Niall Gormley (Northside People) wrote a good piece on the demise of the Vincent Browne Show on RTE Radio 1.
apologies I can’t link to the text its only in print in this weeks Northside People
He dismisses the number crunching that I think is JNLR based. I disagree here, flawed or not the numbers may be inaccurate but at least they are consistently inaccurate allowing us to compare station against station and quarter on quarter. But Niall fixes in on the fact the 20,000 listeners as a bottom base is still way too many to drop a show (and he has a point) I heard commercials on the VB 2nite show, im sure I did, wogan interiors! anyone else hear commercial advertising during that late night show?
He suggests that RTE’s resource excuse is thin, suggesting RTE can take this show online or split frequency MW/LW and have muzak on FM – I like the idea, couldn’t radio schedulers who work in the business come to this conclusion or do RTE really not want VB anymore.
Gormley fails to reach the conclusion I reach. The bourgeoisisation of RTE Donnybrook Dublin 4.
Listen to radio1 and you will feel that pseudo D4 suits run it, own it, programme it and listen to it. Yes the rest of the Irish population and diaspora listen (agreed, see yestersdays happy clappy JNLR numbers for Radio1) but the day and night is filled with market loving SSIA promoting rugger boys! and Brown was the last man standing in the sticky corner the FF’ers used to red scare about. FF’ers hated RTE so much in 1988 things happened like the CAP, the century radio setup, the forcing of RTE to carry independent signals on their network and the proposed privatisation of 2FM, we even had a module dedicated to the century radio antics of rambo in the tribunals, tribunals – browne getting the link?
Browne v Bertie (and Mara) during May ’07 election, the summer stand in choices by RTE radio1 and the gifting of half price legal costs to Bev Flynn TD (indie FF) are not isolated actions, its RTE doing what modern RTE does well. They are the Irish marketing department for James Murdochs Sky TV.
The sale of their OB unit, the audience council, their lack of vision in DAB DTT and HD, and their abject failure to offer DVB direct to home Free To Air.
The problem is not the losing of tonight with VB, we have lost an entire national broadcaster to the whims and wishes of an elite few who are driving RTE to a place far away from where Irish people are, case in point the afternoon show (rte1 tv), packed with fashion and hand bags worth €1000’s not to giggle at but to aspire to and the same goes for its food fascism and body image and money advice. By, for and devoted to an elite that we Irish are not.
If this was the other way round the press would call it a coup, a revolution a take over. Keep paying the licence fee, i think their salaries are going to need it.