Election 2014

In the Republic we don't vote until Friday and we never (well apart from once a few years back when we trialled electronic voting) do overnight counts, so Saturday's when coverage starts for the council elections (and by-elections in two constituencies). RTÉ's running coverage with a lunchtime programme, a longer programme on Saturday afternoon from 16:00-18:00 and another programme from 12:00 - 14:00 on Sunday (The Week in Politics would normally be on air in this timeslot anyway). There's another programme then for the European elections on Sunday night at 21:30 - 23:45 (as mentioned previously, no country can announce its results in the European elections until then which means in Ireland with PR-STV we can only announce First Counts at that stage though no doubt tallies will be available on Sunday).

Worth noting that TV3 is doing nothing. They have recently taken the decision to drop what remaining news summaries they were running at weekends so now their news department closes from Friday night until Monday morning.

UTV is running an election special on Saturday lunchtime from 12:20 - 15:05. The number of district councils is being reduced from 26 to 11 so this is an interesting one although surely Saturday is fairly late (even with PR-STV being used) as most council results will be done by then???

I'm a bit out of the loop these days. Which studio after they in? Somewhere at Elstree?

Definitely Elstree. Not sure whether it's D or one of the converted film stages. It's the set they used for the last General Election so (assuming they are using the whole set) it'll need to be somewhere TC1-ish in size.

Do we know what RTE will be doing for the next General Election? I think they used TC5 in recent years. Obviously for this week they have their own domestic interest in the Euro elections to cover so probably won't need a large London operation.

Don't really get why the BBC would be giving it the full general election treatment. Not even the candidates around here give a toss about it - we've had zero literature.

The rise of UKIP, or not as the case may be, is really the only Great Britain story RTÉ will probably be looking at for these elections. I wouldn't say they'll send more than a correspondent and camera crew to London.

As for the next UK General Election, doubt even they know at this stage, that's twelve months away.

By some spots that appeared on the RTÉ News Now sidebars, it looks like the Election 2011 graphics will be getting another outing again this year.

Plenty of literature here. Even so, it's a convenient opportunity to iron out any wrinkles associated with using Elstree for the first time before the big one next year - especially when for the first time in a long time they are not on the same site as the newsroom.

I suppose given the 'sensitivity' that the BBC has these days over it's frozen funding (and the no doubt criticism it will get from certain quarters whatever it does for it's coverage) that the 2010 set will be used again next year for the GE.

Interesting that theres been limited activity in Wales. Here in Scotland we've had a fair amount of TV coverage and I've received literature from every party (even the BNP! 😱 )

The parties seem to have tagart leaflet drops as not all areas are getting them, same also applies to TV and radio coverage.

The only literature I've received is from Labour and UKIP. The other parties have been non existent.

What I saw on TV the other was interesting though, the SNP had a slot for a PEB obviously for the election tomorrow but it was just their independence video. Not exactly begging for the euro vote is it?

Is that even allowed? as its not covering the subject in hand?

Plenty of interest here in Birmingham where the local election has turned into an unofficial "garden tax" referendum, and the European election has seen some very intense campaigning by the smaller parties.