Oiling up the Tape Players out in Montrose.

JonathanAnon

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

Collins will be back with his usual banal boring delivery. :rolleyes:

I'm not mad on a having music at that hour, and I normally switch to Newstalk talk at 12.. but if they HAVE to have a midday music show, then they should let Cathal Murray do it..

He's a breath of fresh air, has a very good radio voice and good manner, an enthusiasm for what he is doing (rather than Collins just going through the motions).. He's also a stand up comedian..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrZdTU8Jk3c

Rubik.

I'm bit suprised he does stand up, The Sunday Rise is pretty humourless stuff. OK, he may have better taste in music than Ronan Collins , but his weekend radio show is just bland - he plays it way too safe.

Lapin

Where the hell is Morning Ireland gone ?

07.15 and I've dot David Grey wailing on my radio.

Is this going to be it for August ?

mike65

Bank holiday you know

mike65

Ronan Collins off again, who'd have thunk spinning disks was so wearing?

Anyway the music choice just got better with the first track. They really do need to get Cathal Murray in full time.

FlutterinBantam

mike65 wrote: »

Ronan Collins off again, who'd have thunk spinning disks was so wearing?

Anyway the music choice just got better with the first track. They really do need to get Cathal Murray in full time.

Just for the day I believe, golf outing on somewhere.

Losty Dublin

No more apt a time to dig this thread up than Christmas.

Doubtless we will get our dose of "Give Up Yer Aul Sins" for the 23rd Christmas in a row and Pat Kenny has to fill in for John Murray (Kathryn Thomas but be doing panto :pac: )and Ronan Collins has to do a whole 2 hours!!!

Will 2FM really push up the ante and broadcast more than 3 hours live this year? News included. :rolleyes:

JonathanAnon

Wahey Losty, Merry Christmas... I was gonna go looking for this thread !!! I'd say after today, we wont be troubled by Ryan Tubridy, Pat Kenny, Joe Duffy (who's no doubt working down de soup kitchen in Ballyer) etc etc for the next two weeks...

Poor Cathal Murray will probably get a takeaway for Christmas Dinner and eat it at Ronan Collins' desk before covering for Joe Duffy, Derek Mooney and then Mary Wilson... only putting in the tape for "Before Your Time with Kathryn Thomas" when he finally succumbs to sleep deprivation.

mike65

Kenny is back on Thursday/Friday

Losty Dublin

mike65 wrote: »

Kenny is back on Thursday/Friday

With the "Best of 2012". He'll need the Tascam 1/4" machine fitted with shiny new heads on it to cope

Losty Dublin

JonathanAnon wrote: »

Wahey Losty, Merry Christmas... I was gonna go looking for this thread !!! I'd say after today, we wont be troubled by Ryan Tubridy, Pat Kenny, Joe Duffy (who's no doubt working down de soup kitchen in Ballyer) etc etc for the next two weeks...

Poor Cathal Murray will probably get a takeaway for Christmas Dinner and eat it at Ronan Collins' desk before covering for Joe Duffy, Derek Mooney and then Mary Wilson... only putting in the tape for "Before Your Time with Kathryn Thomas" when he finally succumbs to sleep deprivation.

Bizarrely enough, RTE Extra/Choice get treated with one of RTE's few Xmas treats, Brendan Balfe as we get fed more Best Of shows in between the repeats or Marian reviewing this weeks RTE Guide. If they reran some of the extensive and excellent documentaries from the likes of Cathal Shannon it wouldn't be as bad.

Losty Dublin

Today we got Joe Duffy and his "They died in 2012" effort. Joe sounded lost without Syl Fox jokes to carry him over 60 minutes of radio.

JonathanAnon

Losty Dublin wrote: »

Today we got Joe Duffy and his "They died in 2012" effort.

I see I missed "The Best Of Pat Kenny 2012" earlier 5pm-6pm on Radio One. :-) Hopefully they will release it on CD..

Lapin

JonathanAnon wrote: »

I see I missed "The Best Of Pat Kenny 2012" earlier 5pm-6pm on Radio One. :-) Hopefully they will release it on CD..

I heard 5 minutes of it in the car between Kinvara and Kilcolgan.

