An Irish 24 hour news channel

I was just wondering how people think an Irish 24 hour news channel could be run.

In a country like Ireland, there's obviously only room for one. And most people think it should definately be run by RTE, if it opens at all.

But has anyone considered that INN (Independent Network News, who make late night national news bulletins for local radio stations)'s radio bulletins are about as good as RTE? I think that a group like INN would be perfect to run a 24 hour news channel (backed by Sky, TV3 or NTL/Chorus to make the TV part possible).

INN already has correspondants all over the country thanks to the news teams of 40 radio stations, and apparently RTE had considered a system where reporters could film and edit their own reports as well as doing live link ups if a news channel was to open. Surely INN could do the same?

It wouldn't be that difficult to run a EuroNews style channel for most of the day with formatted bulletins in the early morning, lunchtime and afternoon, with rolling news from 5pm - 10/11pm, would it?

Anyway, what does anyone else think?

EDIT : You're probably thinking of what happened to Sky News, but starting one bulletin half way through RTE's Six One wasn't a great idea. And the second one should have been at 9pm, or something like 8.45 to 9.15 to grabn viewers before RTE's Nine news started, just like TV3 do by running the 5.30 news for a few minutes after Six One starts.

I don't know if a radio news company such as INN would be suitable for running a TV channel. It's the same as IRN (Independant Radio News) here in the UK, when it comes to radio they know extremely well what they are doing, but if they were told to start a 24 hour TV news channel, they would have no idea where to start.

But even short updates with an announcer reading the story over video/maps would work in Ireland, simply because it had the advantage of being irish and being on all the time. And they operate around the clock as it is...

How about ITN, just upstairs in the same building?

Actually, naah...You're right. No clue

As you said, the first thought is Sky News so the answer is no.


But if it came from someone like RTE, which has the estabhlished news organisation, it might have a better chance - though I'm not completly convinced.

I think they'd have to do it in partnership with an existing bigger news network, perhaps someone like Sky or CNN, having their own opt outs on the channel.

I think that the only major stumbling block in the opening of an Irish 24 hour news channel is the investment in a breakfast news programme by RTÉ.

If RTÉ was in a position to produce a breakfast news programme (simulcast on RTÉ One), and to employ a few people to rehash a news bulletin on the hour, a news channel would be quite possible. BBC World news bulletins could be shown on the half hour and the One, Six One and Nine O' Clock bulletins could be simulcast with RTÉ One.

Though this may seem like aiming low, it would at least be a respectable 24-hour news service for Ireland, and would be a decent start. The breakfast news programme would indeed be progress. Realistically, this is all RTÉ will be able to achieve in the near future.

Possible opportunites for the distant future could include; further programming by the Six One team at 5 or 7 O' Clock, more programming from the Prime Time team (possibly simulcast on RTÉ Two, a la Newsnight), Irish language simulcasts on TG4 and a continuation of morning programmes (like Sky News Today).

The bulletin running a few minutes over is not to stop people flicking over - if people wanted to, they would switch at 6.01. Its to allow the following programme to fit in to the schedule (which is sometimes a 25 minute programme) and to get the 6.30 update started on time without endless promos which would risk a viewers to change over.

That's why you'll see sometimes the bulletin finishes sometimes before 6.00 and sometimes after - it just depends on content after, what news is going on and what the producers agree with the scheduling team

I don't think an Irish news channel work work, unless it was backed by a larger international one - Ireland has a quite small population, so it could work like in New Zealand - Sky News Australia (which has a lot of SNUK stuff as well) most of the time, with local programmes shown as an opt-out at various times.

But Sky News Ireland has come and gone, so I doubt it would be exactly the same.

But Sky News Ireland's downfall was timing - going head to head with RTE at 6.30 and repeating what RTE have just shown at 10pm was just never going to work. Sky News Australia is on for most of Prime Time, rather than just going head to head against the main commerical networks. SNA NZ isn't as popular because most of its broadcasts are repeats of bulletins from TVNZ, Prime, TV3 (NZ) etc.

It's true that the breakfast show on RTE would be a stepping stone to a 24 hour news channel. I also think that the One News should be made longer than 12 minutes (that wouldn't be hard if the news stories had been coming in since 6am) and (yes, I've posted it before) I think that running a show on RTE One from 4.30 or 5pm until 7, incorporating the old Six One, Nuacht, News for the Deaf, features from Seoige and O'Shea (with more time for discussion), headlines on the half hour and even something like Nationwide of Capital D would also bring RTE closer to rolling news. (It would be worth losing the highly popular "The Bill"...) THE OBLIGATORY EDIT : I know the BBC's ill-fated "Sixty Minutes" springs to mind, but...

Back to the INN thing, I understand that a radio broadcaster might not be great at running a TV news station, but after that bus crash in Navan, Meath 2 years ago, Sky News was the first broadcaster with pictures thanks to a link up with an LMFM reporter with a 3G phone - so it's not impossible.

Also, maybe an Irish news channel could try broadcasting the state TV news programmes from Poland, China etc, just for a test period. It would fill 30 mins of airtime and would probably be popular because of Ireland's large Polish and Chinese communities. If not, they could be scrapped.

I do like the idea of an Irish News Channel but look what happened to ITV News Channel. I think the same would happen to an RTE News Channel?

Look at how RTE do news today. They seem so infantile compaired to BBC News, ITV News, Channel 4 News and even Five News in the UK.

If INN were to do this it would be a huge task as they have only been making news for radio stations, they would need a lot of training from ITN, Sky etc.

Overall an Irish News Channel would be good but I think more money should be spent on improving the current Irish TV News like introducing a Breakfast News on RTE1.

That was done before in the form of Ireland Live Television News. And it was dire. If RTÉ wanted to do an interactive service on DTT where a Headline screen operated a la Sky News Active or BBCi, then that would work well. But a 24-hour dedicated news channel - and I do think it could work - has to be done properly.



I'm not sure that's true. I kept an eye on RTÉ, TV3 and Sky News that day. RTÉ pipped Sky News to the post, and TV3 followed shortly afterwards. Sky News was first with information naturally enough, and had live updates via phone from "Nah-van".

That's not a bad idea - cheap and pretty easy to do.

Actually I think if regional news ever crept into 24 hour television that would be the way to go - it be much easier to fill and update a short bulletin every hour than having to prepare a 30-minute programme every day. Take out the filler features of most regional news programmes anyway and you'd be left with about 10 minutes of actual news!