RTE Gold discussion thread

With the exception of Ronan Collins, I think the weekday presenter led programming is live. If they didn't get John Kenny it would be Aidan Leonard, Al Dunne or Amanda Fennelly. I think the time slot 1-4 pm is suitable to John Kenny and his filling in was arranged weeks before Rick O'Shea took time off. The not giving out WhatsApp / playing requests are probably just his thing. Although last week I'm sure I heard him mentioning some folks in relation to a request. But then again I really wasn't taking much notice.

I don't listen to RTE Radio 1 so could be way off here, but could it be a possibility that the sports news is recorded whilst he is filling in for Rick O'Shea?

TBH I am a listener to RTE Gold and what you have just mentioned is what I fear. I think any service that is not providing revenue for RTE is going to be a point of focus. It would take an intervention from the minister but Backhurst could make a very strong case for its closure due to RTE's finances. If this does come to pass, hopefully Gold can be saved again.

I think running the automated service RTE Gold is relatively low cost although programmers and presenter salaries would add to that. It must be understood that programmers and weekday presenters are employed by RTE but are dedicated to RTE Gold, so if they were to axe the service they would have to offer redundancies or redeployment. Axing a popular service for demonstration purposes would be silly IMO.

Same here. The show is billed as being "live" and Fanning does make reference to time as in "here till 8 O'clock" but I don't think the show is live. I don't really like Fanning as a presenter tbh and hate when he tends to go on but his links are very brief and they sound kind of engineered in the same way that the Ronan Collins slot sounds. I accept so far he's only just done one slot but again I think ABC to XTC is a super program.

Probably voluntary? Maybe I'm being a bit naive here but they could have produced these programmes before any of the payments controversies broke out. I think this programme may only run for a couple of weeks. IIRC RTE Gold ran a niche specialised programme temporarily last year Sundays 6-7pm.

I don't really consider Ronan Collins as being a full-time RTE Gold presenter as let's say Will Leahy or Rick O'Shea. I think most of Gold's weekend programming is provided voluntarily. Speaking of Ronan Collins, I'm not too sure if he is a direct employee or a contractor. That probably leaves Aidan Leonard, Michael Cahill and a couple of people that are behind the scenes involved in running the stations automation which I would say does not comprise of many. I don't think the folks involved with Gold are on big salaries and if anyone is they were on those levels of pay before they were deployed to RTE Gold.

Considering any faults that RTE Gold may have generally, I still believe it's one of the things that RTE got right. Radio stations carrying similar formats around the country are poor imitations IMO. And in fairness it's thanks to people such as John Clarke and Aidan Leonard.