease having Natasha Kaplinsky on at that hour Kate Silverton does my head in. Annoying bint, causing Phillip Hayton leave News 24.

marclt

DMC wrote:

Ooh. Puppies.

One arguement that RTÉ could raise is, why self inflict damage to Morning Ireland, when you are competing for the same audience with a hard-ish news agenda? .

Same could be said for BBC showing the world cup and Radio 5 broadcasting it too.... In fairness, I think there is little justification in the argument that at breakfast time TV will detract from radio listenership - Radio is always well listened to at breakfast time.. (have the figures to prove it )

RTE could copy some of the lesser european satellite channels and replay RTE Radio 1 sound with scrolling news text, traffic images, weather maps etc etc rather than have a 'proper show'

[/QUOTE]Plus... its a tease having Natasha Kaplinsky on at that hour Kate Silverton does my head in. Annoying bint, causing Phillip Hayton leave News 24.[/QUOTE]

Has Natasha been 'rested' for a little while... haven't seen her on brekkie for ages!

Mossy Monk

marclt wrote:

RTE could copy some of the lesser european satellite channels and replay RTE Radio 1 sound with scrolling news text, traffic images, weather maps etc etc rather than have a 'proper show'

not a bad idea that. better than repeats from the day before

DMC

marclt wrote:

Same could be said for BBC showing the world cup and Radio 5 broadcasting it too.... In fairness, I think there is little justification in the argument that at breakfast time TV will detract from radio listenership - Radio is always well listened to at breakfast time.. (have the figures to prove it )

Economies of scale. Morning Ireland is the most listened to radio show in this country (I have those same figures too) and sets its ad rates in line with how many listeners are tuning in. If RTÉ were to set up an expensive to run breakfast TV show, and got modest viewership, you would be sure to see some leakage from Morning Ireland, which is a much leaner package to run.

marclt wrote:

Has Natasha been 'rested' for a little while... haven't seen her on brekkie for ages!

She's presenting the "Six" with George Alagiah permanently now.

lawhec

RTE could copy some of the lesser european satellite channels and replay RTE Radio 1 sound with scrolling news text, traffic images, weather maps etc etc rather than have a 'proper show'

...and maybe an in-studio camera while we're at it?

L1011

hrm, HitRadio OE3 situation you mean

(OE3 is somewhat like Austrias 2FM, and they show it on satellite with a very low bitrate video carrier showing the last songs played, news updates, traffic, weather, etc)

In-studio camera would be like Adrian Kennedy on City Channel. Utterly horrific.

mike65

Why the hell would anyone want to wach tv at 7-8 am? Mornings is for radio as is late night.

Mike.

Elmo

Complete waste of money they should be providing new Irish Shows during primetime let TV3 have the mornings.

But I beleive that From next October RTE will have a news service in the morning, the afternoon show and Grainne Seoige.

Well if your unemployed or a student you have ur days view set, except for the morning when hopefully you will be sleeping in.

flogen

Radio with on screen info sounds like a cheap enough concept, in studio camera would suck though.

I agree with the general sentiment and don't really feel a need for a breakfast show either, although I'd hate to see something like GMTV if they did do it.

marclt

flogen wrote:

Radio with on screen info sounds like a cheap enough concept, in studio camera would suck though.
.

Problem is ... would they be able to get it right? RTE can't even manage the newsreel on Nightscreen .. all it shows is P100! I did contact RTE about that - and was told it was too complicated to do!

It's kind of like saying we're only playing one song on the radio today cos the programme controller hasn't bothered to schedule any other music.. Obviously the programme scheduler doesn't know (doesn't care) that the nightscreen service doesn't work properly!!?

marclt

DMC wrote:

Economies of scale. Morning Ireland is the most listened to radio show in this country (I have those same figures too) and sets its ad rates in line with how many listeners are tuning in. If RTÉ were to set up an expensive to run breakfast TV show, and got modest viewership, you would be sure to see some leakage from Morning Ireland, which is a much leaner package to run.

