How Would You Make Ear To The Ground Better?

mikefoxo

It seems to me that the show tends to get a bit of a hammering every now and again;) (perhaps warranted, perhaps not) The question is, if you were let loose, what would you do to improve it? Things like the topics discussed, how the presenters go about their business etc.

Personally I would put in a small segment every week talking about some little task on the farm and how to best go about it.Say doing animals.Tell the audience why they're doing it, what it protects against and how to best administer it (using crush, headgate etc.)

f140

maybe to take a bit of a top gear approach to it. Eg test out differrent equipment and compare and contrast them a bit. or take a fertilizer spreader and see how its spreading and show the difference between one thats spreading correctly and one thats not and then show the field in two weeks time and the difference.

the farmers journal can have some interesting articles and if these should be aired instead of written if you know what i mean.

badshot

more Ella and a lot less Darragh

briggy

Cancel it....

maxxuumman

badshot wrote: »

more Ella and a lot less Darragh

Ah no Darragh is good. Just have Ella hangIng around in every shot.
Actually in fairness, IMO its a good show. Thumbs up

awaywithyou

make me and ella presenters...!!! tell darragh and helen stay at home:pac::pac:

whelan1

keep it to farming, every programme has an item that imo is not farming related... keep it topical , some of the topics should really not be on a farming programme

mikefoxo

The question is, is it a farming programme or a rural programme? I believe there's a difference:rolleyes:

kerryjack

I think half an hour is too short it should be at least an hour all year around and Sunday evening would be a good evening for it as you might not get around to watching mid week i am a big fan of BBC Country file and i think they could borrow a bit out of that , like Adams farm but you would be hard pressed to find a lad like that in this country with a 1000 acres and so many different enterprises. RTE are crap anyway i haven't even changed over yet to saor view life goes on with out RTE

whelan1

how about having a different breeder on every week? maybe a sheep breeder one week and a dairy/beef breeder the next week. AN interesting programme would be on grassland measurement etc

Belongamick

They seem start a topic and go a little down the road of what is involved but shy away from giving any great detail. If you were thinking about getting into the winter finishing side or changing from dairy to suckler beef then good information or direction is not going to come from Ear to the ground.
Personally think there is a massive lack of information out there if you are thinking of changing enterprise or changing methods of current enterprise.
IFJ and Boards is a great help..

drive it

I dont know does anyboby look at the Welsh channel on sky 134 they have a farming program on i think on tuesdays and repeted on sundays around 1 30 they do some good pieces on everyday farming and cover all sectors sheep,beef,dairy,tillage and machinery only pain is its in welsh and you have to put the subbtitles on and read it

Sam Kade

f140 wrote: »

maybe to take a bit of a top gear approach to it. Eg test out differrent equipment and compare and contrast them a bit. or take a fertilizer spreader and see how its spreading and show the difference between one thats spreading correctly and one thats not and then show the field in two weeks time and the difference.

the farmers journal can have some interesting articles and if these should be aired instead of written if you know what i mean.

Top gear :rolleyes: You mean something like driving a tractor across the English channel?

Top gear is an entertainment show

Farmer Pudsey

First of all the program is in a 30 minute slot which when you take 2X3min add breaks introduction and end of program leaves 22-23 minutes for the actual presentations so 7 minutes each just long enough for the D4 brigade to go ooooh, aaahh and not get bored. In reality if we get a program targeted at farmers it would need to be in a one hour slot and away from prime timeTV. Then we could set out saorview/sky box to record and see it when it suits.

However though in theory RTE is a public service broadcaster and recieves large money in TV licience fees it really dose not do much of this. To improve it in its present format for the D4 brigade we could get Ella and Helen to dress more to attract the male audience and Darragh to target the female D4 audience they all like a bit of rough now and again

Conor556

I say have a newer version of the Riordans!!! On a sunday evening

juan.kerr

briggy wrote: »

Cancel it....

No way, it's certainly not the worst show on RTE. And that's coming from someone born in the big smoke.

09898531

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

First of all the program is in a 30 minute slot which when you take 2X3min add breaks introduction and end of program leaves 22-23 minutes for the actual presentations so 7 minutes each just long enough for the D4 brigade to go ooooh, aaahh and not get bored. In reality if we get a program targeted at farmers it would need to be in a one hour slot and away from prime timeTV. Then we could set out saorview/sky box to record and see it when it suits.

However though in theory RTE is a public service broadcaster and recieves large money in TV licience fees it really dose not do much of this. To improve it in its present format for the D4 brigade we could get Ella and Helen to dress more to attract the male audience and Darragh to target the female D4 audience they all like a bit of rough now and again

Darragh a bit of rough? Hahahaha! My sides!

mikefoxo

I definitely agree with making it more than half an hour long alright. To be honest I don't think you could have an hour long show all year round without having to put lots of chaff in it alá Countryfile - maybe 45 mins long for 8 months of the year?

