RTÉ, where did it go wrong?

Hedgelayer

I don't watch TV much unless I call to my parents.

I loved RTE during the 70's until the late 90's then it went off the wall.

Would it be possible for them to have an archive channel which would vere more towards the taste's of people interested in alternative and ecentric music taste's wildlife, history, heritage and art's and crafts.

Would there be an opening for a more grounded TV station which doesn't show soap's and reality TV ?

Nowadays I just watch old documentaries on YouTube, BBC and the American history channel had some great programme's in the past.

Especially the history channel, I love those old documentaries about culture's and the likes of Halloween and Christmas time.
I'm more interested in what we're leaving behind rather than the plastic culture of today.

whisky_galore

We could call it RTE Repeats.

orourkeda1977

Lack of squirt porn after 2am

Also their website is a disgrace, particularly if you've ever tried following live sport on it.

elperello

Have you tried TG4?
Some good stuff turns up their listings.

NIMAN

Hedgelayer wrote: »

I don't watch TV much unless I call to my parents.

I loved RTE during the 70's until the late 90's then it went off the wall.

Would it be possible for them to have an archive channel which would vere more towards the taste's of people interested in alternative and ecentric music taste's wildlife, history, heritage and art's and crafts.

Would there be an opening for a more grounded TV station which doesn't show soap's and reality TV ?

Nowadays I just watch old documentaries on YouTube, BBC and the American history channel had some great programme's in the past.

Especially the history channel, I love those old documentaries about culture's and the likes of Halloween and Christmas time.
I'm more interested in what we're leaving behind rather than the plastic culture of today.

Unfortunately those attract big viewing figures, and as a result, big advertising revenue.

Just because me and you don't have any interest in them, it would be madness for anyone running a TV station to ditch them.

dxhound2005

whisky_galore wrote: »

We could call it RTE Repeats.

RTE Repeat's.

steddyeddy

Nepotism, entitlement and running the organisation as an old boys club at the expense of the public.

Church on Tuesday

Soaps and reality TV are cheap as chips to produce and sadly it's actually what most people want to watch.

dxhound2005

Soaps are now known as Continuing Drama. I don't see it as in any way sad for people to enjoy this genre.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/about/continuing-drama

mad muffin

RTÉ repeats.

dxhound2005

mad muffin wrote: »

RTÉ repeats.

I seen it before.

Hedgelayer

Rte repeats would be great, someone told me that a lot of the archive material was destroyed.
I don't know if that's true or not.

Radharc was interesting, and a lot of the old craft programmes I loved.

The Blackbird and the bell was another one which I think is deleted.

Another great kid's series was called "The island of the great yellow Ox" it was a BBC and RTE joint effort of bringing Walter Mackens popular story to life.

Hedgelayer

Church on Tuesday wrote: »

Soaps and reality TV are cheap as chips to produce and sadly it's actually what most people want to watch.

Im a million miles away from that kind of viewing, all I can imagine is a flock of gannets glued to a screen of shoals of herring.

whisky_galore

Hedgelayer wrote: »

Rte repeats would be great, someone told me that a lot of the archive material was destroyed.
I don't know if that's true or not.

Radharc was interesting, and a lot of the old craft programmes I loved.

The Blackbird and the bell was another one which I think is deleted.

Another great kid's series was called "The island of the great yellow Ox" it was a BBC and RTE joint effort of bringing Walter Mackens popular story to life.

Much of early shows like Wanderly Wagon are gone for good as RTE reused tapes as an economy measure.

Hedgelayer

whisky_galore wrote: »

Much of early shows like Wanderly Wagon are gone for good as RTE reused tapes as an economy measure.

Seriously, what a tragedy.

Yet they're paying presenter's and themselves a handsome salary.

Typical isn't it.

dxhound2005

Hedgelayer wrote: »

Seriously, what a tragedy.

Yet they're paying presenter's and themselves a handsome salary.

Typical isn't it.

Typical of every broadcaster from the old days.

steddyeddy

steddyeddy wrote: »

Nepotism, entitlement and running the organisation as an old boys club at the expense of the public.

Absolutely, the first generation were somewhat talented and to some degree cutting edge. Rather than replacing talent with talent, they replaced talent with well connected people. Hence the continual, unavoidable, collapse in to mediocrity. Happens in loads of industries, just obvious in media.

