Cutbacks required at RTE

marno21

Elmo wrote: »

Both FM104 and 98FM and national TodayFM have shows like Neil prendervill part of their news and current affairs programming commitment

Also Wicklow has BeatFM are they not part of that licence?

FM104, 98FM and Today FM are not youth stations. FM104 & 98FM are 25-44 target market? and SPIN 1038 is 18-34. Not sure what Today FM is.

Beat covers Tipperary South, Kilkenny, Carlow, Wexford and Waterford. Wicklow has no licenced CHR station but large swathes of the county are able to receive iRadio, Spin 1038 and Beat. They also have a new music type show on East Coast FM from 7-10 every evening (used to be 7-12 I believe but open to correction there).

Sam Russell

Old Bill wrote: »

There is no reason why anyone working in RTE should be paid more than a government minster.

Why are Government ministers so highly paid? They should have their salary capped. Also, their expenses are far too high and should be fully vouched. Maybe all public servants should have their salaries capped.

Where does this stop?

NIMAN

Walter2016 wrote: »

A hop across the Irish sea has tons of opportunity.

Only the very top presenters are on 100k+

All of their shows bring substantial advertising / sponsorship revenue that ensures their shows are profitable

Just on these 2 points, I'm sorry but got to take issue with them.

First, I would say very few of RTEs 'talent' would get straight into jobs across the Irish Sea. Many of them are not that great at their jobs to begin with, and I'm sure they isn't endless media jobs in the UK either.
Some like Ryan Tubridy, who has done some time on BBC Radio 2, might get work, but you can bet he wouldn't be offered the money he's getting here. But do you honestly think Miriam, Dobbo, Dave Fanning, George Hamilton, Marty Morrissey, Joe Duffy, Ray D'Arcy etc would be in high demand outside of Ireland? You're delusional if you think so.

Secondly, all of the top shows bring in substantial advertising revenue? Really? There's an ongoing laugh in the LiveLine and Ray D'Arcy threads here on Boards about how little paying adverts there is in their programmes. 50% at least of adverts on LiveLine for example are for other RTE shows, orchestras etc. The belief that Ray D'Arcy and Joe Duffy, between them being paid the guts of a million euro annually, bring in huge amounts of money for RTE is disinformtation I think.

learn_more

I made a suggestion about this over on this thread just last week: Court Reports RTE

learn_more wrote: »

I think it's totally outrageous. It's gratuitous and unnecessary. Both parties would be stressed out enough without dealing with television cameras as they enter and leave. God forbid I'd ever be in that situation but I'd be inclined to trip them over if they came too close.

There is so little big news in Ireland in comparison to the UK. Hardly a news bulletin goes by without 1 or more court cases being reported each day complete with on location reporter and crew.

Cut the 6/1 news to half an hour, ditch a presenter, ditch a cameraman and a reporter or 2, and lower the license fee.

political analyst

Walter2016 wrote: »

And if such a cap was imposed, they'd leave, viewership would drop with resultant advertising revenue and that would continue to oblivion

Rte can have a max of 6 minutes of adverts, tv3 etc can have 12 and sky can have as many as they like.

How would their departure cause viewership to drop? Surely, RTÉ would find good workers to replace them.

lawred2

AwaitYourReply wrote: »

If one is to believe today's edition of The Irish Times newspaper, it seems that music groups such as the RTÉ sponsored orchestras are under the microscope for some cutbacks. See below article link.

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/rt%C3%A9-not-making-right-noises-about-musical-movements-1.2885367

There is speculation that RTÉ's teletext service, Aertel will face the axe as part of their drive to cut costs right across the board. Given that TV3's THREEText, BBC Ceefax, ITV/C4 Oracle have all long since departed the scene, I would think the end days for Aertel are probably not far off at this stage.

I often wonder can RTÉ really afford The Late Late Show house band week in, week out. In bygone years when RTÉ once held a national TV/Radio monopoly, The Late Late Show might have had a musical director in the form of Jim Doherty or Frank McNamara all on his own on the piano as they had no resident band even though RTÉ would have been earning considerably more throught TV licence fee and commercial advertising revenue and faced little or no competition in it's earlier years especially if viewers were not based along the East Coast/Border Areas. The band only arrived when Tubridy pulled the concept over from his previous Tubridy Tonight show that went out on Saturday nights. Pat Kenny had no band or musical director if memory serves me correct from 1999-2009. Most music on the show will come from performing artists anyway so; it's a luxury they can hardly afford if they are forced into making major cutbacks in quality output across RTÉ. If I hear any more jazzed-up versions of The Late Late Show signature theme played by that band, I think I'll puke as it is unnecessary and almost nauseating at this stage.