One other thing also. Every year the call goes out on the airwaves for people to keep their dogs on a leash to protect sheep and lambs. Inevitably you see the pictures in the IFJ of dead sheep with their guts torn out. But why is it never mentioned that a farmer is legally entitled to shoot any dog that comes onto their land? Would any townies even know this is the case. And would it make them think twice before letting them off a lead or tresspassing on someones land?

Figerty

Darragh is very weak. His report on zero grazing last week was a pure propaganda session for the zero grazers..he just went along with the line that it was good for the cows, good for the land,,except the extra slurry and costs spreading it He brushed over the idea that cattle are happy inside all the time and ignored that cattle are herd grazing animals.
There were other reports in the past where I felt he was very lightweight.
Ella does seem to have a far greater insight into the realities of life on a farm.

SoJoMo

Improve it by forgetting the farming angle all together and have a few food/consumer issues, abit about hanging baskets and grewing carrots in windows boxes and hens in your semi-detached back garden and rebrand it - "An Eye on the Window Box"

Now if they want a farming programme then start from scratch with real farmers up to their arse in ****e doing real work and forget about eye candy.
Adams farm on Country File is about the most interesting Farming segment but even that segment is conscious of losing the non farmer croud.

Why doesnt the Farmers Journal develop a youtube channel?
Do a 10 minute piece-to-camera on each of 5 of their current articles .... start off lite but build it up over time etc

Black Smoke

Devote an entire programm, and if necessary, make it a two part show, investigating the beef price differential between what the factories pay farmers here in Ireland vs UK.
For that kind of programm, Darragh just would not cut the mustard. Let him do a bit of talking, intro etc, but need a real thorough investigative type operator, to do the research, ask the hard questions, develop the conclusions, make the final presentation.

13spanner

I suppose you can divide it into Information and Entertainment.

Information: Bring it closer to home in terms of what they show. Some times it seems like they put on stuff of little relevance to Ireland, or the average Irish farmer. Keep it to topics that are important to the majority. Stuff like comparing machinery, watching milk and beef prices, the ''does-and-don'ts''of different jobs around the farm. Report on different stories from around the country like the tragedy with the slurry pit in Co.Down, because stories like that bring it closer to home, with faces and names. It's more effective than a talk by some lad in a hi-vis jacket, or so I think anyway.

Entertainment: I think there has to be some entertainment side to it too, to keep it interesting. The local paper, the Clare Champion, did a few interviews with elderly farmers a few months ago, a very good read. Different things like tractor pulling, machinery, tug-o-war or something like that, things that interest farmers.

Just what I think anyway, a few ideas. It feels like they've drifted from rural Ireland into something else..?

briggy

juan.kerr wrote: »

No way, it's certainly not the worst show on RTE. And that's coming from someone born in the big smoke.

It's up there with the worst though.

Farmer Pudsey

juan.kerr wrote: »

No way, it's certainly not the worst show on RTE. And that's coming from someone born in the big smoke.

briggy wrote: »

It's up there with the worst though.

This from a farmers point proves our point. It is supposed to be a ''farmers'' program however it fall well short.If it was areal farmers program it would be of little appeal to most non farmers. This is typical RTE get money for public service broadcasting and then use this sort of populist type of programing and use it to justify the TV licience fee. I rarly watch it the other half would now and again.

kerryjack

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

This from a farmers point proves our point. It is supposed to be a ''farmers'' program however it fall well short.If it was areal farmers program it would be of little appeal to most non farmers. This is typical RTE get money for public service broadcasting and then use this sort of populist type of programing and use it to justify the TV licience fee. I rarly watch it the other half would now and again.

Its all about the ratings the higher the numbers that watch every week the more advertising they can sell and pay they massive wages , if they made a program just for farmers the numbers would be small , so its not really for farmers , they just touch on a subject and just when you get interested its all over. don't get me started on the TV licence, when i saw that ould gay burn back and to think that i am paying his wages made me sick and all the young talent out there that could do the job lot better.

keep going

would ye get over yourselves,all it is is a bit of entertaintment not flamin primetime or something and our children seem to like it so thats good enough for me.if someone is relying on ETG to keep them informed god help them.

Farmer Pudsey

keep going wrote: »

would ye get over yourselves,all it is is a bit of entertaintment not flamin primetime or something and our children seem to like it so thats good enough for me.if someone is relying on ETG to keep them informed god help them.

