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

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

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.

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, 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.

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.

That whole fabrication might have been funnier in your head.

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.

Like he did yesterday?

😁😁

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.

The Kamala texters will be busy again this AM 😁

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

…and doesn't listen to the show. 😁

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.