In today's radio marketplace, I see absolutely little or no reason why RTÉ still supports 2FM as nowadays you have the whole independent commercial radio sector providing this choice and sometimes often better quality. After several unsuccessful revamps at 2FM it is now clear that 2FM has lost it's purpose, identity and the affection is once had with many radio listeners now aged in the over 35+Yrs category. The tide has been turning for quite some time but was never more apparent after the late Gerry Ryan had passed away around April, 2010. The best thing RTÉ could do now is to closedown 2FM altogether and request permission to transfer the "RTÉ Gold" digital station onto the FM frequency currently used by 2FM. This would make sense as you are likely to find a bigger audience tuning into the service if it was more freely available and for those on the move. Larry Gogan, Dave Fanning, Rick O'Shea do not fit well in the current younger age demographic targeted by 2FM but I'm not sure enough younger people are gonna tune in to the likes of Nicky Byrne, Ruth & Co. either as today's youth have so much more devices to choose to hear their favourite music unlike it was when 2FM was a huge player from 1979-1997. RTÉ closed Cork Local Radio (RTÉ Radio Cork/89FM) in the early 2000's and expanded FM3 Classical Music (was once one of the Radio One opt-out services) and RTÉ Lyric fm was established at the same time so; there is a precedent for closing one operation while expanding another!

I would not like to be Dee Forbes as she is likely to face lots of criticism no matter what she is forced to axe or cut back but they need to make serious progress on multiple fronts from TV Licence Fee evasion, selling off expensive lands at it's Montrose Campus HQ or even moving to a much cheaper site if they can get significant income from an outright sale. RTÉ needs to outsource right across the board and be allowed to stop having to do everything as they cannot continue to expand services on much less income/revenue coming in.

That said, if nobody else is performing a function they currently provide, it needs to be carefully considered and explored. If however; there is competition and no shortage of something they already provide then maybe it needs to be under scrutiny...does RTÉ really need to be purchasing EastEnders soap opera from the BBC while most viewers across Ireland now have easy access to BBC One across the country as it is available free-to-air on digital satellite and also on cable tv systems. Many viewers will probably choose to watch it over on BBC One as they won't have to wait for the commercial break half way through an episode of EastEnders on RTÉ One!

Aertel is still there? Jesus wept

icdg

They want to close it, but unfortunately someone decided in 2009 to put a clause in the Broadcasting Act which could be read as requiring RTE to operate a teletext service. It wasn't there in the previous Broadcasting Authority Acts of course which makes the fact that it was put in as late as 2009, when teletext was already a dying technology, really bizzare.

GreenFolder2

They also force eir to maintain pay phones for similar reasons.

Elmo

icdg wrote: »

They want to close it, but unfortunately someone decided in 2009 to put a clause in the Broadcasting Act which could be read as requiring RTE to operate a teletext service. It wasn't there in the previous Broadcasting Authority Acts of course which makes the fact that it was put in as late as 2009, when teletext was already a dying technology, really bizzare.

On this: I get the impression that it is analogue Aertel they are retaining when in reality those people still using the service are on saorview which only provides Digital Aertel.

BuilderPlumber

GreenFolder2 wrote: »

2fm is a youth station?!?!!!?

As for red fm their player shows what they play.

http://www.redfm.ie/player/

Looks more like FM104 playlist than aimed at teens.

All them stations are the same. They have overpaid presenters who think they are god and force whatever their agenda is on the people. Whether 'aimed' at young, middle aged or old, the same old same old is pushed to the limit. As a person who lives in Cork a lot of the time I know only too well about Red FM. It is your typical city based local station complete with a few obnoxious presenters, very poor music and silly talk shows.

Pkiernan

I am still sickened when I remember that RTE sent Joe Duffy on the Orient Express for a week at the height of the recession.
RTE is worse than any if the fukkin Charity CEOS.