However, we also only remember highlights and lowlights, I would suspect RTE was always fairly weak, we just remember the good bits more and have forgotten the 99% of it that was bland crap.

Sheesh there used to be a good lineup of programs and sport on a Saturday afternoon at 2.30pm. now poor OP can only resort to starting a rant AH thread.

whisky_galore

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Absolutely, the first generation were somewhat talented and to some degree cutting edge. Rather than replacing talent with talent, they replaced talent with well connected people. Hence the continual, unavoidable, collapse in to mediocrity. Happens in loads of industries, just obvious in media.

However, we also only remember highlights and lowlights, I would suspect RTE was always fairly weak, we just remember the good bits more and have forgotten the 99% of it that was bland crap.

The early days had a lot of the shouty luvvie types who came from the theatre, doing comedy sketches and the like. Not particularly funny on rewatching now. Tongue in cheek satire like Frank Hall was ground-breaking, probably half the population didn't get it though.

Hedgelayer

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Sheesh there used to be a good lineup of programs and sport on a Saturday afternoon at 2.30pm. now poor OP can only resort to starting a rant AH thread.

It's a cold day,so sure we're all up for a rant now and again.

Rant and thanks for the bant

Rubberchikken

frank halls show was great. even wanderley wagon was enjoyable as a kid.
7 days was always watched in our home and the news.
nowadays rte is filled with dipsticks like ray darcy that no other station actually wants. miriam o callaghan that i cant take and the dire excuses for presenters and news readers that other stations wouldnt employ imo.

im only glad that i nevet watch tv. boxsets all the way here.

BailMeOut

This is what needs to happen to RTE

1. Sell all their fancy land in D4 and move out to outskirts of Dublin (maybe to Ardmore studios) or even better move the entire facility to Cork, Galway, Limerick or Waterford. (BBC moved from London to Manchester so this can be done). The windfall from selling would easily pay for any relocation and probably fund the organization for many years.
2. Sell or privatise RTE2 and 2FM
3. Change their remit to be 100% public service so only News, weather, national sports, education and the arts. Anything else should be left to the private channels.
4. Get rid of this fake 'celebrity' culture as working for RTE does not or should not make you a celebrity.
5. Get rid of anyone who have been working there 20+ years
6. Proper vetting and approval for any content from private companies as seems like any ex RTE employee can setup a new company, make garbage and have it automatically purchased from RTE.

I can go one but key thing is that it should be a Public Service Broadcasting provider and that's it.

Edgware

whisky_galore wrote: »

We could call it RTE Repeats.

How would we know the difference in the Summer months when their "stars" are on holidays i.e. Feb to November

mfceiling

Just remember that Dee Forbes wants your licence fee increased to keep those poor souls out in Montrose accustomed to their lifestyle. How Marianne Finnucane survives on that 300k a year for a couple of hours at the weekend is beyond me.

Yakult

But according to some ass producer who just copied and pasted Dancing with the Stars formula, RTE will be gone because we don't pay a high enough TV licence. Won't somebody think of the poor underpaid staff at RTE. How will they eat in their posh D4 house or drive their BMW.

Tough times lads.

NIMAN

NIMAN wrote: »

Just because me and you don't have any interest in them, it would be madness for anyone running a TV station to ditch them.

It would if we had a national broadcaster that wasn't intent on wasting money on light entertainment and ridiculous salaries.

RTE should go down the NPR route, including collaborating with other state/ public broadcasters.

It does not need a pop station, it does not need to broadcast Home & Away twice per day, nor all the other soaps it broadcasts either. It needs to be pared back to its original intention as a force for public information, politics, arts and culture. Those other items are commercially viable -- so let the private broadcasters undertake them, and not detract from RTE's remit.

It wouldn't be a commercial success, necessarily, but that's why we're already paying the licence fee.

Hedgelayer

Yakult wrote: »

But according to some ass producer who just copied and pasted Dancing with the Stars formula, RTE will be gone because we don't pay a high enough TV licence. Won't somebody think of the poor underpaid staff at RTE. How will they eat in their posh D4 house or drive their BMW.

Tough times lads.

Sounds like the emperor's New clothes is alive and well in Rte.

If they crumble, it'll open up a new market.

