Problems with Irish TV

Elmo

RTÉ doesn't really understand itself all that well. It seems to miss the point with both of its channels. Now perhaps that is down to the over marketing of Network 2 as a youth channel, which - to an extent - continues to this day as RTÉ Two.

RTÉ Two is the schizophrenic bother of its sister channel RTÉ One. Not sure weather it is a children's channel, a youth channel or a men's channel and sometimes it likes women's clothes with their after 9pm female programming.

As for RTÉ One its left being the voice of the nation, providing quality news and current affairs while also trying to shake off the Farmers/Culchies that it seems to attract.

RTÉ's television service is always up for scrutiny. In the eyes of the public we pay for it so it should be better and TV3 don't get funding from the licence fee so why should we complain about them and for TG4 well thats a minority language television channel so it seems to lack any real scrutiny other than its in Irish, as though that was a criticism.

RTÉ Two does provide 13 hours a day of Children's TV and from what I have see of their children's shows some of them seem more intelligent than their adult output, including a series were a group of children become a shrink for a week to help an adult out of their problems, perhaps those same children could talk to RTÉ's head of Entertainment to help him out of his problems and for that matter the head of Scheduling.

RTÉ Two's schedule has been abysmal this year worse than I have seen in previous years and that is hard coming from 2008. The commissioned entertainment shows from independent producers has been dumb and their own productions have not been much better. Starting out with the cheaply made Byrne Ultimatum which was trash, stupid and seemed to have the same Edmund Rice joke on each week, I never though Edmund Rice was that funny. As for Rodge and Podge, well after 3 weeks it reverted back to a chat show but since they are now just milking it they aren't half as good and RTÉ should now be willing to look else were. But the list of these vulgar (and I amn't being a prude) shows is endless, utter tripe, if your going to be vulgar at least be intelligent and witty, but then RTÉ Two is a children's channel so perhaps we should expect so much from them other than school boy humour.

RTÉ Two lack any imagination and really it has become the black sheep of the RTÉ family, never getting anything right it has no real programming outside of Sports and Childrens. Their news service is tiny and even part of that is aimed at children. Their american programmes consist of Women's Dramas and CSI spin offs with many better shows going out late night, often it is no more than 3e with money. The documentary strands are re-dubbed by Irish presenters and aren't worth the promotion so much so that RTÉ replaced them with Dancing with the Stars this autumn, which also doesn't get much promotion, what is the point of programming if you don't promote it. How many people know that RTÉ Two has shown the BBC's Horizon on several occasions?

And then there is RTÉ One's race to the bottom hoping to retain viewers by putting obviously RTÉ Two type programming on RTÉ One, it started with the Panel, followed by Ryan Confidential, followed by Men V Women etc etc and then they put actual quality RTÉ One type programmes on at midnight such as Mad Men, a much better replacement for the Clinic.

I suppose the main problem with Irish Television is the Executives sitting around thinking that the audience are thick and wouldn't understand.