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

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.

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."

I very much doubt that Callan is one of the great political thinkers of our time. Some people who spend all day talking about it seem to be ones who know the least about it. The equivalent of the lad up on the barstool admonishing elite football stars.

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.

How would you prove it isn't? Attacking individual programmes doesn't really cut it.

By comparison to like sized countries RTE's output across a wide range of programming compares favourably imo. Has it's faults as well.

Wha?

Very much a case of an unstoppable force meets an immovable object around here now. Tbh, listening to Callan’s Kicks would be preferable to reading it.

Did I ever say it was anything but my opinion? But I hope I back that opinion up by some fact that lead me to the conclusion that it is a failed broadcaster.

I don't know how you have come to the conclusion that the majority of RTÉ consumers are happy with the service they provide.

And what do you mean by RTÉ consumers, those that use their service or those that pay for the service via the licence fee and taxation?

For example I don't consume Children's Content on RTÉ but I know it is important, but I also know that RTÉ have let it down over the last 2 decades or more in terms of funding.

RTÉ was never that popular to begin with. Both RTÉ Radio 1 and RTÉ 1 are the traditional local TV channels, it never had commercial competition from independents (though in more recent years Radio 1 has seen a competitor in NewsTALK). UTV was always the most popular channel in Norther Ireland for this localization.

From the beginning audience began looking for alternatives to RTÉ on TV. Aerials were erected across the board counties and east coast to pick up reception from BBC and ITV, this lead to the development of cable across Dublin, with a hodge podge of local cable operators (ultimately merging in the 2000s to be come UPC and Chorus) and within that I could go on about the arrival in rural areas of MMDS. By the late 1970s RTÉ had introduced RTÉ2, its purpose to provide the best of British TV to audiences in the south of the country, by the 1980s Cork and Limerick begin to get cabled and the direction of the second channel slightly changes.

Similar examples of cabelisation of countries can be seen in countries that sit beside larger countries that speak the same language, but for Ireland to go with them just for TV!

2FM is set up to fend of the popularity of the Pirates by the late 1970s and this continues into the 1980s with the arrive of Independent TV and Radio contracts.

Local Radio is a hit, why because it lies in a small market with only 3 other options (one of which is an Irish language option). Much like RTÉ Radio 1, Local Radio has the local ear. Audience want to hear about their regional news and their national news, so RTÉ Radio is a go to, as is local Radio. National Commercial radio was a difficult set up, with century radio failing and Radio Ireland eventual becoming Today FM to compete with 2FM.

Over the last 25 years RTÉ 1 audience has ranged from 18% to 25%, but this isn't far of what it was getting in the 1990s with less competition. RTÉ2 on the other had has seen a massive fall in audience, once at 10% until 2006, without sport it can sometime only muster 4% share. You might argue that this is due to online competition, but just look at the direction of the second channel and consider, while audience switch of TV RTÉ2 has lost a further audience. Irish TV get between 48% and 51% of the audience across 14 channels, a similar market share to what 4 channels were once getting). And whether you like it or not VMTV/TV3 channels are ITV channels so RTÉ and TG4 really only make up 25% - 30% of the TV audience (3 of those channels are simply +1s).

RTÉ radio is in a similar situation, Dubliners in particular were tuning into BBC Radio, while many were tuning to Radio Luxembourg for the top 40. Followed by local pirates. Local Radio makes up 50% of the audience in many regions, RTÉ's total 20%, with 2FM much like its sister TV station seeing flight of its audience.

Though I expect that many here still believe that only by paying high wages could RTÉ Radio and TV retain the audience that they continue to have.

As for the 20% of the people who would like to see RTÉ gone, how was the question put. For example if the option was to Keep RTÉ or to drop RTÉ, I would keep it, but if someone said Split it up like they did with FAS, I choose splitting it up.

RTÉ is not strong public service broadcasting, it never was. And Irish TV is pretty shite.

And that is failing to mention the 15% of people who even before the scandal did not want to pay the TV license many I believe refused to pay due to RTÉ not a dislike of Public service broadcasting. (While the extra numbers have yet to be brought back up and even the government has decided that the 85% figure of people paying will not return over the next 3 years).

Would you prefer a presenter with a strong Monaghan accent, Bobson?

A lot of folk talk that way over around Inniskeen, much further south and east than Clones. I was listening to Callan a while before I realised he was lucky enough to be a Monaghan man.

Annual commitments of RTÉ (or annual perception of RTÉ …put out by RTÉ)

2023

Maintain public perception that RTÉ has high quality content and services at >75%
Commitment not achieved. 58% of Irish adults agreed

Maintain average weekly reach for all RTÉ services at or above 90% (18–34)
Commitment not achieved. Average weekly reach was 74%. This is then followed by an excuse !

Maintain public perception that RTÉ programmes and services are easily accessible on a range of devices at >70%
Commitment largely achieved. 68% of Irish adults agreed.

Maintain public perception that RTÉ provides trusted N&CA at >80%

Commitment not achieved. 70% of Irish adults agreed, which is just marginally behind 2022’s score of 72%. Trust in N&CA dipped in Q3 2023 however rebounded well in Q4.

Maintain public perception that RTÉ is trustworthy at >75%
Commitment not achieved. 52% of Irish adults agreed

These are not commitments, a commitment would be to say you going to do something not to make people think you are doing something.

And also RTÉ in 2022 said

Maintain public perception that RTÉ has high quality content and services at >75%
Commitment not achieved. 63% of Irish adults agreed. See contextual commentary in Introduction.

And even contextual speaking in 2021 (of which there is no context)

Maintain public perception that RTÉ has high quality content and services at >75%

Commitment not achieved. 65% of Irish adults agreed. See contextual commentary in Introduction.

These are reported by RTÉ themselves and a question has to be asked as to how they came to their 58% - 65% conclusion. They are perceptions as I say not commitments.

For example I you might perceive this post to be way off topic, but I am committed to the view that 85% of people reading this post think it is relevant! I am sure I have not met that committed perception and much like RTÉ.

Wha!

Thought his 'wings' had been clipped?

Cue Francie.

Harsh, Brenner.

Didn't listen this AM Brian.

Has the lad we were breathlessly told had his 'wings clipped' gone rogue again? 😁