Their salaries are astronomical, I can't see how it can be justified.
But they're acoustomed to their lifestyle,so the herd mentality will prevail.
I'm sure there's a lot of back patting going on and ostentatious friendships and ego massaging going on.
The same goes on in every work places.


I suppose the cream rises to the top and all that.

Fooling the masses it looks like.

100% agree with the OP. There were brilliant, culturally Irish, distinctive, educational RTÉ programmes - Come West Along the Road and Hands spring immediately to mind. There are still some high quality RTÉ programmes on radio, Documentary on One, Sounds Traditional, and loads of the Lyric FM stuff from Trish Taylor, Niall O'Carroll etc (arch waffler Marty Whelan and his pop and country music has singlehandedly destroyed Lyric as a musical/spiritual haven from commercialism and waffle).

There are also quality television programmes, Prime Time and Nationwide being two of the most obvious, and in fairness Dermot Bannon's architectural stuff is educational. But they are asmall minority now. They are all drowned by that "reality" rubbish now that can be accessed anywhere else in the Anglophone world. Sameness, everywhere, while TV3 is essentially a British channel (with its British owners getting economies of scale by using it to broadcast its own British soaps, etc). The recent enough Abhainn was a breath of fresh air, tracing rivers around Ireland and their histories with great aerial film. RTÉ definitely has the ability and talent to do quality programming, but for financial reasons it's choosing to produce commercial rubbish. I'd love an RTÉ station full of Irish cultural/historical/educational etc interest, and for RTÉ to ship the reality stuff off to a new station named RTÉ Pleb. I'd very willingly pay for the former; the latter couldn't pay me enough.

I paid the TV Licence two weeks ago, even though I cancelled the TV service from my Virgin subscription the week before. I still have the tv, which I will use entirely to cast stuff from online or from RTÉ Player/TG4 Player. I took out a Netflix subscription instead, so we'll see how that goes.

It was, quite simply, far too disheartening to wade through 100 channels of ineffably vacuous, superficial echo chamber stuff (and a million tv ads) to find a programme in which I had interest. And 15 minutes into that programme, they'd break to try and brainwash me with more ads. Back when Sky first came into Irish homes, I'm almost certain one of its selling points was that for your subscription you were promised no ads. Is this true, or am I misremembering? Now, the greedy bastards manage to charge you a subscription, and push ads.

I remember the Evening Press well. It used to be a great paper, and was always bought in our home rather than those Blueshirt comics. However, in its final years it was nothing more than an advertising sheet with very little quality news and loads of ads. It was, at the time, plainly dying. Subscription TV and its reality/vacuous/commercial "sport" stuff is about right there now. There are more quality ways to unwind/be distracted on an evening.

freshpopcorn

It went down hill when Ray Darcy left children's TV.

riemann

elperello wrote: »

Have you tried TG4?
Some good stuff turns up their listings.

A lot of people love to say this, yet most of what's on tg4 is also absolute rubbish, only in Irish.

jetsonx

Deleted User wrote: »

Rather than replacing talent with talent, they replaced talent with well connected people. Hence the continual, unavoidable, collapse in to mediocrity. Happens in loads of industries, just obvious in media.

That's it. They hire based on connections rather than merit.

The research and production team of the Late Late Show for the 1980's and 1990s was world-class. The managed to get personalities which the BBC couldn't even get.

The Late Late Show team of today only seem to be able to get other RTE people recruited from the canteen. I mean viewers have to endure enough RTE people during the week but on Friday they at least deserve some respite.

Oh and bringing on a horse last night was rather pathetic...with Tubs awkwardly standing around 10 metres from it as if it were some killer lion that might pounce on him any minute.

Atoms for Peace

Just had to switch off when Una Healy came out, Tubs usual twee crap about being happy to be back in Ireland.

Agricola

As a state broadcaster with a licence fee, they really should do bit more than good news and current affairs along side a sea of reality tv bullshít. Since they love copying British stuff on the sly, could they not do a BBC4 or Channel 4 and devote an hour here and there to something like a documentary on Irish history pre 1922.
There was a country here with a distinct culture and people before the formation of the Irish state, but in Montrose it's as if it never existed. When have we seen a home made documentary on the first settlers, the Celts, the Normans, with input from Irish scholars.

dxhound2005

whisky_galore

freshpopcorn wrote: »

It went down hill when Ray Darcy disappeared up his own hole.