The J Stands for Jay

Walter2016 wrote: »

And if such a cap was imposed, they'd leave, viewership would drop with resultant advertising revenue and that would continue to oblivion.

I hardly think people would abandon the late late if tubridy left. Most of those top presenters aren't needed to get the audience. It's Tue timeslot on the channel and the nature of the show that gets listeners/viewers for a lot of them.

Elmo

McGaggs wrote: »

I hardly think people would abandon the late late if tubridy left. Most of those top presenters aren't needed to get the audience. It's Tue timeslot on the channel and the nature of the show that gets listeners/viewers for a lot of them.

And this has largely been proven by Pat Kenny who has failed to help either NewsTalk or TV3 in any major way. In reality he had no viewers for either his UTV or TV3 shows.

Sam Russell

Elmo wrote: »

And this has largely been proven by Pat Kenny who has failed to help either NewsTalk or TV3 in any major way. In reality he had no viewers for either his UTV or TV3 shows.

And not so many listeners on News Talk either.

What is forgotten is all the 'sitting in for' that substitutes do. So if the star is away, the star is in decline - a few too many and the star is forgotten.

RTE should dump the idea of programmes carrying the name of the star so when they are away - which is often - they are not missed.

Elmo

I just want to point one exception to the rule and that was Ian Dempsey. 2FM never really got any presenter of the ground for their morning show.

The Parish priest

icdg wrote: »

They want to close it, but unfortunately someone decided in 2009 to put a clause in the Broadcasting Act which could be read as requiring RTE to operate a teletext service. It wasn't there in the previous Broadcasting Authority Acts of course which makes the fact that it was put in as late as 2009, when teletext was already a dying technology, really bizzare.

Surely Aertel only costs peanuts to run ? I'd say a good few oaps would miss it

BuilderPlumber

Elmo wrote: »

And this has largely been proven by Pat Kenny who has failed to help either NewsTalk or TV3 in any major way. In reality he had no viewers for either his UTV or TV3 shows.

RTE is all about overhyping these presenters they have and wasting large amounts of money paying them. Pat Kenny's post Late Late Show period has been less than impressive. First he gave us the brutal The Frontline on RTE and then he failed to take off on the other 2 stations. He is an overrated presenter and the shows he has been presenting have been in general very very poor.

If RTE stopped paying these presenters excessive money for their easy jobs and if they concentrated on quality not quantity, things would be much better. There is an excessive amount of rubbish programmes that are individually cheap to make but collectively costing RTE a fortune.

If you happen to like house/garden makeovers, chefs, poor modern so-called country music, talent contests and tame dramas, then 2016 RTE is the place for you. Otherwise, it is TV hell.

The Parish priest

The new RTE dg has been very quiet, why isn't she speaking up demanding that the shackles placed on RTE under the 09 broadcasting act be lifted ?

Old Bill

BuilderPlumber wrote: »

RTE is all about overhyping these presenters they have and wasting large amounts of money paying them. Pat Kenny's post Late Late Show period has been less than impressive. First he gave us the brutal The Frontline on RTE and then he failed to take off on the other 2 stations. He is an overrated presenter and the shows he has been presenting have been in general very very poor.

If RTE stopped paying these presenters excessive money for their easy jobs and if they concentrated on quality not quantity, things would be much better. There is an excessive amount of rubbish programmes that are individually cheap to make but collectively costing RTE a fortune.

If you happen to like house/garden makeovers, chefs, poor modern so-called country music, talent contests and tame dramas, then 2016 RTE is the place for you. Otherwise, it is TV hell.

Is kenny's show on TV3 now over ?

Elmo

Old Bill wrote: »

Is kenny's show on TV3 now over ?

I think that is the point Pat Kenny was given an excessive amount of money at RTÉ for Today and TLLS.

The audience for frontline wasn't as strong as Q&A or Claire Byrne.

His newstalk show has help newstalk but nothing like Today's audience and PK Tonight had a lower audience than Vincent Browne and that's not mentioning.... in the round

MRnotlob606

Operation Transformation and Ireland's fittest families should be scrapped.

colm_mcm

MRnotlob606 wrote: »

Operation Transformation and Ireland's fittest families should be scrapped.

I'd say they pay their way in terms of advertising revenue/sponsorship and prob not being that expensive to make.

