RTÉ News

LOL

Must have turned off with the sport as usual as I never heard that!
That's the funniest thing ever! - she's chatting away to Justin with some anecdote like "there wasn't very much - Radio Éireann was playing you know, probably one since or something but anyway, the lad said [something inaudible], and the Pope says...."

Brilliant! So Anne does get on well with the sports lads on Sundays - aways wondered that!
No doubt she has many a filthy anecdote - she's a 'real live wire' as they say, in real life.

What idiots in the gallery.

It's here - scroll to 14.53:

http://dynamic.rte.ie/av/2090673.smil

I saw the promo for RTÉ News a few nights ago that's been on air intermittently for about 6 months. I wonder is the graphic at the end something like we'll see when they re-launch? It looks fairly nice - its clean and smart-looking. The only thing - its monotonously blue. If they were to throw in a bit of colour into it I think it would make a great graphics package and with a good set it could look a thousand times better than what they have now.

RTE Have a habit of doing stuff like that: showing a logo/look and its 100% different. Can't think of any examples but I know it.

The promo is really good. I Remember on my trip to Galway last month, I seen a large advertisement on a billboard with Brian Dobson part of a blurred crowd, with the caption, "Standing out from the crowd". Looks good!

Hopefully a new look to wow us will be in place soon, I can no longer stand the wood and the yellow. The background could stay but would need to have some movement (like the BBC). More presentation areas other then the desk and the screen. You need more. Aswell as this, some uniqueness to it: BBC Has its modern desk/screens with wooden floors (and wooden presenters), ITV has its theatre of news, C4 has the atrium, sky has well thats a no brainer!
RTE should come up with something interesting!

Only they're so very limited in what they can do in that small space - it's little more than a converted office in size, allbeit professionally fitted out etc. The only way to add dynamism and/or enlarge the space is to use some form of CGI.

Can't agree about needing more presentation areas though - if anything this is the worst aspect of modern news presentation in my view, presenters faffing about the place, strolling around the studio, pratting about in armchairs or sofas, and generally dumbing down news with the use of silly visual distractions.
The stand-up by a screen concept is the only 'alternative' practice that works reasonably well, and even then it ought to be limited I think. The idea of Bryan Dobson or whoever getting up mid-bulletin as per TV3/BBC Six, to stand by a monitor for a certain section of Six One is cringe-inducing. Keep everyone seated!

For One there is some space for maneuver, as with News on Two and summaries...

Yes, saw the Dobson billboard too - looks really good
The News promo is interesting too, with a mixture of animation of sorts, and 'real life'.

Just reading RTÉ's review document of structures in the organisation from 1998, a number of interesting 'issues' arise.
It was at this time floor managers were ditched from all bulletins, hence as we've seen, there's now no one to remove unwanted chairs anymore, no one to tidy cables prior to broadcast, no one to guide guests in mid-broadcast so now they have to be there from the very beginning, sitting like idiots twiddling their thumbs in wide shots, and nobody to generally manage the studio floor and ensure that everything is in order.

Likewise, it is even suggested in the document that the ghastly Single Operator Control Room Studio (SOCR) be used for all One bulletins and all summaries! Indeed throughout the section on News Studio operations, not once is presentation mentioned, but rather the 'efficiency' and 'workability' of the newsroom is top priority. Who gives a damn if production standards go out the window, as long as the SOCR can be 'rolled out as quickly as possible', and as many crappy bulletins as possible be broadcast from it.
Surprised the Six One wasn't suggested as a contender for it too!

Thank goodness much of this was in the dark ages of pre-licence fee increase when cutbacks were being made across the board.
Now at least usually two out of three afternoon summaries come from the proper Studio 3, and all Ones bar the weekends likewise.
Serious improvements must be made to the monstrous SOCR in the revamp - it was even used after the Toy Show last Friday, with the highest television audience of the year watching just prior to it, c1,000,000!

Sorry if this has been discussed on here already, but does anyone know why the late RTE ONE bulletin news titles are in 16:9 before fading into the newscaster in 4:3?

And do these bulletins still come from the presentation studio/modern equivalent?

I've also spotted that some of the dirty marks on the main studio floor have been buffed up this week, still looks bogging though.

