RTE - murder or manslaughter??

roxy

An article in today's Irish Times describes how RTÉ were publicly given a right bollockin' by Bob Quinn, who used to be on the RTÉ Authority and is now an independent producer.

He basically accused RTÉ of not only allowing our Irish culture to die slowly by failing to support home-produced intitiatives but also speeding up that death by allowing their agenda to be dictated by advertising interests.

The criticism referred to radio and television but I'm sure we'd all be more familiar with it through television.

So what do people think? Are RTÉ making any screed of effort to preserve Irish culture or are they happy to allow our children to grow on a fatty diet of American television. Would you be happy if RTÉ somehow managed to stop broadcasting The Sopranos, Friends, et al. in favour of home-produced programming which helped to keep our people culturally aware and more in tune with our Irishness?

Or is it not the fault of RTÉ? After all, business is business.

Plus, bear in mind, we'd still have to pay the licence fee either way.

Roxy


Funny, actually, we were just discussing this very matter in a lecture in college just last friday. We soon realised we were hard pressed to come up with any viable solutions. Well, without resorting to very twee, begora begosh stuff.

Michael Collins

Yeh, the problem is there isn't that many good alternatives. Who watches On Home Ground? The Gilmore Girls is supposed to be fairly good so I here, wouldn't be my type of thing though.

They sure have a lot of nonsense on RTE that could be replaced with decent home-grown drama of some kind. Irish comeda like Batchelor's Walk doesn't seem to work very well.

RTE do have one "asset" though, that being Eamon Dunphy, he creates as much home-grown drama as anyone would want with his "self perpetuating egotism" as Aprés Match put it.

Irish satire is usually very good actually. I really enjoyed Bull Island, until they cancelled it...there were some REALLY funny episodes of that. RTE could try more of that kind of thing.

BTW, what college do you go to?

Mossy Monk

Originally posted by roxy
Would you be happy if RTÉ somehow managed to stop broadcasting Friends

yes, but there are people who like it

goo

Everyone that has RTE has TG4. If people want Irish t.v. then they can have it.

mike65

...I guess the first thing you'd have to do is decide what constitutes "Irish culture". Someone can set up a committee...!

Mike.

monument

Originally posted by Michael Collins
Batchelor's Walk

...is one of the best thing on RTE.

Start Rant/

What RTE has being doing is murder made to look like manslaughter (in allowing our Irish culture to die slowly).

Musically on TV its getting better slowly with thing like the Last Broadcast, if so many people go to events like Witnness it shows there is a market for this kind of music.

Off the point the main RTE TV news has real dumbed down, haven’t noticed? It for you now!

/End Rant

Lennoxschips

I have to say, excepting Dave Fanning and Jay Ahern, that 2fm is a truly awful channel when it comes to music. It's a disgrace that public money goes to 2fm, which has essentially become RecordCompanyPopIdol FM. Sure, there's demand for a station like that, but let commercial radio fill that void. 2fm should concentrate more on quality international music and homegrown talent.

Elmo

The Gilmore Girls isn't Irish its american, Watchable crap all the same gets irratating after a while, its like the producers of the show discide to go to a forum on the internet and write their scripts around a lot of crap people say with in those forums (lol, i include myself in the crappyness of forum writing, but hey its enjoyable)

But back to RTE. Yes N2 has no Irish Culture attacted to it, except sport and the den.

RTE One is mainly an Irish station providing News, Feature and other such things and stands up well againist much of the crap we put up with on the digital and cable platforms.

TG4 show great programmes in general, both in Irish and English. But I don't think a show in Irish Constitutes Culture its just a launage after all. (I should add that i like TG4 and they cont to do well with what they have and that I agree with an Irish Lanuage station. It may just be a lanuage but it is after all the first national launage of this country.)

Does the BBC provide Brit Culture Prehaps English Culture but I rarely get to see The scottish or welsh. and its only because i get BBC One NI and BBC Two NI that i get to see Northern Irish Culture.

Yes RTE do repeat Friends too much when there are better shows to be broadcast.

But i suppose if we want to get rid of RTE we can look forward to TV3 like stations.

Also as it said in one of the newspapers reasently that It is very unusuall to see score from a bigger countries soccer teams before those of your national country. In belgium the talk about the national soccer first and then the french soccer games.

Its also more to do with TV then radio as Lyric FM, RnaG, Radio 1, and 2fm provide a good national service, as most local stations provides a good local service and Today FM provides a good national service too. We certainly have a Radio culture more so than a TV one.

sceptre

Originally posted by monument
Off the point the main RTE TV news has real dumbed down, haven’t noticed? It for you now!

