The RTE News Thread

So you base your entire criticism of RTE News as boring and "it stinks" on the lack of a breakfast TV news programme on RTE One.

You do realise that Morning Ireland is available to watch on RTE News Now which most households have available?

Hardly a sound basis for judging the entire output of RTE News?

I did not say I based it all on them not providing a breakfast service, I gave this as a prime example of how poor RTE News is.

It seems to me they concentrate all their effort and money on RTE Radio News, and pride themselves on that which hinders their output on television.

They have totally abandoned any news output on RTE Two now, down to a short kids news update and two useless updates in the early evenings. This is their second national channel, aimed at a younger audience and they do not cater for them at all in terms of a proper news service.

Their times of news on RTE One is nonsense, 5.40pm An Naucht followed by News for the Deaf then an hour of the Six One News. Seems poor scheduling to me.

RTE News needs much more money invested in it, because TV3 will soon be wiping the floor with them. TV3 News output seems fresher and stronger. Since TV3 have very little money pool due to RTE being the big boys, I have to say TV3 have outshone themselves on the news front. RTE could learn lessons.

Remember these are just my opinions, you don't have to agree, I don't care if anyone does, I am just stating them in this forum.

RTE doesn't have a requirement or a mandate to do a breakfast programme for RTE One and they already do Morning Ireland. RTE may not want to compete with itself.

The best reason (and probably the main one) is that it would cost far too much money to provide a decent service which almost no one would watch. The only reason Ireland AM started in 1999 was to show the IRTC at the time that TV3 was producing Irish content. It took them more than a decade to get to a 25% audience share, which was still only 50,000 viewers or so. TV3 had a valid reason for making Cheap breakfast TV, RTE does not. They did try to go ahead with some sort of service when their finances were in better shape, but once reports into a service were done none of the figures added up.

I agree with some of your points such as the poor news service that RTE2 has, other points I would disagree with. For example, Nuacht on RTE 1 is at that time to keep it out of the way. The audience is lost when it's on so they put it up against TV3 News, knowing full well almost everyone will return to RTE1 as soon as the Six One Starts.

I somehow doubt (but I would be pleased to be proven wrong) that TV3 news will ever wipe the floor with RTE. They've had 18 or so years to do so and there's been no impact from TV3 News on RTE News as such. That's actually a bad thing, many issues with RTE News arise because they've had no real TV News competition unlike in other European countries.

Again - I'll repeat myself - you can watch Morning Ireland on RTE News Now - why the need for a separate breakfast TV programme at a time when audiences are very small? Better to focus resources on where the audience actually is.

Most younger people get their news online these days and I would think that's probably where RTE will focus their efforts rather than dedicated RTE2 bulletins. I don't see that as a priority for them.

You are having a laugh surely with regard to TV3? TV3 don't even remotely come close to RTE News in terms of viewer numbers and for them to "wipe the floor" with RTE would require a complete change in viewer patterns - I don't ever see that happening. This is despite scheduling their bulletins ahead of the bulletins on RTE1.

The main news on RTE1 is at 1, 6:01 and 9 - all times that are pretty much in the psyche of any Irish person with regard to when the news is on the television - they are then repeated on RTE News Now and the evening bulletins can be seen again on RTE +1 - plenty of times for people to view them.

How about the fact that the televised output of a radio studio is the lamest. most cheapskate way of doing such a show. Because the presenters are looking down at their scripts most of the time, from the overhead cameras used, you only really see the tops of the head, it doesn't connect to an audience visually, because the hosts are not looking at the camera. Also, the recorded clips used on the programme have no accompanying video, so whilst the audio is playing all you're looking at is a presenter sat there in silence, and the whole thing comes across as damned uncomfortable viewing.

Now if they could produce a hybrid version of Morning Ireland, something that sounds good on RTE Radio 1 but also looks good on screen, then you could simulcast it on RTE One as well as RTE News Now, and it would be so much better, and might even be competition for Ireland AM.

But frankly does Ireland need two breakfast television programmes, given the very small size of the market?

I don't think it does to be honest. I think RTE's very tight resources are better spent on other things.

Hence I think broadcasting Morning Ireland on RTE News Now is a good compromise.

Morning Ireland isn't a compromise. In TV terms, it's practically a waste of time right now. I have watched it, and cringed at just how basic the production values are. It gets no promotion on RTE TV and you can see why. It would be better off not airing on RTÉ News Now in its current form, and have them just continue relaying Euronews until 10am if they can't even be bothered to do a better job of it.

Again though - does Ireland need two Breakfast TV programmes?

Many people argue the UK doesn't.

I have to agree that when I visited Ireland I found the RTE One morning schedule unexpectedly weak, with teleshopping and then random lifestyle stuff later on. If anyone had broadcast a breakfast show in Ireland I would have expected it to be a legacy show on RTE One that had run for decades.

It's basically like Good Morning Britain existing but BBC One not having a breakfast show, where we all know if anything happened it's more likely to be the other way round,