Don't agree.. the people in their cars, on the bus and on the DART can't watch TV, so it wouldn't affect radio figures.

It might however fill the gap for Irish news provision in the morning, cutting down the amount of people watching UK news on BBC and ITV.

TV3's Ireland AM just hasn't got the mix right... news isn't great, fluffy interviews are too long and there is nothing there to keep watching. Do they really need all of those presenters??? How they can even justify making THE BEST OF... for repeating at the weekend is beyond me!!

RTE are probably thinking of providing some sort of News24 operation in future, they might as well start increasing the number of news programmes they produce.

Macy

marclt wrote:

RTE are probably thinking of providing some sort of News24 operation in future, they might as well start increasing the number of news programmes they produce.

This was flagged several years ago on some of the Dsat sites. 24 hour news channels very expensive to run, although I suppose they could add in Prime Time, Nationwide etc as well - especially if it was a FTA Dsat channel.

watty

They also don't START morning Ireland eary enough. Then in part of summer they start it even later. Can't the foks at Montrose start an hour earlier, and same time ALL year?

RTE's lack of breakfast TV baffles me.

DMC

marclt wrote:

Don't agree.. the people in their cars, on the bus and on the DART can't watch TV, so it wouldn't affect radio figures.

It might however fill the gap for Irish news provision in the morning, cutting down the amount of people watching UK news on BBC and ITV.

A sizeable number still listen to MI, and other radio stations, in their kitchens each morning. Its true, it might attract viewers back from BBC/GMTV, but I wonder what is the audience for breakfast TV here, thats one statistic that we dont get to see on viewing figures/audience share of UK TV channels. They are counted, but seldom seen.

I still don't think that a breakfast show on RTÉ is a good use of resources.

Telefís

I fully agree. RTÉ is a small broadcaster with limited resources; its purpose is to make programmes that best serve Irish people, not splash about licence payers’ money in replicating other people’s jaded formats just because ‘everyone else is doing it’, while bleeding finance away from already relatively under-resourced prime time programming.

As DMC outlined, the principal reason for RTÉ not doing breakfast television is probably the competition with Morning Ireland, the country’s most listened to radio programme at around 470,000 listeners. Investing in a television service to run against it not only costs a fortune in its own right, it costs even more in lost rates from radio – also factoring in Morning Ireland’s ‘hooking’ role in Radio 1, the foundation stone on which the rest of the morning schedule is built. A smaller listenership here has consequences for the rest of the morning too, something Radio 1 could do without at a time of increasing competition and a wider decline in radio listenership in Ireland.

Such breakfast programming would also necessitate a radical overhaul in how the RTÉ Newsroom operates. Currently it only starts work at 8am or so, working for the whole day towards Six One, with a couple of titbits tossed together for One in the meantime. To have packages assembled for 6-7am, to have editors, reporters and crew on hand at that time, to have the news studio and gallery fully manned, and to have technical services support at that hour, requires a massive overhaul in how the Newsroom operates, an increase in staff numbers, and a rise overall working hours being paid – huge changes for the sake of pointless this-might-or-might-not-happen-today news packages and wider in-studio (another studio at that) tittle tattle in predicting the day’s events. It’s simply not worth it for a small public service broadcaster.

This by the way, is precisely the reason why TV3 have no news content of merit at all on Ireland AM, as they simply don’t have the resources to make anything substantive in this respect. This is why the programme is filled with 3 hours of fluff; what is usually a news/current affairs format turned onto an afternoon lifestyle magazine show. The only way you can make relatively decent breakfast programming is to have the backup of a vast 24 hour news operation which the BBC of course has always had. Or of course go the opposite direction and the likes of Big Breakfast which RTÉ couldn’t possibly be seen to do obviously.