To my pleasant surprise, only 2 minutes consisted of banjos and tamberines.

The other three minutes were adverts.

mike65

It was live this morning.

JonathanAnon

Okay so who is gonna be back tomorrow? I'm guessing...

John Murray - Yes
Pat Kenny - Yes.
Ronan Collins - No.
Joe Duffy - No.
Derek Mooney - Yes.
Mary Wilson - No.

Losty Dublin

Marian is still off for the holliers :rolleyes: Montrose must be running out of WD 40 at this stage.

Bloody*Mary

BBC radio 4 has been 'normal' since 27Dec.

Cannot understand how they can get away with the offerings around Xmas.

I mean 2 hours of Murray and two hours of Ronan Collins.:(

Disrespects the listeners in my opinion.

heybaby

Bloody*Mary wrote: »

BBC radio 4 has been 'normal' since 27Dec.

Cannot understand how they can get away with the offerings around Xmas.

I mean 2 hours of Murray and two hours of Ronan Collins.:(

Disrespects the listeners in my opinion.

Completely agree, but sure when did RTE ever put their listeners first. There needs to be a bloodbath in Montrose, a cull, its not like radio 1 listeners will jump ship, they've got nowhere else to go.

Bloody*Mary

heybaby wrote: »

Completely agree, but sure when did RTE ever put their listeners first. There needs to be a bloodbath in Montrose, a cull, its not like radio 1 listeners will jump ship, they've got nowhere else to go.

I would disagree slightly there, with the popularity of Internet radio and the availability world wide radio,they don't need to get complacent.

There are plenty of places to go if you don't want a four hour diet of Murray and Collins, podcasts, various players, other media outlets who realise that the world doesn't shut down between Dec 23 and Jan 06.

Generally they do a good job, it's just that to assume that the world shuts down for 10 days around Xmas is outdated and needs someone to shake the place up.

Cannot understand how they expect the licence paying public to accept that
shoddy service in that period.

Fulton Crown

Couldn't agree more pilgrim.

Problem is RTE is run like a civil service department - not customer cenntric - not listner centric.

Give people like that control of taxpayer money and they start shovelling it by the shedload to celebrities and personalities with little regard for reality.

Not good........not good at all.

Losty Dublin

Well it's that time again when the DJ Marantz comes out of retirement in Dublin 4 along with the MC Cassette :roll eyes:

Noting already that Messers Tubridy, Gogan, Fanning and Colm Hayes are all to "do" a show on 2FM:rolleyes:

mike65

Ah sure as of tomorrow nothing and no one is going to where it should be. Thank Gawk for BBC 4 and 5 etc

spank_inferno

mike65 wrote: »

Ah sure as of tomorrow nothing and no one is going to where it should be. Thank Gawk for BBC 4 and 5 etc

In fairness mike, the BBC have their absenses too.

5 live seems to have a lot of "looking back" type clip /sound-bite & pre recorded shows on Christmas week.

mike65

True dat, the iplayer thingy will be getting a fair bit of use. The test cricket is on a full dayime replay on 5 SX so I'll possibly listen to that!

Evan DietrichSmith

Watch for the A listers to disappear till early Jan.

DEFTLEFTHAND

Don't RTE usually go as normal up to xmas eve?

Losty Dublin

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

Don't RTE usually go as normal up to xmas eve?

Up until the 23th, they remain as normal.

On the 24th it changes as they run with Joe Duffy doing his OB with the working class citizens outside M+S and BT's from 9AM; Jaysus wept. Ronan runs up a whopping 100% of overtime as he in in from from 11 till 1PM. News at One is on as normal albeit with a shorter show. They then test out the tape players with some documentary material before Derek Mooney's, ahem, show from 2PM. The first repeat of the season is Drama on One: The Christmas Story; in fairness its only been repeated about 4 times now so it's as good as new :roll eyes:

They take a moment to clean the tape heads during the carol service from St. Patrick's while the job to press play for the evening falls to Maxi at 7PM. There is midnight at 11PM which allows another change the cassettes over before a mere 6 hour overnight of repeats of the day's show run through till Cathal Murray pops in at 6AM to spin a few tunes and to adjust the Dolby "B" levels on the tape deck.

