A general election has been called for May 24th. There's a special news programme on RTE1 at noon this afternoon which I imagine will bring the latest press conferences, election manifestos and reaction etc. The actual election count programmes will take place on a Friday unlike a Saturday last time. Two questions come to mind - Will The Late Late be cancelled? And will TV3 do anything extra for the counts?
RTE would probably put the election coverage on RTE2 or move the Late Late, or there'll be a special edition of
Prime Time
on One.
.
What they have done since at least the mid 80's is to run the election coverage from at a minimum of 3pm till 3am (closedown can vary ,I recall about 5am one election )
Programmes are more or less normal on RTE2
If the Late Late hasn't gone on it's break by then they will cancel it
The problem for The Late Late Show isn't so much that their Friday night slot will be taken, but that Studio 4 will also be occupied for the Election 2007 programme, so there isn't even an option to transmit both (not that it would be done anyway). Last year the Late Late was cancelled for that night (Friday last time round being the polling night rather than the count night), though if I recall correctly it was just deferred for another week.
Having the final Late Late after the election also offers the opportunity to interview the leader/s of the winning administration, and to have a 'debate' item about the future.
A decidely sleepy camera op was sent out to the Áras at the crack of dawn this morning - very poor footage acquired and appallingly edited by Charlie as per usual. It had about as much drama and sense of occasion as a repeat of Fair City.
And one of the biggest Nine bulletins of the year, and they botch up the entire opening sequence. Great work all round.
Unless there's going to be a load of guests (and even then...) why can't the election coverage be broadcast as a News Special from Studio 3 rather than an edition of Prime Time?
Unless there's going to be a load of guests (and even then...) why can't the election coverage be broadcast as a News Special from Studio 3 rather than an edition of Prime Time?
It hasn't been an edition of Prime Time before. It's usually called "Election" (insert year). And usually there are at least two anchors with a different set of pundits around their tables (one normally politicians, one normally pol-corps). I would imagine Miriam O'Callaghan and John Bowman will be main anchors, with Brian Farrell maybe even brought out of retirement (otherwise this will be the first election without him).
Normally for a general election there would be some sort of lunchtime special with the early tallies*, then the main programming beginning at 3-ish (breaking for the Six-One, but then resuming until late) How late it runs at night depends on whether there are any close counts or recounts, but if that's up to returning officers and how late they want to count. Once all counts are either done or adjourned (at least some usually last until the second day) then RTÉ won't continue much longer, coverage could be finished by 11pm theoretically (and that's how long RTÉ will probably put in the schedules, even though they know it will probably run later).
Last year, with electronic voting we had an election night programme for the first time, but I doubt there will be anything except maybe a Prime Time Special around 10:30pm with the exit poll, if there is one. And there should be.
(*For non-Irish people - that is the parties estimates of share of first preferences, based on looking over the barriers and counting No 1s. Completely non-official, but usually reliable).
Indeed considering Prime Time would be broadcast anyway at 9.35pm on Thursday, they'll probably go to air with Election 2007 as of that time with political analysis, discussion on turnout, and preliminary results as rdd mentions. Hence also the first glimpse of the studio at that point
And here's hoping they treat the presentation with a little more finesse than that of last time, which featured abominable opening sequences of a jib arm camera racing astoundingly jerkily across the studio, often over complete silence with no bed to accompany it, and then cutting to presenters standing awkwardly in anticipation of the embarrassing charade coming to a close and their red light coming on.
RTÉ also have a habit of treating large-scale discussion sets with a clunky large-scale approach. Rather than properly designing a large set with well thought out features and small areas of interest, they simply build these ridiculously enormous desks to fill out the studio floor space, and scatter 'feature' timber and perspex panels about a cheap black curtain-draped studio. A little more effort is required methinks...
A little more than the Northern Assembly elections not too long ago, when staff members were constantly walking about the place handing out notes to the presenters. There are other ways of getting that information through - note the way nobody else tried out that technique.
TV3 have Matt Cooper and Eddie Hobbs on board for an election campaign series which starts next week i think.
I hope to god that RTÉ pull out all the stops on this one. Some of the election graphics have been a bit, well, clunky at times. It's the biggest general election in decades, lets hope that the presentation matches the occasion.
As for that opening sequence on the Nine... Scroll to 4:01. And by the way, it's not your PC, Anne's mic actually isn't cut up in time for the start of the bulletin.
Also, the first RTÉ News Election Special (Scroll to 3:50 - note the absence of the closing theme at 1:09:15). News team assemble...
