Rather than clutter up the noble Tonight’s TV thread with gripes about our national broadcaster I propose we log them here. A particularly shambolic Christmas period for RTÉ has moved me to this action.
I know there are budget constraints but the following recent developments are unacceptable:
Repeating shows almost immediately. The inaccurately titled Phil Coulter - For One Night Only was of course repeated less than a week after being first broadcast. It didn’t help that it was an utter cuntfest in the first place with Gaybo and Phil at their condescending and patronising best. Both times it was given a prime slot on RTÉ 1 on a major night for TV over the Christmas period.
Similarly, Joe Duffy had a radio broadcast about remembering those who passed in 2013. It was broken up into parts originally but I managed to catch it in those fragments and then again twice in an omnibus style broadcast. Again all within the space of a week.
Sharing output with other stations. TV3 is usually dreadful for this but Christmas Day on RTÉ 1 was particularly bad with Eastenders (as usual) "competing’ against BBC1’s broadcast of the same show and then Mrs Brown’s Boys following straight after in the exact same manner on both stations. If you’re going to buy in content from channels widely available in Ireland then at least offer it at different times and try and offer something creative or worthwhile on Christmas Day.
Advertising rates have obviously plummeted but something needs to be done about the open access policy to advertisers on RTÉ who are capitalising on these cheap rates. Horrific ads for The Strawberry Alarm Clock and shitty pretend colleges and the likes shouldn’t be allowed if they’re to continue to receive a license fee. If the public aren’t subsiding programme making, which is obviously the case, then at least we should be spared cheap ads for gaudy products.
I posted about it last night but Next Year’s News had to be seen to be believed. It was embarrassing and shameful and would have been turned down by 3e. Of course the usual talentless gang of PJ Gallagher and Neil Delamere and other random cheap humourless and intellectually challenges comedians were involved.
And in a lovely callback to the first point above I had the misfortune to catch a few minutes of a radio show on RTÉ Radio 1 earlier in the day which was imaginatively also titled Next Year’s News and featured 80% of the same cast in the exact same format. This was scripted “panel” comedy and it was ear-achingly awful.
I was lucky to avoid seeing Totes Amazeballs and #MissingYou but their titles alone should have ended the careers of anyone involved in making, screening or funding those shows.
And some more general points unrelated to this period:
Miriam O’Callaghan is crap. She’s shit at the soft stuff with her faux endearing personality which comes across as patronising and sickeningly sweet. Then she tries to be serious too, completely undermined by her entertainment role and by her prejudices and favouritism and her inability to interview without deviating from pre-prepared questions. She has exhausted every possible format in that filler hour on Sunday morning that she seems contractually entitled to fill with whatever horseshit she comes up with to interview the less than famous and irrelevant folk that are willing to share their time.
The nepotism which exists in that organisation. Once you get your foot in the door it seems you are there for life. Tubridy has his pops to thank for making it.
Lottie Ryan will have her own show shortly too no doubt.
[quote=“dodgy-keeper, post: 880867, member: 1552”]The nepotism which exists in that organisation. Once you get your foot in the door it seems you are there for life. Tubridy has his pops to thank for making it.
Lottie Ryan will have her own show shortly too no doubt.[/quote]
This is ireland DK,RTE minds me of the civil service
I know, there seems to be little accountability. Once you get a position you are there indefinitely, irrespective of performance. Michael Lyster has had the Sunday Game gig for about thirty years at this stage. Nice lad but anytime a debate threatens to get interesting he cuts it off. Never any new blood thrown in. Des Cahill is another RTE “personality” living on easy street, that his knowledge of sport is fairly limited matters not a whit. Crack a few lame gags and you have the hefty pension in the bag.
Joe Duffy took the biscuit last night whinging about politicians on cushy pensions and criticizing the “people” who allow this travesty to continue. Did he he think they were off air or something? cos if not, somebody needs to talk to Joe.
[quote=“TheUlteriorMotive, post: 880941, member: 2272”]Brendan O’Connor hosts the prime time Saturday night RTE TV show. How?
On the other hand radio broadcasting has become reading out text messages - Ray d’arcy show (not on RTE) worst for this.[/quote]
It used to be about Gay Byrne reading out letters from frustrated oul wans from down the country. What’s the difference?
They are a shower of conservative bastards happy to be the lap dogs of FG/FF and their conservative regimes. They never report the real news and just like our government ministers they are happy to carry out a Sinn Fein assassinations at any chance and to cover up what is really going on.
Fagan, Ray is a TFK Cunt of the Year and therefore deserves nothing but scorn. Your dissent is welcome on other matters, please fall into line on this topic however.
I mentioned this before but there’s a ‘new’ Hidden Camera show launching on RTE after Christmas. The ad features Marty Morrissey. This is something like the 5th or 6th different Hidden Camera show on RTE in the last 3 years-ish. None of them have been any use so why are they persisted with?