RTE Radio 1: The 9 O Clock Show hosted by Various Megathread

Bellbottoms

This monologue is awful. Very much lower common denominator stuff.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122628499#Comment_122628499

Tough audience first thing in the morning.

Brendan Bendar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122628499#Comment_122628499

Agree, obviously reading off a prepared script.

The astute listeners amongst us might have noticed another little reference to the 'balance ' in the show

where Callan threw in, and I paraphrase, ' Now I've insulted them all equally'.

For me that's a clear indication to me that he has been 'pulled up' or at least been told to tone down his bias.

Others of course will try to tell us that black is white, but it would appear that there has been reaction on 51551.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122628925#Comment_122628925

Or as he did the first day, he's taking the proverbial out of the inveterate moaners.

Paterson Jerins

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122629038#Comment_122629038

We all catch your drift dr phibes.

But you are such a hypocrite. You are an angry middle aged man hate-listening to Callan. You are everything you moan about daily on boards.

Why don't you listen to your mate the spoofer tubridy?

Brendan Bendar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122629024#Comment_122629024

So folk who can identify distinct bias from a presenter on a Public Service Medium financed by the taxpayer are now “inveterate moaners” ?

Thats certainly a new angle on things.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122629442#Comment_122629442

Brendan, having a go at Kamala while also having a go at Trump is not a 'bias'.
The moaners are in fact the 'biased' ones, conferring immunity as they do on certain American politicians (Saint JFK, Joe Biden, Obama etc)and refusing to allow her to be sent up.
He mocked these texters the first day and did it again today. Business as usual.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122629600#Comment_122629600

Do they have the same Benny Hill/Bernard Manning tastes in humour as their son? Marty is probably the closet you'll get to that on Irish radio so I'm not surprised. Marty likes a bit of the auld innuendo. Whatever rocks their boat.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122629672#Comment_122629672

Your parents are lucky they've worked out what the tuning knob on the radio is for. Not everyone is that lucky as we know.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122629702#Comment_122629702

More power to them. They can forget all about Callan and live a life at peace. Would that all were so sensible.

Paterson Jerins

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122629600#Comment_122629600

That whole fabrication might have been funnier in your head.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122629768#Comment_122629768

Take your existentialism somewhere else Bobson. 🙄 And forget Callan, like your folks, you'll be happier, might even get a boner on the bus again as Benny might say.

FrancieBrady

Clearly such matters are your starter for ten. Sorry for sparking you off.
Enjoy the rest of this mighty fine day and stay off the buses.

Brendan Bendar

Same story this morning, started almost immediately with an interview with some dude plugging a book.

What I am asking is why has the format changed?

Must have gotten a kick up the transom for his 'riffs' which usually went on till 0920,as that's the only thing which has changed.

Note also his stating that he is being 'balanced' if that wasn't an issue, why keep referring to it.

Murky stuff going on for sure….

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122633881#Comment_122633881

Like he did yesterday?

😁😁

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122634037#Comment_122634037

He was always more than an impressionist more a satirist who does impressions.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122634071#Comment_122634071

As said, these things are entirely subjective. He’s clearly very popular with audiences for his shows and is growing his listenership on this slot.
Given your sense of humour I understand why you would not like him.
Plenty of Benny Hill and Manning wannabe’s out there. Horses for courses etc.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122634106#Comment_122634106

As I say, it’s obviously going over your head. Stick to willy joke purveyors

FrancieBrady

The Kamala texters will be busy again this AM 😁

Brendan Bendar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122635649#Comment_122635649

I doubt it Francis, astute lad as you purport to be, you will have noted that he gave practically the same time to

Mr Trump, unlike his previous long riff on his opinion of Ms Harris with a couple of short harmless comments on Trump at the end.

It seems that he is getting the drift that presenting on a taxpayer funded PSB is a bit different than freewheeling on an independent production.

Its the small things Francis that one must notice …just don't go in half -cocked.

Uhmmm…

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122635798#Comment_122635798

He did exactly the same thing again Brendan. 😁 Keep believing lad, it's funny.

Paterson Jerins

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122635683#Comment_122635683

I remember when Dr phibes and the other two amigos would come into a certain thread on boards and accuse posters of being obsessed, angry hate-filled, hate listening, middle aged men, that post negative about a certain radio host.

Its bizarre that the tables have turned haha, and now the abominable dr bobson hate-listens and is posting non stop about a radio host on boards, even though he's on 150k with a big job, has loads of hobbies, writing a book, beautiful wife, great home etc etc etc…

Laughable

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122635955#Comment_122635955

…and doesn't listen to the show. 😁

rightmove

and goes to the pub

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122635953#Comment_122635953

Typically you only quote the bit of the review that echos your bias. Here's the rest of it, for 'balance':

It’s a misfiring turn by Callan, but an uncharacteristic one too. A confident performer in the studio, attentive or acerbic as the occasion demands, he sounds less assured in this setting, his attention split between listeners and in-person audience.

He regains some composure when meeting his guests, for instance gently ribbing the peripatetic hurling manager Davy Fitzgerald: “You seem like a fella carrying an awful lot of grievances.”

