Scrap RTE 2

  • Thread starter SpagMonster
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SpagMonster

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Can't we save some money by scraping RTE 2, most of the imported content is available on other channels, either TV3 or sky.

We would be better spending the money on developing some better Irish made programs. Atleast this would create some employment and we may even be able to export them.
 

The best thing they do is sport on RTE 2, I think I'd get rid of the TV if I was relying on SKY or TV3 for that
 
Love it. Why has Irish T.V. become so unbelievably crap over the last few years? By crap, I mean painfully imitative of trashy programmes on other stations. I remember a time when I was proud of Irish T.V. - the way Americans are proud of P.B.S. Did anyone see "Blood of the Irish"? Oh my God! - that was 15 minutes of content spread wafer thin over *hours* of air time! The "talent" shows, weight-loss shows, the chat shows with the city skyline in the background - all feeble attempts to imitate rather than create. Have you ever been exposed to an RTE day-time show? It's enough to make your eyes bleed. Perhaps we should set up a separate thread about this in Don't Ask About Money. We could then print it off and send it to RTE as proof that there are people who would like to see quality programming in exchange for their taxes, thanks. By "quality", I mean original, interesting, creative - doesn't have to be serious (am no fuddy duddy). Podge and Rodge are ambassadors! I remain proud of Radio 1 (in spite of Tubridy and Live Line (bring back Marianne!) and TG4. Did the Celtic Tiger chew up the creativity for which we were once renowned as a people? Are we officially dumbed-down to a point of no return? I digress....

In appeciation of the opportunity to rant,
Pukka
 
Having just paid my 160€ TV license fee yesterday I was wondering what do I get in return for this or if this is just another stealth tax just like bin charges.

What bugs me is that RTE is getting money from my license and also ad revenue, so why do I need to pay TV license fee?

Realy, can somebody explain to me (a SKY viewer) what I get for my TV license fee?


I think we should have 1 state sponsored channel (RTE) which works based on the fairness doctrine with no ad revenue.

We than can have commercial stations which need their ad revenue but for which I don't have to pay.
 

But how then will the "great entertainers" Gerry Ryan, Pat Kenny, Joe Duffy and Ryan Tubridy justify their incomes (theres 2 million saved for about combined 4 hours a day work!).

If they cant point at advertisement revenue as justification for ludicrous salaries, they may have to move stations, work for a private runned company and earn their salaries (potentially with longer working hours).

And then of course theres the people that love to phone up Joe "350k a year for 1 and a quarter hours a day work" Duffy and complain about the overpaid bankers and TD's!

Are you crazy . . . .
 
Pukka said:
Did anyone see "Blood of the Irish"? Oh my God! - that was 15 minutes of content spread wafer thin over *hours* of air time!
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Funny! I think it was actually 5 minutes but they repeated it 3 times!! I do know now though, thanks to the Programme that 80% of us have the genes of New Age Travellers. The poor old Celts and Vikings and Sasana don't seem to have impacted quite as strongly on the gene pool.
 
You could be on to something here.

2 channels with some good stuff and a lot of crap. Stop showing so much rubbish, combine all the good programmes and have a top quality single channel. Fantastic.

And make it go off the air at 1am too, none of this 24hr nonsense being broadcast for nobody.
 
TG4 at 38 million Euro per year needs to be shut down. They are closing down hospital wards because of no money - TG4 need's to go now.
 
theresa1 said:
TG4 at 38 million Euro per year needs to be shut down. They are closing down hospital wards because of no money - TG4 need's to go now.
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Why pick on TG4? Why not hit the hundreds of millions going out in subsidies to landlords through mortgage interest relief? Or the subsidy going to developers of private health clinics? Or the subsidy going to the horsey set via HRI?

There are plenty of other options that could be hit before TG4? Any station that shows The Wire and Oz is all right in my book.
 
It's not all about us grown ups, what about the children! My toddler loves to watch Den Tots in the mornings and it lets me gets things done around the house. I also rememeber as child coming home after school and loved watching the den.
 
Some suggestions for RTE:

RTE salaries are way out of whack with reality. Given the audience size and revenue of the station, you would expect that no presenter would earning more than c.€150k per annum and that they vast majority of full time presenters i.e. working 5 days a week, would be in the 50-100k range.

A friend of mine who works in broadcasting in the UK says that RTE is way over staffed with hangers on and people who seem to stand around all day with nothing to do. Says they could easily operate on about 25% of the production staff - should be less people working on each show and more people working on multiple shows per week as is the case in most UK stations including the BBC.

TG4 - total waste money. Most of their useful programing could be accommodated on either RTE 1 or 2 in place of cheap imported rubbish.

Studios in Cork, Galway (incl. TG4 studios) etc. - not necessary. Ireland is a small country, you can day trip to Dublin from anywhere. Save this expense and make more use of the Donnybrook studios.

Why is taxpayers money being used to purchase Eastenders etc. (probably at v. high cost) when 99% of people can watch it on the BBC without the ad breaks? RTE should not buy any programmes that can be viewed by the vast majority of Irish people on other channels.

Ditto for sporting events - some common sense. If ITV is shown a particular Champions League fixture, if you want to show the Champions League, show a different fixture so that people have a choice. Why do RTE always show the same match as someone else?

As for TV3 - they should merge wth UTV, broadcast on 1 channel and call themselves ITV-Ireland. What is the point in broadcasting the same stuff (except for local news) on multiple channels?
 

Wouldn't agree with a lot of this, if anything RTE is too Dublin centric as it stands. There is a reason why more people in some areas listen to local radio and not RTE and that is because local radio is far more relevant to their lives.

As for Eastenders and other imported programmes, I've not seen the numbers but it's possible RTE actually makes money out of advertising around these programmes.

I like TG4, their sports coverage is superb as has been some of their docuemnteries. Reality is that some of their programmes would never be seen on RTE unless we had an RTE 3.

As for overpaying presenters, if their shows are making money for RTE, why not pay them high salaries.?

I wouldn't argue with the over management side of things, friend of mine worked their in their finance department for a couple of years and he left out of sheet and utter boredom due to over staffing meaning he had little to do. Cetainly one area that needs to be addressed

Other issue that should be looked at is defining exactly what RTE is. If it is the national broadcaster, then why does it have things like an Orchestra. After all, one of the first things any business that is struggling should look to do is hive off/close down non core activities
 
Wouldn't agree with a lot of this, if anything RTE is too Dublin centric as it stands.
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Funny you say this - a lot of Dublin people think that RTE is too regional centric - too many people from the Gaeltacht areas - it seems as if everyone from the Gaeltacht is employed by RTE or TG4.
 
Anyone complaining about the quality of tv here should live in the continent (i.e. mainland Europe), or Australia for a while - then they'll see just how crap tv really is! Maybe people should simply watch less tv - just watch the few programs that ye do enjoy and find something else to do with yer time for the rest of it!
 
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