But generally speaking breakfast television is rubbish, television being a medium inherently unsuited to predictive analysis by definition of the lack of pictures of the events that have yet to happen! Radio is so much more suited to this. Getting round this is to use credible in-studio guests, which are a nightmare to get hold of at 6-7am, especially in a country with such a small pool as Ireland.

It must also be remembered that Ireland AM has nothing whatever to do with providing breakfast television to serve the poor people of Ireland that RTÉ refuse to serve. Ireland AM is nothing other than a scam by TV3 to fulfil its indigenous programme-making requirement as set out in its licence – a full 15 HOURS of utter sh*te every week meets almost all of the BCI’s brief! Coupled with repeats of the same, some meagre news content and the odd Irish documentary, Ireland AM is TV3’s saviour. How elese could they possibly come up with three hours of home-production a day?! It is so contrived in this regard that I doubt it even remotely makes a profit – it can’t do, even with its sponsorship.

Still, I can see RTÉ eventually cracking, especially when/if a 24 hour news/information channel is launched and the Newsroom’s operations are extensively boosted. In a way this is happening already; the Newsroom has expanded enormously over the past 5-10 years. Something perhaps worthy of investing in then if the news resources are already there, and they can come up with some decent stuff, but until then leave well alone!

Telefís

And afterall, as RTÉ no doubt keeps whispering to itself, nobody seems to have noticed yet - so shusssssh!

rlogue

I'm flabbergasted that the RTÉ newsroom doesn't start work until 8am - what about breaking news stories from Asia and the Americas?

Flabbergasted, but somehow not surprised.

I'm not sure that the argument that a TV news programme in the mornings would eat into Morning Ireland's listenership is a strong one. I would have thought that the radio audience and the TV audience in the mornings would be two distinctive markets - and at the moment the Irish TV audience is woefully underserved by the frankly poor Ireland AM.

As to the argument that just because everyone else is doing something we shouldn't feel obliged to - I was reminded of the dark days of the 80s when those who opposed social change in Ireland would make exactly the same argument.

It is ridiculous that RTÉ's newsroom doesn't start working until 8am - but if penny pinching means that getting the newsroom manned 24 hours a day is not on and concern that the breakfast radio show would somehow suffer if an RTÉ produced TV news programme was aired at the same time is paramount, then may I suggest that the government takes the slot between 6am and 9am away from RTÉ and hands the slot over to another group who could produce a serious news programme in that time.

If that's too radical a proposal, surely a simulcast of Morning Ireland would work? Having a camera pointing at the presenters in the radio studio is a cheap option and works elsewhere.

lostexpectation

rlogue wrote:

If that's too radical a proposal, surely a simulcast of Morning Ireland would work? Having a camera pointing at the presenters in the radio studio is a cheap option and works elsewhere.

this is such a obvious solution, cheap and functional ok it might not be polished, but it doens't have to be people will watch they will know the watching a working studio, and has been pointed out by many recently RTE dont even cover the news on the radio??

Doea RTE radio 1 have hourly or half hourly news updates/snippets?

Elmo

C4 let go of there moring show along time ago and have yet to bring anything back repeats of american sit-coms in the morning seems to work.


I would be suprised if they go with morning time Deal or No Deal :rolleyes:

flogen

Telef&#237 wrote: »

I fully agree. RTÉ is a small broadcaster with limited resources; its purpose is to make programmes that best serve Irish people, not splash about licence payers’ money in replicating other people’s jaded formats just because ‘everyone else is doing it’, while bleeding finance away from already relatively under-resourced prime time programming.

As DMC outlined, the principal reason for RTÉ not doing breakfast television is probably the competition with Morning Ireland, the country’s most listened to radio programme at around 470,000 listeners. Investing in a television service to run against it not only costs a fortune in its own right, it costs even more in lost rates from radio – also factoring in Morning Ireland’s ‘hooking’ role in Radio 1, the foundation stone on which the rest of the morning schedule is built. A smaller listenership here has consequences for the rest of the morning too, something Radio 1 could do without at a time of increasing competition and a wider decline in radio listenership in Ireland.