The overriding air is one of mild discombobulation, however, as when the champion sheep shearer George Graham remarks that anyone can shear wool, “including Oliver Callan”. “I don’t know about that,” Callan replies in a voice best described as sheepish.

For all that, the host can probably just write it off as a bad day. Certainly, his lengthy interview with the author Roddy Doyle on the previous day’s programme underlines the qualities that have helped lift Callan’s ratings above those of his predecessor, Ryan Tubridy.As he hears Doyle talk about the genesis and evolution of his enduring fictional character Paula Spencer, Callan is curious without being overeager.

He lets his guest vividly recall the outraged reaction in Ireland to portrayals of domestic abuse in Family, the 1994 TV series that first introduced Paula and her violent husband, Charlo.[ Roddy Doyle: ‘I feel quite good about living in Ireland. But I think we were probably a bit smug’Opens in new window ]

The host also avoids sermonising when Doyle voices his disquiet at the blanket condemnation of rioters in Dublin last November, delicately suggesting that social and economic factors were at play alongside far-right agitation.

It’s a compelling piece of radio, thought-provoking yet attractively accessible. (One might say the same about Doyle’s work in general.)

Nor is it a one-off. Callan’s long-form conversation with the broadcaster and author Graham Norton two weeks ago was similarly appealing, albeit different in tenor and substance. For all that he sounds lost in the wilds of Co Laois, when it comes to absorbing interviews Callan is, to quote the old gag, outstanding in his field.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122636009#Comment_122636009

Bobson, stop pretending, it's not fooling anyone.

What you tried to present as a bad review actually turns out to have been a good one. Albeit not impressed with him at one outside broadcast.

FrancieBrady

Having a right go at security hut/children's hospital/bike shed fiascos this morning.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122655415#Comment_122655415

Ironic, seeing Callan's big hero in politics is Charlie Haughey.

“When I was researching for the show, I realised I f***ing love Charlie Haughey. I’m obsessed with Charlie Haughey. In fact, Charlie Haughey is our best ever taoiseach,” he says. Before he filmed the episode, he gathered a group of young rising social media stars who are helping portray the cast of characters. “I asked them, ‘When I say Haughey, what pops into your head? And they said, ‘Corruption’. But I said, ‘No! There’s more to him than that. “He has done so many amazing things that are still around that you just cant ignore."

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122655454#Comment_122655454

I'm sure it was 'balanced' love, a warts and all review of the man. Because he certainly took the proverbial out of Charlie' excesses and overspends too as the vid shows.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1455956216056848386

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122657109#Comment_122657109

Don’t think anyone claimed him to be a great political thinker of our time bobson.

Brendan Bendar

Heh heh ….had to chuckle when Callan was pillorying Starmer this morning for accepting ‘bungs’.

Sure weren’t half of RTE at the same thing?

Unbelievable!

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122658755#Comment_122658755

He has pilloried what was going on in RTE many times.

Brendan Bendar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122658808#Comment_122658808

Never said that he hasn’t Mr B. The irony of someone working for a concern famous for its activities in that regard pillorying another party or person for similar activities must have escaped you.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122658995#Comment_122658995

Brendan, there is no 'irony' if he has also pilloried RTE.
Are you saying employees are all responsible for what went on in RTE and must be silent?

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122659010#Comment_122659010

It seems to me RTÉ staff are largely silent, I have not heard anything from any RTÉ staff member. They all seem to be happily silent over the last decade and are particularly silent at the minute. Surely one unhappy RTÉ staffer would make a statement.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122659111#Comment_122659111

What?

https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/arid-41173987.html

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122659135#Comment_122659135

After a decade the union protest in some fanciful act of catch up, I have heard nothing from them in terms of the services that RTÉ provide to the public. Its been about making sure their jobs are retained, very little of significance said by their union or by any staff willing to put their head above the parfait.

Imagine none have mentioned that the Staff Rep on the board during this period is now the Company Secretary, nor any of them asking why Adrian Lynch was promoted to Deputy DG, and who promoted him.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122659164#Comment_122659164

Ask who?

Here's what you said:

 I have not heard anything from any RTÉ staff member. They all seem to be happily silent over the last decade

As the photo and article show that is patently untrue even if you move the goalposts to say that is the Union.

Emma O'Kelly's job is in the Education dept. She cannot use the publicity that gives her to voice her criticism or to ask questions. Same for the other staffers. Union reps would be asking questions staffers have and we would not necessarily be privy to those.

It's a ridiculous complaint tbh.

RoTelly

Emma O'Kelly starts of about the woes of Researchers in RTÉ (Low paid workers, what is a researchers pay grade?).

She then suggests how staff are working towards a strong service while others in the organization in leadership roles were not. (A decade and no-one put up their hand to say, hold on this is crap, rather "why do we have to return to the office?").

She then starts getting on the same line as the executive boards and leadership teams, even quotes Mr. Willie O'Reilly.

We always knew that RTÉ’s dual funding model — combining commercial revenue with TV licence funding — contained a conflict, but now it seems that commercial interests have won out at the expense of staff and viewing public alike.

Former group commercial director of RTÉ Willie O’Reilly told Morning Ireland yesterday that RTÉ “has become increasingly dependent on commercial revenue”.