Elmo

colm_mcm wrote: »

I'd say they pay their way in terms of advertising revenue/sponsorship and prob not being that expensive to make.

And also their audiences are good. Why would you scrap 2 popular shows? Both of which are original Irish formats from independent producers.

alan partridge aha

Get rid of Darcy and tubs and replace with cardboard cut outs save a packet.

ted1

MRnotlob606 wrote: »

Operation Transformation and Ireland's fittest families should be scrapped.

It's cheap telly.

alan partridge aha

Irelands fittest family is one of the best show on rte

BuilderPlumber

MRnotlob606 wrote: »

Operation Transformation and Ireland's fittest families should be scrapped.

Plus Dancing With The Stars, Stetsons and Stilettos, Room to Improve and whatever version of The Voice of Ireland/You're a Star that comes along next. All these things are cheap to make and while I get it that RTE is broke, they surely could do something better than this. Even reruns of 30 year old Glenroe episodes would be a step up from this reality drivel.

political analyst

News for the Deaf, as I've said in an OP in this forum, isn't efficient spending of licence-fee money. Everyone who watches RTÉ has access to subtitles. Therefore, News for the Deaf should be axed.

Old Bill

They should give this guy his own show on RTE.

Hes far more entertaining than Pat Kenny.

Elmo

political analyst wrote: »

News for the Deaf, as I've said in an OP in this forum, isn't efficient spending of licence-fee money. Everyone who watches RTÉ has access to subtitles. Therefore, News for the Deaf should be axed.

I think you might find some ISL users defeated by dropping the only news in ISL. indeed RTÉ could be take to court by the ISL news reader for discrimination.

iseegirls

BuilderPlumber wrote: »

Plus Dancing With The Stars, Stetsons and Stilettos, Room to Improve and whatever version of The Voice of Ireland/You're a Star that comes along next. All these things are cheap to make

I doubt Dancing With The Stars is cheap to make. The set is very impressive, and is not in the RTE Studios meaning they're renting the Ardmore Studios.

Room To Improve gets really big ratings, and also repeats well. Unsure what you'd like it to replace it with that would get the same kind of ratings.

Elmo

iseegirls wrote: »

I doubt Dancing With The Stars is cheap to make. The set is very impressive, and is not in the RTE Studios meaning they're renting the Ardmore Studios.

Room To Improve gets really big ratings, and also repeats well. Unsure what you'd like it to replace it with that would get the same kind of ratings.

RTE do need to stop repeating Room To Improve, new series are fine but repeats are not.

RTE need to make more of a variety of programmes. E.g. Winning Streak is their only game show, that could be cut. Out of all the shows mentioned above.

iseegirls

Elmo wrote: »

RTE do need to stop repeating Room To Improve, new series are fine but repeats are not.

RTE need to make more of a variety of programmes. E.g. Winning Streak is their only game show, that could be cut. Out of all the shows mentioned above.

Repeats in afternoon are ok for it. They shouldn't be repeating the same series 6 months later in prime time though. Which happens an awful lot. It has been shown a lot recently on sporadic days. I didn't know if episodes were new or old before I watched the first 5 minutes.

BuilderPlumber

Elmo wrote: »

RTE do need to stop repeating Room To Improve, new series are fine but repeats are not.

RTE need to make more of a variety of programmes. E.g. Winning Streak is their only game show, that could be cut. Out of all the shows mentioned above.

They are always at this and I don't think this series is so amazing they have to show it again and again. Next thing they could do to fill in time is repeating Late Late Shows in their entirity over the Fridays and Saturdays of the summer months. They already show highlights (if you could call it that) of the season gone of it on Fridays in the summer as it is.

political analyst

Perhaps RTÉ should drop League of Ireland (LoI) football coverage because it gets hardly any viewers. It should be left to the pay-TV operators, e.g. eir.

Would RTÉ have been able to hold on to the rights to the Rugby World and Six Nations Cups if it had dropped LoI?

BuilderPlumber

political analyst wrote: »

Perhaps RTÉ should drop League of Ireland (LoI) football coverage because it gets hardly any viewers. It should be left to the pay-TV operators, e.g. eir.

Would RTÉ have been able to hold on to the rights to the Rugby World and Six Nations Cups if it had dropped LoI?

