RTE News - Ireland

I think in-vision forecasts were introduced last year.

That has been going on for a while now, I can't give you an exact time but I'd guess around 6 to 9 months ago give or take. It used to be just weather charts but then they started to get Nuala Carey and the likes to do it as Gaeilge . Not a bad idea but a bit superfluous really - substituting a fluent native voice-over for a non-native leaving cert-standard in-vision speaker. I'd have left it as it was - the weather presenters don't do themselves any favours and their Irish certainly does not look good alongside Siún's. At least they're trying though!

EDIT: Beaten to it!

As a slight aside, I wonder if this relaunch will coincide with the rumoured launch of RTE Player, their URL is now password protected. http://www.rte.ie/player. It's meant to have been built, tested, just waiting for the new year to launch.

It's very hard to take RTE seriously as a national broadcaster when they continue to re-show Friday's The Afternoon Show on a Monday morning complete with presenters talking about events coming up that weekend which has been and gone by Monday morning.
RTE is - and continues to be - a bad Irish joke.

It would be nice for RTE to have a decent breakfast service. Even have news bulletins on the hour and half hour and fill in the gaps with some kids programmes instead of lumping it all in The Deen on RTE2.

RTE can produce a breakfast programme during the Olympics, why not for all the time?

Surley making a breakfast programme can be done cheaply? They could just use the main news studio like Sky News does for Sunrise.

Seeing that it took RTE ages to gain proper daytime tv, it only started broadcasting from 1pm in 1988 and from 9am around 1995, it probably will never happen.

Nice to See Una presenting the 2008 News in Review on the streets
of Dublin!

Yep! She was great. Very professional while also oozing that personable charm of hers. The female version of Dobbo in many respects - one of the reasons they went so well together. I hope she makes the return to Six One.

I suspect the €5 million investment is much more broad-ranging than just the studio. Media spinning such as the Mail's sensationalist article can lead one to believe that such enormous sums are being lavished on a desk and a couple of sheets of perspex. The reality is that effectively half the first floor of the enormous Television Building is occupied by the Newsroom, little of which has seen substantial investment over the past 48 years. Any high-spec commercial office fitout alone in any building can easily enter into several millions, never mind having an international standard broadcast facility tacked on for good measure.

Therefore, if the Newsroom proper is to be integrated more closely with the studio, it has to be made presentable (and in any event requires the investment independent of this). Similarly I suspect edit suites, transfer systems and all facilities and communications require a substantial overhaul to bring them in line with modern newsgathering practices, never mind the requirements of HD (and even, one imagines at this late stage, 16:9).

The cost of all of this, in addition to a high-spec new studio - incidentally the first new television studio to be built/significantly adapted in RTÉ since 1994 - would easily hit the €5 million mark. The fact that viewers will actually get real bang for their buck on this, with very tangible on-screen results - is not something to complain about.

Here's Norway's NRK's main evening bulletin at 11pm. Some high gloss icy themes that work with a small space extremely well, comparable in size to what RTÉ will soon have. Just a bit bland and dull.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySSWd61YA5o&feature=related


It'll be interesting to see if RTÉ eventually invest in a secondary current affairs studio like the BBC, from which Prime Time, TWIP and any additional similar programmes such as The View may be broadcast. Given the small scale of their existing operations, and their inherent flexibility as the only television studio complex in Ireland, one suspects not. I suspect TWIP may use the new news facility, but if that single show's requirements cramps its style (akin afterall to adapting News 24 for Hard Halk) then it should be reconsidered.

If we hypothetically were to slightly alter the newsreader line-up, I'd like to see the following:
06:00-09:00 - RTÉ Daybreak (or some name along those lines) with Sharon and Anthony
13:00 - RTÉ News at 1; alternating between John and Aonghus
18:01 - RTÉ News at 6.01; with Brian and Úna
21:00 - RTÉ News at 9; alternating between Eileen and Ken
23:00 - RTÉ News at 11 (on RTÉ Two); alternating between Eileen W and Eamon Horan

I would banish Anne to relief work, and as you can see above, give Eamon the big chair. His style would very much suit a bulletin on RTÉ Two aimed at a younger audience. I would still keep this bulletin in the same style as the others, but model it on a late-evening Sky news-like bulletin with discussions and a paper preview - IE a more relaxed nine o'clock bulletin but still with a formal approach if you know what I mean. And I'd include a breakfast news programme to give people an alternative to the mind-numbing fluff that is IrelandAM. Set in the new studio, I'd have regular updates/summaries from the desk and interviews/discussions from a sofa area (if the new studio is big enough to accommodate it). I think Sharon and Anthony would be a perfect pair to present it - the only other place I'd like to see Anthony is on 6.01 or the 9 but that won't happen in the near future so I'll put him here for now.