“If the money doesn’t come in, the programmes don’t get made,” he said.

RTÉ published a new public service statement in March that states that it is “independent of political, commercial and other interests”. But when programme presenters are driving around in cars provided by commercial sponsors and RTÉ is using taxpayers’ money to wine and dine advertising executives, can the broadcaster really say that?

This is the RTÉ line and always was, what happened? or what just happened for the Union to come around to RTÉ's view?

The TV licence fee has long been unfit for purpose

Dee Forbes and Moya Doherty said it for years. Changing the fee does not change RTÉ.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122659205#Comment_122659205

Ask the Director General or the Leadership team, simply

1. Why was a promotion given to Mr. Lynch during this period and is there a need for a Deputy DG?
2. Why was Mr. Shortt promoted to a position of Company Secretary? A position that is key to governance when he sat on the board of directors during a period of lacked governance.

Those are simple questions.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122659245#Comment_122659245

How do you know those questions haven't been asked via their Union?
How do you know staffers are even concerned about it?

You think there is an onus on staffers to comment publicly on the service provided? There is no onus on staff anywhere else to comment on the service their workplace provides, Eir, Google, Intel, or Joe Bloggs Engineering etc. Why would there be an onus on RTE staff?

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122659255#Comment_122659255

I don't because they are silent on the answers!

So staffers aren't concerned that a member of Dee Forbes executive board has been given a promotion? The same executive board that saw 50% of its members leave the organisation! If they aren't they should be.

So staffers are not concerned that a member of the Board of RTÉ who was supposed to represent them as a Director of the company and who was supposed ensure good governance has now been promoted to company secretary … if they aren't they should be.

I am not suggesting that is an onus, but its very quiet from all staff and former staff, no protests outside RTÉ lately!

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122659308#Comment_122659308

In what other company would you hear stuff like that publicly only through a Union. If there is no onus then there is no legitimate complaint.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40871843.html

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2022/0513/1297869-rte-unions/

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122659346#Comment_122659346

I am not suggesting there is an onus, I just think its hard to believe that Union and staff have largely been quite over the years on most issues surrounding RTÉ and that you rarely hear anything bad said about RTÉ by staff. Its a cushy number and Ms O'Kelly honestly believes that RTÉ do a good job as a public service broadcaster, its purely management at fault.

My point is if things were getting so bad, why weren't concerns raised, they seem surprised by the revelations.

Two complains you have put forward a job going for €150k and whether or not people return to the office.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122659408#Comment_122659408

Well who knew of the excesses and misses of Management?

It is possible to have the view that RTE has fulfilled it's remit as a public service broadcaster well while being critical of management and board. Many inside and outside RTE believe that.

P.S. If you are criticising staff for not speaking out then you clearly believe there is an onus on them to speak out publicly.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122659435#Comment_122659435

In 2016 Dee Forbes joined RTÉ from Discovery Inc. She had spent her time there between Cork, London and Scandinavian countries. On her arrival "back" to Ireland she was given a €50k moving fee, in a company that continually called for more money.

On top of this every DG was give a Car Allowance of €25K each year, all of whom would circle the wagons in Oireachtas committees to say they didn't have enough money.

They cut children's content (though highlight by the union in fairness), saying that they would not cut. Since 2011 2FM has been funded via the licence fee, with no cuts made to the service during the last 13 years, yet Drama was cut back, and Comedy is none existent.

Cuts to news programming on TV and on Radio, suggesting a move online (didn't happen).

A summer holiday every August and a part-time day time show that has just return to air after a 4 month break.

They held fast on the Toy Show the musical until the Tubriby wages were reassessed. Not one of the board would have even looked in to the Musical it had largely been put to rest as far as the Executive and Board were concerned.

There is a litany of things that happened over the last number of years.

No onus but a little bit of questioning wouldn't be hard.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122659467#Comment_122659467

The info about RTE excesses had to be pried out of them with a crowbar. Yet you expected ordinary staffers to be aware of it all. Even if they did know you expect them to speak out even having seen what happens to whistleblowers in this country if they are isolated voices.
Crazy and just wrong.

No other staff of similar organisations would be criticised in this way.

Not the forum to be getting into what happened in RTE, so I'll leave it there.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122659497#Comment_122659497

All of what I said was publicly available prior to the scandal. You just have to read their annual reports and their press releases.

While RTÉ themselves have an investigations team and a current affairs team, the best the could must muster was a Prime Time special were RTÉ pretended they were closing Lyric FM, something during the report no one pointed out RTÉ couldn't unilaterally do.

Brendan Bendar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122659514#Comment_122659514

Spot on Ro, the staff as professional journalists were quite happy ,it would appear, to turn a blind eye to the goings on in RTE, whilst appearing to have plenty of time to scrutinise other companies and state bodies.

Even in the Birthday Gate controversy they circled the wagons and refused to come forward.

RoTelly

It is possible to have the view that RTE has fulfilled it's remit as a public service broadcaster well while being critical of management and board. Many inside and outside RTE believe that.

@FrancieBrady many might but they be hard pressed to prove it. and I will leave it at that.