Irish club soccer is poor fare. Not a patch on the World Cup, The Euros, the Champions' League or the FA Cup. I watched some of it a few times and felt they were the poorest matches I ever saw.

icdg

There is no discussion of anything actually happening on the field in any sports related post in this forum. Thanks

Mehapoy

RTE thinks of itself as a mini BBC, there needs to be a cap on salary for the 'stars',if a person gets well enough known to draw an audience then they should go to commercial tv where the market will determine their salary... In all honesty if turbidy went to tv3 and had the same slot most people would still tube into the LLS on rte1, rte2 should be wholly commercialised, no reason rte could not still own it but it should not get license fee and have the same independence and ads as tv3. Rtejnr should he retained as the youth channel with no ads before 7pm. 2fm serves no function and should he sold, the campus in donnybrook should be sold off and only a token presence retained there with expanded facilities in the regions and elsewhere in Dublin, TG4 should get a larger % of the license fee as they seem to know how to cit their cloth to suit their budget.

Capt'n Midnight

political analyst wrote: »

News for the Deaf, as I've said in an OP in this forum, isn't efficient spending of licence-fee money. Everyone who watches RTÉ has access to subtitles. Therefore, News for the Deaf should be axed.

Irish Sign Language is not English or Irish, it's a separate language so subtitles aren't a replacement. And Irish Sign Language is different to that in the UK too. And it's cheap telly to produce compared to outside broadcast or commissioning a series.

Not sure but I'd imagine it's one of those EU/ECJ things if push came to shove.

Capt'n Midnight

Stop wasting money on DAB, it's a dead end.

DAB+ replaced it. No commercial channels use it , or DAB+ for that matter.
Few people have DAB+ receivers. Every car and smartphone has an FM receiver.



Saorsat costs money, but I can't think of a cheaper way of getting all Island coverage, and that's in light of FTV and Tivosat

political analyst

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Stop wasting money on DAB, it's a dead end.

DAB+ replaced it. No commercial channels use it , or DAB+ for that matter.
Few people have DAB+ receivers. Every car and smartphone has an FM receiver.

Will the analogue radio network in Ireland ever be replaced with digital?

political analyst

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Irish Sign Language is not English or Irish, it's a separate language so subtitles aren't a replacement. And Irish Sign Language is different to that in the UK too. And it's cheap telly to produce compared to outside broadcast or commissioning a series.

Not sure but I'd imagine it's one of those EU/ECJ things if push came to shove.

Surely, deaf people can read in the English language, can't they?! Seriously, do deaf people in the UK and Ireland not learn the English language?! If you can see, you can learn to read.

Elmo

political analyst wrote: »

Surely, deaf people can read in the English language, can't they?! Seriously, do deaf people in the UK and Ireland not learn the English language?! If you can see, you can learn to read.

This is a very very narrow view of communication.

The Deaf are very lucky now to have text messaging, email and the internet for communications. That doesn't take from that fact they they continue to use their own way of communicating verbally.

RTE have already cut their only deaf programming, which was slowly done away with over the past few years.

Lets suggest that RTE drop audio on RTE ONE +1 after all it carries subtitling.

lertsnim

political analyst wrote: »

Surely, deaf people can read in the English language, can't they?! Seriously, do deaf people in the UK and Ireland not learn the English language?! If you can see, you can learn to read.

Just because you don't get value from it is no reason to ditch News For The Deaf. Besides what would it save? Ridiculous idea.

Stasi 2.0

I see the need for news with SL but why does it need to be on a seperate news programme ?

Other countries have an early evening news programme with an inscreen SL interpreter but in Ireland we have a half hour news programne followed by a five minute highly abridged rehash with sign language.

Surely scrapping the separate bulletin and including sign language on the main news programme would serve everyone better ?

Dont know why people think closing News now or +1 channels is going to save vast amounts of money. Not a massive fan of +1 channels (they waste bandwidth and clutter up the EPG ) but they cost hardly anything to run.

As for celebrity presenters moving across the Irish sea it must be remembered that most of them are complete unknowns over there and its not as if the UK doesnt have talented broadcasters of its own.

channelsurfer2

.

channelsurfer2

please delete. i posted in wrong thread by mistake. thanks