Where will they go this year?

FlutterinBantam

Almost every year The Pat Kenny radio show heads off ,usually in Nov. Dec on a field trip...some would call it a 'jolly'...the whole caboodle, bag and baggage, off at taxpayers expense to do a show from far flung spot.

last year it was Sri lanka...Where will it be this year.... My guess is new Orleans..... Bejing could also be a runner.

Is this value for money? is this neccessary..... is this just as I think it is ..a nice little pre Christmas jolly for the whole 'team' ????

billy the squid

Gone are the days when the furthest they would go was Grafton Street at Christmas.

What is the point in sending a radio show to places like Shri Lanka anyway, could they not interview the people in Shri Lanka on an ISDN or satelite line. It's different for TV as in order to get the footage you want of various scenes you have to go there, but you don't need to do this with radio.

mike65

The Sri Lanka shows were in the aftermath of the Tsunami (which you may recall!) and I think it was well worth the expence and hardly a "jolly".

Mike.

FlutterinBantam

My point really was if they want to do something on the tsunami aftermath why not send a reporter out there.....??? or two....I don't doubt the significance of it...

Why send the whole Pat Kenny radio show out there for a week with all the entourage etc....I think that is a very fair question.

medja

mike65 wrote:

The Sri Lanka shows were in the aftermath of the Tsunami (which you may recall!) and I think it was well worth the expence and hardly a "jolly".

Mike.

Mike, I'd argee with you if the shows were any good and actually gave us something new, but it was awful radio. Pat's shows were good back in the 90's but over the last five years they're second rate at best.

His listenership is down month after month, in fact it's a bit like the last days of the Irish press. If you added up the death notices that they published every year, the number was roughly the same as the decline in readership!

The trip they took to South Africa a few years ago was nothing better than a daily 2 hour ad for tour companies and wine shops.

FlutterinBantam

Do the partners etc go on these things too I wonder?

This kinda thing seems to be a bit of a growth industry down in Montrose.

Is it any wonder they are screwing us for the 153 licence fee!! To subsidise their holidays!!!!

yamo

flutterin bantam - just out of curiousity, how do you know an 'entourage' went out with pk to sri lanka?

just thought I'd ask, as I know that Pat, a producer and a sound op were the only people who went out. in fact, as far as I know, one of them received an internal commendation for cost effective broadcasting - recording the shows and editing them on the fly and emailling the segments back rather than using sat phones etc.

in fairness, if you were looking for a 'jolly' to bring a team and partners on - the scene of a major international disaster would not exactly be top of everyone's list when there are constant offers to go to dubai/disneyland/south africa on the table....

do you have any further evidence of this 'growth industry'?

not defending rte, who make a hames of a lot of things, but if you're going to make accusations, surely it would be better to make them based on fact?

Our man in Havana

Do you have evidence to the contary?

FlutterinBantam

yamo wrote:

flutterin bantam - just out of curiousity, how do you know an 'entourage' went out with pk to sri lanka?

just thought I'd ask, as I know that Pat, a producer and a sound op were the only people who went out. in fact, as far as I know, one of them received an internal commendation for cost effective broadcasting - recording the shows and editing them on the fly and emailling the segments back rather than using sat phones etc.

in fairness, if you were looking for a 'jolly' to bring a team and partners on - the scene of a major international disaster would not exactly be top of everyone's list when there are constant offers to go to dubai/disneyland/south africa on the table....

do you have any further evidence of this 'growth industry'?


not defending rte, who make a hames of a lot of things, but if you're going to make accusations, surely it would be better to make them based on fact?

Pat didn't mention Valerie Cox did he ???

Now I'm not accusing anyone of anything...I'm merely asking a question as a licence fee payer.I am merely questioning the rationale of sending a magazine programme based in Ireland to do a week in Sri lanka.... I would have thought that news & current affairs would be the vehicle for such programmes.
I note recently that eanna Ni lamnhaig and Husband jack recently visited the rain forests of Costa Rica... Does Jack work in RTE...???