Once he is gone home at 8AM, it's a 15 hour jaunt before Late Date with Aonghus McAnally, the one and only show which can be expected to definitely be live, newscasts excepted. That's 5 hours out of 24 which is live. Shameful except they won't be the only guys at this lark.

Evan DietrichSmith

Losty Dublin wrote: »

Up until the 23th, they remain as normal.

On the 24th it changes as they run with Joe Duffy doing his OB with the working class citizens outside M+S and BT's from 9AM; Jaysus wept. Ronan runs up a whopping 100% of overtime as he in in from from 11 till 1PM. News at One is on as normal albeit with a shorter show. They then test out the tape players with some documentary material before Derek Mooney's, ahem, show from 2PM. The first repeat of the season is Drama on One: The Christmas Story; in fairness its only been repeated about 4 times now so it's as good as new :roll eyes:

They take a moment to clean the tape heads during the carol service from St. Patrick's while the job to press play for the evening falls to Maxi at 7PM. There is midnight at 11PM which allows another change the cassettes over before a mere 6 hour overnight of repeats of the day's show run through till Cathal Murray pops in at 6AM to spin a few tunes and to adjust the Dolby "B" levels on the tape deck.

Once he is gone home at 8AM, it's a 15 hour jaunt before Late Date with Aonghus McAnally, the one and only show which can be expected to definitely be live, newscasts excepted. That's 5 hours out of 24 which is live. Shameful except they won't be the only guys at this lark.

My goodness, Aonghus McAnally almost the blandest man on radio.

Thank God for internet radio.

DEFTLEFTHAND

Very poor effort from Duffy and his group of 'funny men' on xmas eve. It was actually embarrassing to listen to zero laughter from the live crowd, I even picked up on certain obscenities being directed at Brush Shiels from the audience at one point. Can you imagine heading in to the broadcast location especially to listen to that kind of sh1te. Dreadful stuff.

MJ23

That Brush fella is never funny.
Does he get paid from RTE for his hilarious contributions?

Losty Dublin

MJ23 wrote: »

That Brush fella is never funny.
Does he get paid from RTE for his hilarious contributions?

He does get paid as are all of the "Funny Friday" gang. While in the car, I heard some of their show on the 24th and even by their normal standard, it was very poor going. The expense laid into this show for the day (Appearance fees, OB crews, catering and security, musicians etc) would be well spent hiring in more capable local comedians, extending Morning Ireland and Ronan Collins either side of the show or heaven forbid, paying the wages of a junior staffer in RTE.

Something I ought to clarify here is that John Creedon was actually broadcasting live on Christmas Day.

Harry Angstrom

Even the guy who does Risin Time gets to go on his Christmas holidays. He does one and a half hours every morning, yet RTE reckon he needs a Christmas break. Madness.

Losty Dublin

Harry Angstrom wrote: »

Even the guy who does Risin Time gets to go on his Christmas holidays. He does one and a half hours every morning, yet RTE reckon he needs a Christmas break. Madness.

The lad covering the show yesterday also had the luxury of broadcasting from the Galway studio; it made up for the additional 90 minutes of work he had to endure

Evan DietrichSmith

Harry Angstrom wrote: »

Even the guy who does Risin Time gets to go on his Christmas holidays. He does one and a half hours every morning, yet RTE reckon he needs a Christmas break. Madness.

Harry,it's not just the stars who demand the break, the real reason is that the back up,sound people ,producers,programme assistants, switchboard,technical lads and lassies, etc etc ,despite working for a PUBLIC SERVICE broadcaster demand that they be, as much as possible close down at Xmas.

So obvious answer, sling on some lad just playing music from a remote studio and horse out as many repeats and stuff as possible.

About three people and the station cat could keep that running.

Meanwhile in the REALWORLD retail staff, transport staff,entertainment folks on a fraction of the salaries of RTE are away at full tilt.

Cannot figure it out.

P. Breathnach

There is nothing wrong with organising work so that as many people as possible can have time off at Christmas. It's not as if news bulletins and the like are pre-recorded.

Evan DietrichSmith

P. Breathnach wrote: »

There is nothing wrong with organising work so that as many people as possible can have time off at Christmas. It's not as if news bulletins and the like are pre-recorded.