Interesting insight you have there as always RTÉ 1, I do hope that we can see the changes very much in terms of production values of all kinds - IE content and presentation. I must say though, I think production values have increased immensely over the last 2 years. I don't watch as much as I used to, but things seem to go wrong far less often and as we said before, the set held up very well considering. I hope they carry all of these impvovements through to the next pakage. More than likely we'll see the launch of a semi-rolling news channel soon IE RTÉ News Now will be on DTT this year if all goes to plan. I hope they change the name though, RTÉ News would be sufficient IMO.

How about this for a presenter line up!!!

06:00-09:00- RTÉ Daybreak
Presented by Sharon Ni Bheolain & Mark Little
with Eamon Horan on Sports Desk
Nuacht AM - with Siun (also fills in for Sharon)
Business - Robert Shortt

13:00 - RTÉ News at 1
Presented by John Finnerty
Nuacht with Roisin Ni Eadhra

18:01 - RTÉ News at 6.01; with Brian and Úna

21:00 - RTÉ News at 9
with Anne Doyle & Anthony Murnane (someone needs to be able to walk about the studio)


23:00 - RTÉ News at 11 (on RTÉ Two);
Eileen Whelan & Robert Short

Interesting thoughts. Only I doubt the resources, or indeed the requirement, is there to necessitate so many staff on at Breakfast. More than likely there'd be two presenters introducing reports which would include the likes of business and sport, rather than requiring members of staff to be available for transmission.

Sharon and Anthony are an excellent pairing there's no doubt - I agree that Breakfast would be perfectly suited to them. It would be the ideal - how can we put this delicately - 'substitute' position for Sharon after the bright lights of Six One, without putting anyone's nose out. Similarly, it would result in an established and highly competent coupling to front the new venture.

Without question Aengus must be moved from the schedule at all costs, or limited to Irish broadcasts only. He is preposterously incompetent as an Englsh language newscaster, radio or television. One should be the reserve of John Finnerty, Eileen Dunne or Ken Hammond. As for Siún, sorry, but she's the female equivalent to Aengus. Fair enough, she looks great, but the job is to read English language news competently and professionally. She simply cannot handle formal English speech. She can't even pronounce 'news' for goodness sake! Also fluffs every link she does. Sorry but Irish language broadcasts only, or else more conversational programmes.

Six One definitely Bryan and Una. No contest other than Sharon and Anthony.

Nine. Now here's the thing - when Anne is good, she's truly excellent. When she's bad, good god she's appalling. And alas, the latter is increasingly the case. I wouldn't want to write her off just yet, but she really needs to be upskilled, and stop falling back on the 'old guard' excuse with her complete lack of engagement with items, interviewees, and increasingly even with the story she's reading. It's got so bad now her eyes often drag across the autocue. She really needs to invest in her career. It doesn't mean losing that wonderful austerity and sophistication - it just means engaging more with your job.

I'd retain Anne for Nine, and interchange her with Ken Hammond - another contender for signifcant upskilling. Wonderfully distinguished, but often completely out of his depth, Ken needs some 'working on' too. Having both Anne and Eileen on Nine is too samey and somewhat tired.

The only problem with Anthony and Sharon on Breakfast is that a key team is taken from a proper Evening News over on Two. Still, 100% agreed that Eamon is more than capable as a newscaster proper, with excellent broadcasting skills. He knows the game, and works the studio superbly. Alas there is extremely little female talent worthy of note in the Newsroom - some recruiting may be in order. Jumped up reporter does not necessarily a newsreader make!


As an aside, did anyone notice the truly remarkable scene played out on Nine this evening?! Probably for the first time in broadcasting history (on this side of the Atlantic anyway) Anne was shot for the whole bulletin deliberately out of focus to ease the dodgy lighting on her face! An absolutely extraordinary development that any director or broadcast professional worth their salt simply would not tolerate. Poor lighting skills are inexcusable - it's not up to the camera division to correct their faults. The cuts to crisp wides and Tony's camera and then back to Vaselineland were hilarious.

Clearly Anne is very aware of her compromised appearance under those lights. Indeed a number of the newsreaders are - Eileen Dunne's make-up has suddenly changed completely to a thicker glossy composition which is emminently more suited to those lighting conditions.

Off-topic for a moment, a significant change in the line up of Irish broadcasters today as TV3 and Channel 6 rebrand themselves. TV3 launches its new on-air look during the break in the 5:30 bulletin, while Channel 6 will be known as 3e from today. The photo in the Indo would suggest the new TV3 logo will follow the look of the TV3 News identity.

Irish Independent article:
http://www.independent.ie/business/media/new-3e-station-joins-ratings-battle-1592118.html

Irish Times article: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0105/1230936655682.html

Has TV3 decided to cancel their weekend news output and opt for a 3 min summary at around 5.30pm. Why?

I have liked their 5.30pm weekend bulletin, I always thought it was a shame they could not do a proper service for weekends, like having Ireland AM on maybe from 7am-9am on Sats and Suns?

Where I live it is very hard to get TV3 as Sky block it and my analogue signal is poor to say the least, but I just clicked over one night and was surprised at no proper 5.30 bulletin.