Yes it has. Leaving aside the reporters doing outside reports for no particular reason (like on TV3), there are now "cute kitten caught up a tree" stories on RTE (I'd blame TV3 but SkyNews devote 10 minutes of every hour to something similar* when they're not busy talking about war). Just not my cup of tea (I'm sure someone out there likes cuddly-wuddly beary weary features given that they're all still at it). Give me Paxman ripping into some politician any day. Or anything else that isn't broadcast just because it's "cuddly". I want news consisting of news, a weather person who knows how the weather works, a newsreader who knows where Moscow is and that shouldn't be too hard really should it?:)

Just a brief note on the actual topic we're supposed to be discussing:D - they're all at it, even the BBC. There was a time when the BBC seemed to spend their entire budget on nature documentaries and Christmas movies. First came Eastenders, then El Dorado (oops) - and that was fine. Now they're making as many dodgy "real TV" documentaries/titillatory shows as that bastion of evil commercial broadcasting, ITV. Someone's going to point out that the BBC are actually fulfilling their charter by doing this. If someone does, you're right - people obviously want to watch these shows, therefore Auntie is doing her job. Meanwhile they're still making those nature documentaries, special interest shows and buying movies for Christmas.

With regard to RTE, looking north, UTV and BBC-NI do a better job of being a channel for the people in the other broadcasting area. I may laugh at those silly town challenge programmes but they're really popular in a certain age group, they're local (they're cheap too) and it's certainly a long way from buying in US programming. (on that point, how do RTE manage to make their quota of 20% home produced programmes? Do those Blackboard Jungle reruns at 4am count?).

To an extent, it's always been that way - back in the early 80s, RTE were showing (just from what I remember): Dallas, Dynasty, Falcon Crest, Dynasty II: dammit she got sucked up by aliens and now we have to work it into the plot of the other show, Magnum, Knight Rider, A-Team, Battlestar Galactica, Charlies Angels, Star Trek, Buck Rogers... and many more. And keep in mind in those days, RTE1 didn't start till 3 or 4, RTE2 didnt start till six and they were both off the air before 12.







*I'm sure they call them "human interest stories". Pish and tosh.

monument

Originally posted by sceptre
I'd blame TV3 but SkyNews

that’s who I was thinking of, I think C4, EuroNews and BBC News 24 (only seen it once or twice) are usually good

Elmo

how do RTE manage to make their quota of 20% home produced programmes?

RTE do not have such a quoat. Thats TV3 and TV3 do that by making Ireland AM. RTE One has nearly 100% irish programming during prime time, which IMO is more important then Morning TV.

I was just thinking there about RTE News. Is BBC News all that much better getting rid of Brit sorry English and local news do the bbc, itv, sky news and c4(which is ITN) do a better job reporting on international affairs than RTE, TG4 and TV3? If you want to know about the country you live in your going to have to watch RTE News, TV3 and TG4. Do you think that BBC would do a better job reporting on Limerick in the past week or was there that much of a differance in the way the bbc NI and UTV reported on the unionist fund. It all looked the same to me.

I think its a case of "Oh its Oirish it cann't be good." I suppose because we are Irish none of us do a good job.

EuroNews is tripe, IMO

monument

"I was just thinking there about RTE News. Is BBC News all that much better getting rid of Brit sorry English and local news do the bbc, itv, sky news and c4(which is ITN) do a better job reporting on international affairs than RTE, TG4 and TV3?"

No, but BBC24, C4 (ITN) do a better job then RTE, TV3, or SKY (which are all now sadly dumbed down).

C4 news covered the planning "problems" with the gas rig on shore terminal (EDIT: in Mayo), RTE would not do anything like they did because they might have offended some TDs

"If you want to know about the country you live in your going to have to watch RTE News, TV3 and TG4. Do you think that BBC would do a better job reporting on Limerick in the past week or was there that much of a differance in the way the bbc NI and UTV reported on the unionist fund. It all looked the same to me."

I don’t remember saying any thing about BBC NI or UTV???

It sounds like you like the dumbed down RTE News? I was not saying dont watch it I was saying it was dumbed down.

Try the radio, newspapers or even RTE Online is ok.

monument

EuroNews is very good if you want to find out what’s happening around Europe. It focuses more on the story then opinion.

And if you like it or not you’re a part of Europe.

Elmo

And if you like it or not you’re a part of Europe

No really. and yes i agree it nice to see other news then English News and Irish News or American News. So yes that is one good thing about Euro News The problem with euro news its just perhaps to short 30 mins for news on the hour the could provide more coverage. Its ITN run any way.

It sounds like you like the dumbed down RTE News? I was not saying dont watch it I was saying it was dumbed down

No i wasn't saying that. I like News 2 i think it does tabloid news well if i want tabloid news I'll turn to News 2.

I don't see the differance with the Irish news servicers and that of the british news channels.

I don’t remember saying any thing about BBC NI or UTV???

no you didnt but i was just pointing out that BBB NI/UTV covered the same situation in the north as RTE and TV3 did and there was not much difference that was what i was pointing out.

I think that Irish News show are just as good as the british ones that is all I am saying and the news is news.

monument

Originally posted by Elmo
its just perhaps to short 30 mins

thats the one problem I have with it two