Such breakfast programming would also necessitate a radical overhaul in how the RTÉ Newsroom operates. Currently it only starts work at 8am or so, working for the whole day towards Six One, with a couple of titbits tossed together for One in the meantime. To have packages assembled for 6-7am, to have editors, reporters and crew on hand at that time, to have the news studio and gallery fully manned, and to have technical services support at that hour, requires a massive overhaul in how the Newsroom operates, an increase in staff numbers, and a rise overall working hours being paid – huge changes for the sake of pointless this-might-or-might-not-happen-today news packages and wider in-studio (another studio at that) tittle tattle in predicting the day’s events. It’s simply not worth it for a small public service broadcaster.

This by the way, is precisely the reason why TV3 have no news content of merit at all on Ireland AM, as they simply don’t have the resources to make anything substantive in this respect. This is why the programme is filled with 3 hours of fluff; what is usually a news/current affairs format turned onto an afternoon lifestyle magazine show. The only way you can make relatively decent breakfast programming is to have the backup of a vast 24 hour news operation which the BBC of course has always had. Or of course go the opposite direction and the likes of Big Breakfast which RTÉ couldn’t possibly be seen to do obviously.

But generally speaking breakfast television is rubbish, television being a medium inherently unsuited to predictive analysis by definition of the lack of pictures of the events that have yet to happen! Radio is so much more suited to this. Getting round this is to use credible in-studio guests, which are a nightmare to get hold of at 6-7am, especially in a country with such a small pool as Ireland.

It must also be remembered that Ireland AM has nothing whatever to do with providing breakfast television to serve the poor people of Ireland that RTÉ refuse to serve. Ireland AM is nothing other than a scam by TV3 to fulfil its indigenous programme-making requirement as set out in its licence – a full 15 HOURS of utter sh*te every week meets almost all of the BCI’s brief! Coupled with repeats of the same, some meagre news content and the odd Irish documentary, Ireland AM is TV3’s saviour. How elese could they possibly come up with three hours of home-production a day?! It is so contrived in this regard that I doubt it even remotely makes a profit – it can’t do, even with its sponsorship.

Still, I can see RTÉ eventually cracking, especially when/if a 24 hour news/information channel is launched and the Newsroom’s operations are extensively boosted. In a way this is happening already; the Newsroom has expanded enormously over the past 5-10 years. Something perhaps worthy of investing in then if the news resources are already there, and they can come up with some decent stuff, but until then leave well alone!

In fairness RTÉ are currently enjoying a surplus; I think that, ignoring breakfast shows, they need to get their newsroom in order; the weekends seem to be days off too (in RTÉ interactive anyway) as the website hardly gets touched between Friday afternoon and Monday morning). Of course they'd have to change all of that if a news channel was to come about, but then again I wouldn't be surprised if they filled late night/early morning with loops of the days news and old prime times!

Telefís

To clarify, obviously the Newsroom is manned thought the night with a skeleton staff, and some reporters are in early to produce basic packages for radio to be aired across the three English-speaking stations incl Morning Ireland, but in terms of standard television news the day only starts at around 8am with the aim of getting stuff in for the One bulletin. Otherwise everything is aimed at Six One.

Not to digress too much from breakfast, but on a broader level they most certainly do need to get the Newsroom in order. Their commitment to the production of extensive, analytical and reflective reporting is appalling, as is their interest in fresh and innovative presentation - as it is they can barely pull a scheduled bulletin off without a hitch, let alone breakfast television news or a wider rolling news channel. Similarly RTÉ effectively shuts down at weekends and mid-summer, though at least the reduction of Six One to half an hour finally stopped last year.