Fyp

NIMAN

freshpopcorn wrote: »

It went down hill when Ray Darcy left children's TV.

... and their standard of radio output went downhill when Ray Darcy arrived.;)

CarlosHarpic

Considering the nepotism with RTE presenters and staff it should be called D4 Family Home Movies

kneemos

Anything good or popular over the years has usually been screwed up or cancelled.

dxhound2005

The Golden Age was when there was no TV, and Radio Eireann shut down for most of the day. Giving people 24 hour a day TV and radio stations has just ruined it.

kneemos

kneemos wrote: »

Anything good or popular over the years has usually been screwed up or cancelled.

or had Amy Huberman saddled onto it...

Atoms for Peace

Atoms for Peace wrote: »

Just had to switch off when Una Healy came out, Tubs usual twee crap about being happy to be back in Ireland.

was she still boring the masses about her break up with her celeb husband

Rootsblower

Mentioned by a previous poster here the RTÉ documentary “Hands” is a fabulous piece of home made tv. Nearly all the episodes are available on YouTube, I strongly suggest the episode about the 3 donegal brothers weaving cloth. Breathtaking scenery and a glimpse into a simple way of life untouched by modern commercialism.

You’re all hankering after a tv channel that IMO wouldn’t last a year because I would say at least 50% of the general population are materialistic, vacuous and not very bright and could not appreciate quality public service broadcasting.
Just look at some of the factual channels such as National Geographic, alot of reality type shows on them now and less in the way of education.

dxhound2005

Rootsblower wrote: »

Mentioned by a previous poster here the RTÉ documentary “Hands” is a fabulous piece of home made tv. Nearly all the episodes are available on YouTube, I strongly suggest the episode about the 3 donegal brothers weaving cloth. Breathtaking scenery and a glimpse into a simple way of life untouched by modern commercialism.

You’re all hankering after a tv channel that IMO wouldn’t last a year because I would say at least 50% of the general population are materialistic, vacuous and not very bright and could not appreciate quality public service broadcasting.
Just look at some of the factual channels such as National Geographic, alot of reality type shows on them now and less in the way of education.

That is a terrible indictment of our education system. Especially with so many going to university. An awful waste of money. In my day it was 6th class National school and then off to work at 14. Back in those times A Lot was two words of course.

Rootsblower

Sorry but I stand by my assessment as much as it dismays me

jimmycrackcorm

elperello wrote: »

Have you tried TG4?
Some good stuff turns up their listings.

TG4 is a shining example of how to run s public broadcast station on a low budget. But then it's ac relatively new station that didn't have a history of civil service lifers dating back to the sixties.

When they showed the Danish political series Borhen, I was addicted.

Ros na run beats fair cityv hands down

SEPT 23 1989

Give us Hands Waterways and Paths to Freedom uniquely Irish that's what we want to see

Stop trying to copy what they do across the sea and always failing spectacularly

jetsonx

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

Give us Hands Waterways and Paths to Freedom uniquely Irish that's what we want to see

Stop trying to copy what they do across the sea and always failing spectacularly

Great point.

RTE believes that just copying British formats is a much safer option than actually making their own formats. While this may make for one or two "safe" "hit" programmes, it also makes for dire and unoriginal dross.

WoollyRedHat

whisky_galore wrote: »

We could call it RTE Repeats.

RTEpeats.

kneemos

jetsonx wrote: »

Great point.

RTE believes that just copying British formats is a much safer option than actually making their own formats. While this may make for one or two "safe" "hit" programmes, it also makes for dire and unoriginal dross.

That's why they got rid of that farming soap with Dinny and Miley,and the one before it The Riordan's in favour of Fair City, EastEnders for Ireland.
Both of those were national institutions and wildly popular. Dumped for no reason anyone figure out

jetsonx

kneemos wrote: »

That's why they got rid of that farming soap with Dinny and Miley,and the one before it The Riordan's in favour of Fair City, EastEnders for Ireland.
Both of those were national institutions and wildly popular. Dumped for no reason anyone figure out

Exactly, it's really no different from a Moroccan TV station copying formats from France or a Chilean TV station copying from Spain. I think it's a symptom which affects all post-colonial countries. RTE definitely have a dose of it whether they realise it or not.

Glenroe was much more authentic than Fair City will ever be.

Yer Da sells Avon

It's been uafásach since they stopped rerunning Bosco.