RTE Chatshows = poor poor fare

If you are forced to pay 160 euro per year ,one has to make themselves watch RTE to get some value however painful it might be.

Who makes up the ratings i wonder.Its all bull s.it .

Watched the Brendan O Connor show last week. He seems to have been neutered and is now afraid to go near any topic that might get a complaint. Out of the 4 chat show presenters, he was the only one who would ask an inappropriate question. Tubs is very conservative and toes the company line, darcy is an incompetent mess. miriam is nice but dull.

At the end of the day, the chat shows are probably cheap or easy to make. Everyone gets paid and no one complains in public, just online. Was watching irelands fittest family earlier. They have 4 mentors like the x factor who do nothing except shout encouragment. Then there is mairead farrell for interviews and another guy to comment on the action. You could probably make the show with a commentator and then have the familys talk to camera after. Less wages and you could invest the money elsewhere. It does seem that RTE is about making jobs for people in the club. Guests from the canteen in RTE are no different. Its an insulated little club

RTE are far to conservative and boring and they are afraid to try a completely new format or show for Friday nights.I think the LLS should have been humanely put down years ago.In my opinion, the show was better when Gay Byrne used to present it.Others might disagree, and thats fine.PK was not too bad, but still it lost some of its appeal I think.The show is supposed to be a light entertainment show, but all these heavy heart breaking stories are not light entertainment. Thats not to say they should not be told or aired, but in some other show.

I cant get my head around what kind of a hold Darcy has over RTE? He comes back to them and almost immediately, they give him not only a radio show, but his own TV show, albeit of poor quality.Maybe they were so grateful that someone was quite willing to want to work for them, I dont know.

I think Brendan O Connors show was better, and I dont like his present show.

In general, RTEs shows are pants.

Well its more fool you to watch that muck.They wont change untill viewers ratings drop and thats not going to happen if people are turning in,just so they can complain on the internet.
If you actually enjoy then good for you watch it but if not change the channell.

Agent Coulson wrote: »

No fool me I haven't watched any chatshow on RTE in years I do check out to see what guests they may have on that would interest me but there hasn't been any in years.

Graham Norton is the only chatshow I watch these days but it's more light entertainment than chat show.


The likes of Gay Byrne's Late Late and Parkinson and Wogan's chat shows are long gone sadly.

Wasnt directed at you,just the people who tune in and know fine well its muck.
I used to watch alot of Conan and Leno/Fallon but I got sick of the fake guests and made up stories and espically the bull**** games they play.I think Conan and Jimmy are funny but thats it unless Norm was on or someother good comidian is on.
I only watch Norton now,hes the same guests as Conan but he pulls the piss out of them more and I like the format all the guests on at once,its a better flow.

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

Which means nothing.

If you put a recording of a dog licking it's balls on a continuous loop on RTE 1 it would get a few hundred thousand viewers.Some people just watch RTE out of habit.

it means more money that they'll get from advertisers, it means the pressure for change from within is less likely, etc. it cost brendan o'connor his show too :pac:

if you take those 200k away, who you think cant change the channel, the LLS would still be the most watched show, darcy's show & fair city would still be up there too. the only show that really breaks their dominance is coronation street

i'm not saying i like those shows or i think rte 1 programs are any good but that's the way it is, some people like rte1. maybe a lot of them are older though.
then you've the likes in this forum who tune in every week & don't really like it they just like to slag it off.

though rte 2 struggles except for sport. the future for rte 1 & LLS will be interesting, probably a more relevant discussion than saying no one is watching because they are at the minute.
but maybe we'll all reach an age where we can't be bothered changing the channel

I completely agree with you that it is way more challenging to present a live chat show than a pre-recorded one that can be nicely packaged afterwards.

However, RTE chat shows have been little more than infomercials for sometime - one of the most shameless plugs I witnessed recently was on the Late Late Show - Francis Brennan appeared on the show to promote his new Dunnes Stores bedding range. Dunnes Stores is a highly profitable company, it should be paying for TV commercials we shouldn't be made watch a middle-aged man fight with a duvet cover on a Friday night.

Checkmate19 wrote: »

Rte are just interested in making cheap knock offs of other programme's, cookery shows and cheap reality shows. It's a complete and utter waste of public money and a job's for the boys club. Hang around the rte canteen long enough and you'll get some gig. In general main station tv has gone to the pits. The only good stuff being made is mostly coming from the usa. In this day and age there is no justification for rte to be getting the license fee and also ad fee's. Where is the money going because in my opinion is just squandered.

They seem to throw money at anyone who seems anyway in their eyes popular. Nathan Carter being the prime example. Bang average singer who became popular on a cover of a decent song. Low and behold he has his own show which is terrible.

exactly, this is RTE's thing. anyone remotely...even remotely popular RTE flog them to death over and over until people are sick of the sight of them. its pathetic.

longshanks wrote: »

Once where Russell Brand was a guest. During filming he threw a stop and wouldn't talk for half an hour. What happened was everyone sat around awkwardly until he could be persuaded to talk again. When she watched the show on the following Friday there was no trace of the whole affair, just a neatly edited hour of entertainment.
When Tom Cruise was on there was no mention of Scientology etc.
The Graham Norton show is entertaining but it's not interviewing, it's advertising. Nothing more. Johnathon Ross the same.

Interesting. I remember Nadine Coyle apparently calling out one of the 'Red Chair' participants as being a plant a few years ago.

Anyway, as mentioned above, the chat/talk show format as we once knew it is pretty much gone. In the US, its movie promo, followed by silly game with the ocassional anecdote thrown in. I think James Corden is making a good fist of trying to bring back that old school formula of having on all the guests at the same time, but yet his show is known more for its karaoke game shtick. Norton is the same with his show, which comes across even more as just three or four movie teasers with the actors on hand to introduce them.

Parkinson and Gay Byrne were of an era of entertainers and raconteurs who were willing to come on a show and .... talk! Think Peter Sellers and so on. The movie game changed and you got more serious actors who were reluctant to feature on such shows. Wogan experienced this in the UK and even the great Johhny Carson had similar in the States. Young, fresh actors who thought they were too cool for school. To counter this, shows had to diversify even more from the standard opening monologue and chat, to what we see today with the games and fake laughs and stories.

Even allowing for the above, the two RTE chat shows are completely awful. When the LLS has any decent guest, Tubridy still manages to mangle the interviews and make his guest feel uncomfortable. Think about it - aside from RTE staffers, just how many return guests has Tubridy had on his show? They don't come back! D'arcy is an even more cynical person and doesn't belong on air from what we've seen. The best RTE have done in the talk genre was the series of interviews by Mike Murphy a few years ago. RTE's best broadcaster in my opinion. Very natural in front of camera and genuinely interested in his guests. The 'one on one' is really the only format that fulfils that chat show requirement.

Just on the RTE viewing figures. As someone said above, you could have a static picture and RTE would still get large numbers... but why? Apart from being number one on the channel/remote, RTE is safe viewing for people. On a Friday night, if the kids are still up or someone is visiting the house, you know that there will be nothing of offence going on in the background. And sure, there might just be something interest to tune into!

The current chat show/interview regime is an odd arrangement to be sure. Richard Ayoade's take on format is enlightening. The 'lie of the interview situation' as he puts it. The first clip below is BBC and he mentions how its 'sociopathic' to appear on numerous talk shows or TV interviews of any kind but its something that can't be avoided when flogging a book or film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zHjgcCHo6I

Here is the more well known appearance on Channel 4 news where he and Krisnan Guru Murthy have something of a piss take interview in the wake of his (Murthy) famous head to head with Quentin Tarantino.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjC3ycS_2js