Perfectly correct,but depends on the industry you are working in.

Would there be anything wrong with BUS EIREANN, IARNROD EIREANN the theatre industry, the airline industry , the ferries, organising work so as many as possible can have time off.
What would that lead to?, skeleton service at an extremely busy time.
You see P, it's all about attitude to the customer and a commercial approach to things.

I listen to the BBC quite a lot and whilst they do draw in a bit at Xmas ,nowhere do they put the station on auto-pilot and just churn out rubbish

The public pay a lot for this service,and I am a complete admirer of the product they produce during normal times.

I equally am severely critical of the quality,output,and customer respect which they put out over the Xmas period.

It's diabolical.

P. Breathnach

Evan DietrichSmith wrote: »

... You see P, it's all about attitude to the customer ...

It's also about customers' expectations. I don't think the coterie who regularly indulge themselves in threads like this one are representative of the customer base for radio.

I think most people don't mind that much of what is broadcast at Christmas is pre-recorded, and a great deal of it previously broadcast.

Evan DietrichSmith

P. Breathnach wrote: »

It's also about customers' expectations. I don't think the coterie who regularly indulge themselves in threads like this one are representative of the customer base for radio.

I think most people don't mind that much of what is broadcast at Christmas is pre-recorded, and a great deal of it previously broadcast.

The first paragraph to me anyway accurately reflects RTEs attitude to the radio listening public at Xmas,distain and arrogance

I would disagree with the second paragraph.

Dwoogle

Harry Angstrom wrote: »

Even the guy who does Risin Time gets to go on his Christmas holidays. He does one and a half hours every morning, yet RTE reckon he needs a Christmas break. Madness.

In fairness that's a very crap slot, it caused poor maxi ill health

Harry Angstrom

Dwoogle wrote: »

In fairness that's a very crap slot, it caused poor maxi ill health

I suppose. Sure give me 8 hours a day in a factory, working 5 days a week instead of spinning records for an hour and a half every day........

hardCopy

Evan DietrichSmith wrote: »

Perfectly correct,but depends on the industry you are working in.

Would there be anything wrong with BUS EIREANN, IARNROD EIREANN the theatre industry, the airline industry , the ferries, organising work so as many as possible can have time off.
What would that lead to?, skeleton service at an extremely busy time.
You see P, it's all about attitude to the customer and a commercial approach to things.

I listen to the BBC quite a lot and whilst they do draw in a bit at Xmas ,nowhere do they put the station on auto-pilot and just churn out rubbish

The public pay a lot for this service,and I am a complete admirer of the product they produce during normal times.

I equally am severely critical of the quality,output,and customer respect which they put out over the Xmas period.

It's diabolical.

The services you've listed do just the same. Even hospitals run on skeleton staff over Christmas.

Evan DietrichSmith

hardCopy wrote: »

The services you've listed do just the same. Even hospitals run on skeleton staff over Christmas.

:rolleyes:

Back in 1970 maybe.

hardCopy

Evan DietrichSmith wrote: »

:rolleyes:

Back in 1970 maybe.

The airport is closed on Christmas Day, buses and trains are cancelled or on partial service for the 24th, 25th, 26th, 31st of December and 1st of Jan.

The hospitals discharge as many patients as possible for about two weeks and only a priority service is provided. The Gardai are on skeleton staff. All schools are closed.

Most private businesses are the same, including private radio stations.

Whether or not you agree with the idea of the whole country shutting down over Christmas, picking on RTE is a strange place to start reforming.

Evan DietrichSmith

hardCopy wrote: »

The airport is closed on Christmas Day, buses and trains are cancelled or on partial service for the 24th, 25th, 26th, 31st of December and 1st of Jan.

The hospitals discharge as many patients as possible for about two weeks and only a priority service is provided. The Gardai are on skeleton staff. All schools are closed.

Most private businesses are the same, including private radio stations.

Whether or not you agree with the idea of the whole country shutting down over Christmas, picking on RTE is a strange place to start reforming.

Airport may be closed on Christmas Day for sure but to say all those services are on partial service for the times you quote is not correct.

Try going to Dublin Airport on 26Dec and tell me that's true.