Just asking...maybe you could ask Pat???

yamo

is the pat kenny show not a news and current affairs show? in fact, is it not one of the flagship news and current affairs shows on the station? in which case, is there not a case to be made for it covering the aftermath/one year on aspect of what was, arguably, the biggest story of the previous year? let's not forget that Irish people died in the tsunami, and there are more than a few Irish punters doing their part in the cleanup and recovery operation over there to this day. as for valerie cox going over, I don't keep a detailed record of the whereabouts of every rte staffer on a week by week basis. so four people went over. still hardly the whole pat kenny show team.

as for just saying you were just asking a question - i point to this portion of your original post:

'Almost every year The Pat Kenny radio show heads off ,usually in Nov. Dec on a field trip...some would call it a 'jolly'...the whole caboodle, bag and baggage, off at taxpayers expense to do a show from far flung spot.'

where is your evidence showing that the kenny show team all head off? what other destinations has the whole team headed off to? i'd love to know, cause i'd be looking for freelance work on that show every winter...

as for eanna and her trip to costa rica - i'm sure her husband did go to costa rica, and I'm sure he paid his own way. i doubt they would have gotten away with putting him into the costings as a legitimate part of the show's budget....plenty of partners (not just in rte but in other media organisations) travel with their husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend when they're covering big events or going somewhere nice. they have to pay their own way though. i wish that wasn't the case. i wish organisations would have paid for my girlfriend to follow me around the place, but sadly, that's not the way things work in the real world.

as for asking pat - i hardly think that's neccessary. anyone with a shred of common sense and knowledge of the radio industry will know what i'm saying is true.

medja

It may have been a major story but nothing was gained by sending over 4 people. One person would have been enough, Those shows were very poor and added little or nothing to the coverage.

The Pat Kenny Show may have been great in the past but at this stage it's a second rate show, a lot of the items sound like ads for products and services and it's poorly produced and researched.

It's not only me that feels like that, it's the tens of thousands that turned off over recent years.

FlutterinBantam

Fair play to you Yoba... you answer a lot more comprehensively than RTE do.

The PK show as far as I know is a magazine show discussing current affairs.
I listen to RTE and I enjoy most of their content,however that does not prevent me from removing the rose coloured glasses and peering into some dusty corners.

The Pat Kenny show was previously in South Africa. What would worry me apart from the obvious expense,maybe the travel arrangements were "paid for" ,is that then one is put in a compromising position.

RTE as the national public service broadcaster should not ,imo, allow its employees or contracted staff to put themselves in this position.

Have you any info on how they travelled to Sri Lanka.... business class or economy??? Would be very interested

yamo

freedom of information act covers rte if you're that interested in whether they flew economy or otherwise....

i couldn't tell you how they travelled. however, I would seriously doubt if any of the news/current affairs/magazine programmes would accept a junket without saying they were out there with GOAL/UNICEF etc. on the 2fm side of things, there are plenty of trips abroad which are paid for by companies, but again, I don't think it's the kind of thing you'd get away with on a serious news programme. at least, i hope it's the kind of thing you wouldn't get away with....

_feedback_

medja wrote:

nothing was gained by sending over 4 people. One person would have been enough

I'm not a big supporter of RTE or what they do a lot of the time.. But really, send one person over to do a programme for a week on the other side of the world? Do you think Pat Kenny could head off with a travel bag with his mic and a laptop and set himself up in a nice spot over there to do a national radio programme for a week?! It's like sending the counter sales person from a restaurant out to do a barbeque in the back yard. They can't do everything by themselves. Pat Kenny is the presenter.. there's a lot more to that radio show apart from the presenter.

FlutterinBantam

Everybody is missing my point... which is

What was the Pat Kenny show doing in Sri lanka for a week????

It is a magazine show..... if RTE wanted to do a tsunami special why not send a News & Current affairs team.... Charlie Bird.... Mark Little.. Joe O'Brien....Jim Fahey...Aoife Kavanagh....Rodney Rice....Bouchier -Hayes etc etc etc....

My point ad nauseum is that the Pat Kenny show is not the vehicle for such a scenario and I ask the legitimate question why?

Why not move drivetime to Bagdad for a week and do a show from there?

Send Marion Finucane to Kandahar to do a week there?

Wrong people wrong situation.....

yamo

i'm not sure that was your initial point. you seem to be changing tack as we debate this issue. at the start, you made a statement in which you said "Almost every year The Pat Kenny radio show heads off ,usually in Nov. Dec on a field trip...some would call it a 'jolly'...the whole caboodle, bag and baggage, off at taxpayers expense to do a show from far flung spot."