Certainly if RTÉ did launch breakfast television it would be a massive blow to TV3 - they'd wipe the floor with them. So much so it'd probably cause what is an already borderline successful programme to flop, resulting in dire consequences for the broader health of TV3. They might be forced to put some home production on in prime time! :eek:

DMC

rlogue wrote:

I'm not sure that the argument that a TV news programme in the mornings would eat into Morning Ireland's listenership is a strong one. I would have thought that the radio audience and the TV audience in the mornings would be two distinctive markets - and at the moment the Irish TV audience is woefully underserved by the frankly poor Ireland AM.

Bother markets are distinct, but RTÉ won't necessarily see it like that. RTÉ's way has always been to have channels and stations that complement each other, and not to directly compete.

rlogue wrote:

As to the argument that just because everyone else is doing something we shouldn't feel obliged to - I was reminded of the dark days of the 80s when those who opposed social change in Ireland would make exactly the same argument.

Bit melodramatic, Richie? You won't get John Birt style "producer choice" in Montrose. As pointed out by Elmo, Channel 4 haven’t replaced RI:SE with a live morning programme, but they tried.

Don't forget that RTÉ is one of the last bastions of social change.

rlogue wrote:

If that's too radical a proposal, surely a simulcast of Morning Ireland would work? Having a camera pointing at the presenters in the radio studio is a cheap option and works elsewhere.

I'd say they might lose a presenter or two if they placed a camera in there that early in the morning

DMC

Telef&#237 wrote: »

Certainly if RTÉ did launch breakfast television it would be a massive blow to TV3 - they'd wipe the floor with them. So much so it'd probably cause what is an already borderline successful programme to flop, resulting in dire consequences for the broader health of TV3. They might be forced to put some home production on in prime time! :eek:

You underestimate the power of a small, but loyal audience.

Telefís

lol - loyal?!
More like they've no choice in the matter. I'd imagine it would collapse like house of cards, although yesm, I suppose the magazine element to it (i.e. all of it) will always have a greater appeal to some people...

DMC wrote:

I'd say they might lose a presenter or two if they placed a camera in there that early in the morning

To say the very least
Also rachel English is not exactly the most photogenic of presenters, whilst Richard Downes who I saw in Arnotts the other day looked absolutely wrecked - barely recognisable, he looked like the walking dead!

That camera proposal is absolute bonkers anyway - this is not BBC Radio 1 we're talking about here!

byte

DMC wrote:

I'd say they might lose a presenter or two if they placed a camera in there that early in the morning

LOL

On top of that, the radio presenters would want pay rises, since they'll be on both radio and Television.

Whatever happened to just varied Teletext pages with radio in the background (IIRC they used to use Aertel P598). Maybe something similar but with modernised graphics etc, and maybe weather maps. Simple and cheerful.

As for RI:SE on C4, Damn that was a woeful programme. I hated that Durden-Smith guy, or whatever his name was.

Elmo

Yeah the main presenter durdun-smith was annoying but the concept of a magizine/tabloid morning show was a change. Better suited to TV3 IMO if they actually produced a show for the 15 - 45 year olds out there. Instead it's Live at 3 in the morning.

DMC

Telef&#237 wrote: »

lol - loyal?!
More like they've no choice in the matter. I'd imagine it would collapse like house of cards, although yesm, I suppose the magazine element to it (i.e. all of it) will always have a greater appeal to some people...

Surprisingly, yes, Ireland AM has a niche audience. I know of people that I least suspected of watching that programme... And if that was replicated elsewhere....

It's not my cupán taé, and the same goes for the average ICDG'er. Just because we might dismiss it was twaddle, doesn't mean it has its fans.

Telefís

I suppose - indeed if you're tuning into that muck, almost be definition you don't want to watch Morning Ireland's television equivalent that would be RTÉ's breakfast programme...