My gripe with RTE is that it is a public service broadcaster, presumably charged with providing a service to the licence payer year round

To just churn out music and replays and taped stuff from Dec 24 to Jan. 06 to my mind is disrespecting the licence payer

Newstalk didn't do this ,the theatres didn't do this, the shops didn't do this,so why should RTE who in my opinion are part of the entertainment industry do this.

BBC4 Today programme is firing along giving the public a service as normal.

The day ,in my opinion is gone when the national broadcaster can shut up shop and let everyone go on a break for 12 days around Christmas.

It's 2014 people

hardCopy

Evan DietrichSmith wrote: »

Airport may be closed on Christmas Day for sure but to say all those services are on partial service for the times you quote is not correct.

Try going to Dublin Airport on 26Dec and tell me that's true.

My gripe with RTE is that it is a public service broadcaster, presumably charged with providing a service to the licence payer year round

To just churn out music and replays and taped stuff from Dec 24 to Jan. 06 to my mind is disrespecting the licence payer

Newstalk didn't do this ,the theatres didn't do this, the shops didn't do this,so why should RTE who in my opinion are part of the entertainment industry do this.

BBC4 Today programme is firing along giving the public a service as normal.

The day ,in my opinion is gone when the national broadcaster can shut up shop and let everyone go on a break for 12 days around Christmas.

It's 2014 people

Yes you can get a bus to the airport but Dublin Bus were on Sunday service on the 26th. Bus Eireann also had a heavily altered timetable, even on the 27th.

I just don't see live radio as a critical service outside of News and Weather. The Christmas period is the one time of the year where most people are off or at least working reduced hours, I don't see a need to insist on RTE staff coming in.

I didn't listen to much Newstalk over the break but I definitely caught a Moncrief clip-show at some stage.

Evan DietrichSmith

hardCopy wrote: »

Yes you can get a bus to the airport but Dublin Bus were on Sunday service on the 26th. Bus Eireann also had a heavily altered timetable, even on the 27th.

I just don't see live radio as a critical service outside of News and Weather. The Christmas period is the one time of the year where most people are off or at least working reduced hours, I don't see a need to insist on RTE staff coming in.

I didn't listen to much Newstalk over the break but I definitely caught a Moncrief clip-show at some stage.

I guess we will just have to differ on those points.

Happy New Year.

L1011

hardCopy wrote: »

Most private businesses are the same, including private radio stations.

Not all of them. There were live presenters on Christmas day itself as well as the days between then and now on many stations.

More Music

All radio stations are on holiday rotas over Christmas. This applies to back room staff as well as presenters.

They have a mix of pre recorded and live programmes on Christmas Day and also over what is generally accepted as the "holiday period".

If you're working over Christmas and not happy to see other people off maybe a change of job is required.

Radio is a sector where people can take time off over Christmas. Retail & Hospitality isn't.

There are plans in place to deal with news related emergencies over the holidays.

BTW, Newstalk (not the only ones) had plenty of pre recorded review shows over Christmas.

Evan DietrichSmith

More Music wrote: »

All radio stations are on holiday rotas over Christmas. This applies to back room staff as well as presenters.

They have a mix of pre recorded and live programmes on Christmas Day and also over what is generally accepted as the "holiday period".

If you're working over Christmas and not happy to see other people off maybe a change of job is required.

Radio is a sector where people can take time off over Christmas. Retail & Hospitality isn't.

There are plans in place to deal with news related emergencies over the holidays.

BTW, Newstalk (not the only ones) had plenty of pre recorded review shows over Christmas.

What puzzles me is why RTE is referred to as a Public Service broadcaster .

Now what does public service mean.

To me it's providing a service to the public and to me that does NOT mean practically shutting down for 5 days around Christmas.

I would also take issue with the statement that radio is a sector which can take holidays at Xmas.

Now I would have no difficulty if the programmes went along at a reasonable resemblance to the normal schedule but at a perhaps at a less in depth coverage, with different presenters if the A-listers all want to be off at Xmas.

To foist two hours of John Murray and followed bt two Hours of Ronan Collins on the helpless public for the Xmas period to me is disrespectfull.


The today prog on BBC 4 carried on practically normally all over the period.

I fully acknowledge your point of view and respect it but this treatment of the listener by RTE at this time annoys me intensely .