I should point out you offered no proof of this.

now you're asking what they were doing there for a week. they were over there covering the aftermath of one of the biggest stories of the year. your point is that the pat kenny show is a magazine show. it has elements of a magazine show, but to all intents and purposes, it is the news analysis show which comes after the magazine programme that is the tubridy show. therefore, i would say their presence there was merited.

as for moving drivetime to baghdad for a week - I couldn't agree more. they should send over a correspondent/producer/reporter/sound guy when the next election comes around. they should have sent a team to iran to report on the nuclear talks deadline and the whole situation in that country (i know prime time did a special on Iran a while ago). i think rte radio falls down at times on foreign coverage, but I think a lot of that comes down to simple economics. budgets are budgets, and as much as people might like to do a week of shows from israel or angola, it's just not financially viable. however, when you get value for money from a 'jolly' like this (no sat phone/isdn costs), and when the story merits it, then I think the likes of the pat kenny show/drivetime have every right to go over.

FlutterinBantam

They have every right to send a reporter over to report BACK to Dublin on the latest scenario.... I utterly fail to see the impact of sending the whole show over to Sri Lanka..., by that I mean the anchor, for a week!!

Well on reading that again I'm mistaken... they have every right to do what they like ..but ... as far as I am concerned the Sri Lankan thing was not effective, cost effective,good radio or entertaining product.

I would continue to question the rationale of such excursions

yamo

the gas thing is that this is probably the longest discussion anyone has had about the pat kenny show anywhere in the country for the last few years. says a lot about the place it holds in the public's mind. i honestly can't remember the last time anyone said 'did you hear x on pat kenny this morning?'

mind you, it's not like other radio shows are crying out to be noticed over here...

medja

elviscostello wrote:

I'm not a big supporter of RTE or what they do a lot of the time.. But really, send one person over to do a programme for a week on the other side of the world? Do you think Pat Kenny could head off with a travel bag with his mic and a laptop and set himself up in a nice spot over there to do a national radio programme for a week?! It's like sending the counter sales person from a restaurant out to do a barbeque in the back yard. They can't do everything by themselves. Pat Kenny is the presenter.. there's a lot more to that radio show apart from the presenter.

You're right, there is a lot more to that radio show than the presenter but not much. Local stations up and down the country produce 2 or 3 hours of Current affairs programming every morning. Some of the shows are poor but many of them are a lot better than what Pat kenny puts out.

Most of these shows only have 1 producer and if they're lucky a researcher. How many producers, researchers, B.A.s does the today show have? The standard of material they put out is very poor for the amount that work there.

A reporter should have been sent out for the week. They could have had a producer tag along if they needed it, However sending out Pat was a jolly. nothing was gained by broadcasting the show from a studio on the other side of the world. Was any of the show even live?

FlutterinBantam

Not sure about that ,but Pat AND Valerie Cox were out there for a week.

I suppose its hard to blame RTE, as like the ESB, whose prices are going skyward, Aer Lingus, Bord Gais et al they rely on the fact that most people havn't the time to scrutinise their affairs too closely.

They build a wall of bureaurocracy around their affairs and nobody but the most determined and singleminded can even hope to penetrate.

Pat Kenny is a very good broadcaster,always very well briefed and on top of his subject matter...but horses for courses.......

By the way Yamo...slightly off top. what was that spat with Tracey Pigott recently all about???

yamo

spat with tracy piggott?

i'm lost....did pat and herself have a schemozzle?

FlutterinBantam

I seem to remember a spat ,not with Pat K,in fact nothing whatsoever to do with Pat, but it involved Tracey Pigott over
some kind of charity trips...can't say any more as I'm really dont know the details,but I remember some headlines about it.

NUTLEY BOY

Hopefully this season's trip will be to the Antartic in a wooden ship around the same time as the ice closes in ...........:)

FlutterinBantam

Wel'l have to wait and see..... lemme think.... what did I say?? New Orleans... Bejing... South Africa... thats been done...


Dark horse ....Pakistan..... don't say i didn't call it!!!


Dubai FTW

FlutterinBantam

I see Valerie Cox was out in Sri Lanka recently reporting back on the aftermath of their visit last year. Taking in Dubai on the way back to report on the irish over there.

Hmm wouldn't have a great problem with that.Would probably think that all this is paid for by some NGO in return for the publicity on national radio.

Ethical? Wise? Compromising?

Has potential for abuses I would opine

FlutterinBantam

They were in Moyross today!!!!

Doesn't count:D