RTE is a public service broadcaster. it get paid a licience fee to produce programs that would not otherwise be produced. However it uses the fee to sudsidise high wages not to produce programs of public intrest.

Kerryjack has a point about Gay Byrne being back and being provided with a subsidy for his pension failure. Last year also Micheal Murphy got a tommer as did Jim Sheridan. At present Brien Dobson is doing an one to one interview with people last night it was with Martin O'Donoghue economist and former FF TD in during the jack Lynch/Charlie haughy era. these programs have very limited appeal. However it is a handy to boost these presenters wages/contracts by the back door. There are over 100k farmers we provide the raw material for an Industry worth 22 billion to the economy yet all that is shown on TV is a half hour program for to give D4 viewers a nice feel about farming and a the the one on Tna G with a landrover for a prize. neither has a real farming value.

Maybe half the licience should be set aside and all Tv stations in ireland allowed to tender to produce public intrest programs rather that a way for RTE to pay high wages and pension subsidy to retired presenters.

reilig

mikefoxo wrote: »

But why is it never mentioned that a farmer is legally entitled to shoot any dog that comes onto their land? Would any townies even know this is the case. And would it make them think twice before letting them off a lead or tresspassing on someones land?

Its not mentioned because farmers are not legally entitled to shoot any dog that comes onto their land. There are certain instances when farmers are allowed to shoot a dog if the dog is worrying an animal, but farmers have no right to take out a dog with a gun that may have wandered onto the property through a hole in the ditch while walking up the road. It is best to speak to your local Garda first if you suspect that dogs may be worrying your animals and before you go gung ho with your .22

I also imagine that they wouldn't broche such a subject due to the fact that the majority of ETTG viewers are "townies" and they rely on these viewers to be able to stay on air. If they approach subjects that are only interesting to farmers, then only farmers will view the show and with less than 20% of the population being farmers, they will have very poor audience figures!!

Bizzum

reilig wrote: »

Its not mentioned because farmers are not legally entitled to shoot any dog that comes onto their land. There are certain instances when farmers are allowed to shoot a dog if the dog is worrying an animal, but farmers have no right to take out a dog with a gun that may have wandered onto the property through a hole in the ditch while walking up the road. It is best to speak to your local Garda first if you suspect that dogs may be worrying your animals and before you go gung ho with your .22

I also imagine that they wouldn't broche such a subject due to the fact that the majority of ETTG viewers are "townies" and they rely on these viewers to be able to stay on air. If they approach subjects that are only interesting to farmers, then only farmers will view the show and with less than 20% of the population being farmers, they will have very poor audience figures!!

Not wishing to go off thread.........However here is the relevant legislation that one would be calling upon in the case of a dog worrying livestock
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1986/en/act/pub/0032/sec0023.html#sec23

I suppose it's like some other pieces of legislation in that it's open to intrepretation!

SoJoMo

keep going wrote: »

would ye get over yourselves,all it is is a bit of entertaintment not flamin primetime or something and our children seem to like it so thats good enough for me.if someone is relying on ETG to keep them informed god help them.

you're right ... "Sean the Sheep" is more informative about farming than ETTG
and alot more entertaining if you're looking for that

jmrc

Bring back Landmark......! Sunday after the dinner....

jmrc

Bizzum wrote: »

Not wishing to go off thread.........However here is the relevant legislation that one would be calling upon in the case of a dog worrying livestock
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1986/en/act/pub/0032/sec0023.html#sec23

I suppose it's like some other pieces of legislation in that it's open to intrepretation!

you have the right to shot if you can follow all of the following:
1. you must have permission to shot on the land.
2. you must have a legally held weapon.
3. the sheep must be yours and be on the land legally.
4. you must believe that the person in charge of the dog is not in control of the dog, ie not a case of the dog slipped the colar down the road and the person in charge is running up the road to try and catch the animal.

this is what I have been told by my local guard anyhow. But, as stated it is a bit open alright..

mikefoxo

Perhaps I could do with brushing up on the law books:) It's just that you always hear a lot of "Oh my little Trixie wouldn't harm a fly" waffle, as if they would expect to see their dog playing with sheep rather than ripping them to bits. I just thought that if people knew this bit of the law they might be more wary rather than just letting their dog off the leash willy-nilly

Sam Kade

jmrc wrote: »

Bring back Landmark......! Sunday after the dinner....

And Mick Dillon on after with the mart reports I only heard last week that he was nicknamed cowjack He was on during the same era as kojak the bald detective.

periodictable

They tend to shy away from anything that the department does NOT want discussed, especially hard questions in relation to forestry.

whelan1

in fairness they did have a fairer interview on glanbia, not like some of the other farming press:cool::cool: (which if it is our national farming publication should be ashamed of itself:mad:)