Similar to you, I was bowled over by the revelation that a relation of mine only watches TV3 News and never watches RTÉ News! I still can't believe it, especially as someone who otherwise watches all the usual suspects of RTÉ - LLS, TT, Nationwide etc etc - madness! He certainly broke the ABC mould when He made her

DMC

lostexpectation wrote:

Doea RTE radio 1 have hourly or half hourly news updates/snippets?

There are news bulletins every hour on Radio 1 and 2fm, but they are shared overnight, the same bulletin is read live across both stations simultaneously from 2am-5am. They will report anything that might be happening, but I've rarely heard any breaking or new news from Ireland at those hours.

Telefís

They also use the most appalling newsreaders at that hour. Wouldn't surprise me if they were students drafted in from Belfield across the road.

L1011

thats the second time that analogy has been used in this thread for budget news readers and I don't think it was you the first time around

Telefís

rlogue wrote:

hire some new staff. There's plenty across the road in Belfield or in DCU who'd like some work experience.

Seems it's happpening already so

marclt

Telef&#237 wrote: »

Seems it's happpening already so

Yes, I've heard them... problem is, they tend to come straight out of college and onto the radio. They are great at re-writing press releases, and reading copy, but when it comes to something going wrong then it all falls apart.

I don't know how many bullys I've heard where the audio doesn't fire and SILENCE.. and more silence. You can't be a tv/radio presenter by just doing a course, you need to have a natural flair to present.


If RTE constructed a breakfast show that picked up elements from other shows they broadcast, that would be the hooking element into the day. The way it is RTE Newsroom forward plan most of the stories they are going to cover anyway, weeks if not days in advance. Morning Ireland is based on this very news diary. So, with a few interviews in the can, and space for any other 'breaking news' to be sorted out first thing, there is little need for a full operation to start very early.

fegsmoke

While it may be a good idea to increase RTE's tv news output an issue of greater importance is the lack of correspondents in certain areas of ireland and in important cities around the world. It would be a far better idea to put licence fee revenue into employing new regional and foreign correspondents and be innovative with what they've already got. I'd love to see RTE being a bit more daring with their TV news output - Prime Time shows that RTE has very good news values. It needs to think of better production standards, better news facilities. If only RTE NEws could be the TV equivalent of The Irish Times - we would have some of the best news output anywhere.
I think RTE shouldn't bother with new channels at all - 3 is sufficient. They should just broaden the spectrum of Irish produced programmes on these channels. I would personally love to see RTE using the mornings for Irish produced educational programmes for schools, programmes for parenting skills, perhaps english and cultural awareness programmes for the new Irish. Poitical programming is very stayed and Oireactais report ought to be beafed up to a shorter "The Week in Politics type show. Another area where RTE is failig us is in documentaries on foreign issues, natural history, music, philosophy and things that get the brain into gear. These when done are very good but they are sadly scant plus they are pushed to the twilight zone.
Irish people are sophisticated and like any other population are a varied bunch. We need less talk shows as they just skirt over important issues which a PSB needs to treat with greater senstivity.
I've ranted way of the point but just some food for thought.

Elmo

Economies of Scale would suggest that 2 or 3 new channels would be benifical to RTE.

To provide 2 commerical channels to RTE would give them more money to spend on home produced shows. Just think if TV3 was owned by RTE they would have at least 30,000,000 extra to spend on Irish Programming. Unlike like TV3 that divides this between their shareholders.

RTE spend 25,000,000 euro on Foreign Imports (nearly 11,000 hours of programming), the majority of which are shown late night. (others will know of the other post that I have started on this subject.) It would not be hard for RTE to set up 2 new channels at very little cost and place these shows and films during prime time, it is a total waste of money to show first showing of american shows at 3am in the morning or 11:30pm for that mater.

And then of course a rolling news service which would include RTE1 and RTE2's news output.


TG4 is fairly independent to RTE and will set to become independent in the next few years. They buy their own foreign shows, commission their own Irish shows and negotiate rights to sporting events. They are provided with news, 7la, ardan, suil siar, leargas, scannal, seachatain from RTE.