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News schedule, choice & RTÉ 1, Newstalk & Today FM

  • 15-12-2010 9:13pm
    #1
    Rebelheart
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,077 ✭✭✭


    This is increasingly bothering me!

    And I mustn't be the only radio listener annoyed by it: why do the three main news stations (Today FM is obviously only included because of The Last Word, Sunday Supplement & one or so other shows) all follow the same schedule?

    Is it just that the programme schedulers never actually thought about changing the schedule and only really thought about tampering with the content within the schedule?

    More specifically, all of their schedules rest upon the concept of the news being on the hour - where's the choice for us? All three stations then follow this with a massive "sports" (read: mostly commerce) report (every hour and every half hour during afternoon/evening radio)- where's our choice once again? And then they all follow with the weather forecast from the exact same source. In total, each of these stations are spending around 20 minutes of each hour repeating almost verbatim the same news/sport/weather as each other (if I'm not mistaken, Today FM and Newstalk is verbatim).

    And, of course, as a result of each station having precisely the same news schedule we then have to listen to all the advertisements, because there is no escape by changing to one of the other two news channels. Alternatively, as I'm increasingly wont to do, hop over to Lyric where they have a bit of creativity and have their news at 30 minutes past each hour (but you're caught by four stations then at 30 minutes past the hour each afternoon/evening). And changing to RnaG, usually a refreshing radio alternative, has the same problem with its schedule.

    Why can't one station have its news each hour at 15 minutes past it and another at 15 minutes to it? That way we have something which we currently do not have with radio current affairs shows: choice. If you miss the 5pm news on RTÉ 1, for instance, you could get the 5.15 news on Today FM, and so forth. We can also avoid all or most of the ads/brainwashing and, for the huge majority of people who can't get too little "sports" news, we can escape "sports" news monopolising all three channels simultaneously after each news bulletin. The current lack of choice offered by these three channels is depressing. Choice, in this case, is much more important to this listener than competition.

    So, is there any rational reason why the programme schedulers on RTÉ 1, Newstalk & Today FM can't be more creative on this issue?


Comments

  • #2
    Poly
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,807 ✭✭✭Poly


    Well in fairness, RTE broadcasts couldn’t really be described as news, it’s a state sponsored spin.


  • #3
    constitutionus
    Registered Users Posts: 7,988 ✭✭✭constitutionus


    its deliberate.

    theyre forcing you to choose between them. thats kinda the point of competition. you'll notice they even mimic each others news structures i.e news/sport/weather in that order so you cant avoid it

    but your right it does leave the door open for someone new to take advantage of it.

    christ knows if ANYONE put up something besides sport after 2 on a saturday/sunday they'd capture and enormous audience that doesnt give a crap about it.


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