RTE - a complete waste of our money.
The piss-poor standard of programming on RTE disgusts me. I was going to say : "I can't believe we have to pay for that ****e.", but of course it's precisly because we are forced to pay for it that we get such ****e programming.
Take last night's match on RTE2. I couldn't watch it live so I recorded it with sky+, which if you can't watch it live, is a brilliant way to watch a match. I was able to start watching from the start while the second half was nearly over, skip the 45 minutes of pre-match commentary, pause when I needed to pee and skip half time entirely. This would have been perfect if I could have recorded off a decent channel I had to listen to the god-awful commentary on RTE. Lets start at the start.....
45 minutes of pre-match. 45. Even though it's only week 3 of this year's Champion's League I'm full sure that you could spend 45 minutes intelligently analyising the upcoming matchs for the night. I didn't see the pre-match so I'm assuming that (Dunphy, Giles, Brady and that jolly ape O'Herlihy?) they spent 25 minutes talking ****e and 20 minutes showing eircom commercials that somehow try to convince us that *Robbie Keane is a role-model. Who do they think is watching? Even if I'm watching a match live, if it kicks off at 7:45, that's when I'll turn on the TV. I don't want to listen to their ****e and thankfully I didn't have to, but I was still stuck with the match commentary of **Georgie and Ray.
Early in the second half Nani's cross went out of play and he claimed a corner. While the replay is being shown, Ray comments : 'I can't say I see anything there.', and finishes his sentence just as the replay shows the ball hiting the Celtic player on the way out. That's world class commentating - the director is showing him a replay and he can't wait to see what actually happens before opening his gob.
Later in the half Ronaldo loses the ball. He's challenged by one Celtic player who catches his leg and is unable to keep possesion. Ray's comment? 'Ronaldo's touch has been poor all night'. I sometimes wondered if he was watching the same game...
The first "controversial" moment of the night was Berbatov's first goal from an offside position. It was offside. The linesman made a howler. Life moves on. United later had a legitimate goal ruled out for offside and even the Celtic manager didn't think it was important in the context of the game.
Their reaction to Berbatov's second goal shows why Georgie and Ray's quality as professional match commentary. Ronaldo struck a free kick while Berbatov was in an offside position which the keeper saved. Berbatov, in this phase of play, now coming from an onside position scores from the rebound. Because of the rule about phases of play, Beratov was onside. I don't think it's a fair rule myself but it is the rule. A rule that Georgie and Ray seemed to be unaware of and kept harping on about "Celtic's injustice" for the rest of the fecking night. The commentary was something like this :
Ray : I don't understand the offside rule.
Gerorge : Well I clearly don't understand the offside rule because I think Celtic were hard done-by.
Ray : I really don't understand the offside rule.
Rooney makes an excellent run from an onside position and has a goal ruled out for offside. Do they talk about balance? Parity being restored? Not a chance....
George : Oh dear. The linesman has got that wrong again.
Ray : The referee's getting no assistance from his assitant's tonight. I'll refer to Berbatov's second goal again to show how little I undestand the offside rule.
George : Well I can't even pronounce "debut" so I certantly can't comment intelligently on anything.
Ray : I'm a former professional footballer, a national sporting hero, a professionaly football journalist and a professional football commentator on national television and I don't...understand...the ****ing offside rule...
I'm paraphrasing but you get the idea. I'll be so happy the next time the government throw another compulsory license price hike incrase at us that we're paying for such a professional and quality service.
I don't watch RTE much but every time I do the "home-grown" programming seems to have hit a new low. I commented before on that god-awful gameshow they used to have (Starstruck or something) about stalking celebrities. The prize for the winner was to meet the celebrity of their choice. In the episode I saw, the winner from the previous week wanted to meet Naomi Campbell. Now, if it was me, I'd get someone from RTE to call her agent and see if they could set up a meeting, overing free publicity for her. But then, I'm not in the TV business. Apparanlty the done thing is to get the license-payer to pay for a RTE camera crew to follow some horny tool around the streets of Paris knocking on doors where she might be. Then when it turns out she's not even in Paris, (and we're talking the word of some random person at a studio door for this) but in LA, get the license-payer to pay for said horny tool and the camera crew to fly to LA. I don't know did he ever acually meet Naomi Campbell because I had to leave, but at least himself and the camera crew got two nice holidays out of it...
The last show I saw on RTE was another take on reality TV, 'cos god knows, they couldn't find a decent scrip writer to save their lives. The goal of this show was to help people change careers by finding out what they're good at, finding out what they want to do, getting professional advice and following up on how they got on late. The episode I got featured some soul-less IT-drone, a professional 'Career Consultant', and some guy who runs a website. It went something like this :
Glorified Recruiment Agency Secretary : So what are you good at?
Drone : Eh, I don't know really.
GRAS : Well, what would you like to do?
Drone : Eh, eh, I don't know really.
GRAS : I'm really going to need some sort of direction here.
Drone : Eh, eh, I like films...
GRAS : Great! Somebody's at home.....Well it's very hard to break into the world of professional reviewing, have you tried blogging?
Drone : No, but I like watching films. I also spend an obscene amount of money on music CDs. I really am a no-talent wannabe.
GRAS : I'll set up a meeting with an expert in this area.
Some Guy Who Runs A Website : Well it's very hard to break into the world of professional reviewing, have you tried blogging?
Drone : No, but I like watching films.
In the end he stayed in his current job and became just what we need - another ****ing blogger. Quality prgramming.
After that I caught about 30 seconds of the Late Late Show. I've never watched the Late Late Show in my life. I'd love to say it's because of my busy and dynamic social life but tbh, if I'm in on a friday night and there's 852 other channels, odds are there are 851 better things on TV. In the 30 seconds I saw there was some guy doing "Deedle-deedle-eye, dee-eye" on stage. Literally. Like scatting in Jazz but more retarded. There was also two people dancing around with yard brushes. Cutting edge stuff.
I've never seen the video for 2 girls/1 cup, but I can't imagine being less disgusted watching that, than watching the shows we have to pay for on RTE. It's worth emphasising - I would rather watch people eat **** than watch Pat Kenny.
Why the **** is a TV license compulsory?
*I'm always disgusted when fans chant "There's only one Keano" when he's playing. There is only one Keano, and he's retired. When Robbie Keane is playing they should be chanting "There's only one alco'."
**For the love of god George, please learn how to pronouch "debut".