If you look closely at the 16:9 news sting, you'll notice that its actually the same as the normal sting but the sides have been stretched to make it look 16:9. Its not as obvious when seen in 14:9L. Look at the image here:
http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/news_sting_169.jpg

As for why they bothered to do that? God only knows!

I'm not too familiar with the setup in RTÉ but AFAIK the late bulletins come from the SOCR (single operator control room). I only know this because Telefís has mentioned it a few times. He'll probably post up more details.

And yes the floor does look a bit cleaner but as far as i'm concerned, the whole set should be binned!

Cheers for that, Phen.

I'm curious as to whether the late bulletins still come from the same area where RTE1's IVC links used to come from, I think that was the case back in the 1990s.

Also, are all of RTE's weather bulletins pre-recorded? The bulletin that followed the late one into A Prayer at Bedtime was the same as the bulletin from c.1855. And I laughed when I spotted one recently with Nuala Carey and she left her two-second pause after "Good evening".

Hopefully we'll see fewer broom-cupboard-style bulletins when (or should I say IF) they relaunch but I don't know much about the way they do them.
As for the weather, I think they all go out live apart from the late one. Usually they get cut off mid-sentence and other times like you said there's an akward pause . Remember a few months ago when they were having major problems during the 6.01 - they accidentally cut to the weather forecaster (Gerry Murphy - a disaster) who was rehearsing at the time and he got such a fright! (There's a link to the bulletin a few pages back.) This seemed to imply that they do indeed do it live.
Telefís is the man to answer your questions properly though. Like I said, he'll probably answer them sometime soon.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I hardly know much more than anyone else - think we all have the same concerns through

Yes all bulletins are live, possibly even including the late nights, but would be open to correction on the latter. If there's the same weathercaster on from say 11am through till 11.30pm then obviously the late is pre-recorded, but often they only come on duty for the afternoon bulletins so it is concievable that the lates are live in that case...


Yes aren't the late news bulletins' graphics just appalling? They've been stretched to within an inch of their lives, and the black bars are so crude.
Like happened with so many programme graphics and astons in RTÉ upon the changeover to widescreen, the 4:3 versions were simply stretched or nastily cropped for 16:9 rather than being redesigned or properly tweaked

The reason the bulletin graphics are in 16:9 Col is that they're played out by Presentation, rather than from the SOCR. That's why there's a fade to black between the tiles and the cut to the newsreader - just like playing out an ident, Pres play the news titles off laserdisk or harddrive and then make the cut to the SOCR with a slight fade to black, as they do introducing most programmes.

Don't know why the SOCR director can't play them out - one less thing for them to worry about I suppose. Why they seem to be in 16:9 letterbox the odd time instead of 14:9 letterbox on analogue goodness only knows....

The early morning bulletins still some from the Pres broom cupboard, which bizarrely is often better looking than the woeful SOCR!

If there is a new scheme to be introduced in the new year, well the upcoming week would be all-telling transition week, so look out for even dodgier production values! Manually operated cameras and zooms, strange lighting and sound, dodgy VT cuts, an absence of wide shots, bizarre aspect ratios and clunky cuts from Pres...

Just as an aside, on Thursday I think it was, all output on RTÉ One was being broadcast in 4:3, from weather to The Afternnon Show, to news bulletins, to idents. Managed to capture this pic of the SOCR or Pres studio - can't remember which. Unusual not only as Bryan is reading, but because of the DOG too - floating! Pres generate the DOG too.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y37/RTE1TV/SOCR.jpg


Also the weather directly afterwards in 4:3 - Pres didn't even bother to ask Evelyn to account for their difficulties and stand further in

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y37/RTE1TV/Weather4-3.jpg

Evelyn has occasionly went off screen even with the wider screen! It's funny

Looks terrible the streched graphics. They should really try and do a better job before the news goes 16:9 for good

God I don't know...it'll be difficult to distinguish between normal and transition week


Was this on digital or analogue? I didn't notice as I had the box set to 4:3 anyway. If it was 4:3 on analogue then the format converter (I think thats what its called) must have been giving trouble.

The floating news DOG is what you get on digital all the time anyway. You're supposed to watch the 4:3 broadcasts in squishy-vision so then the DOG will look normal.

Analogue - not all of us ave succumed to the allure of $ky

Yes Evelyn often goes off acreen in 16:9 too - truly embarassing.

Another feck up at the end of Six One tonight - it seemed nobody knew what the heck was going on for the last report