RTE News - Ireland

Why does the Eurovision final go on for longer than it used to?

Because more countries are performing in the final, and 40 voted this year.

The bigger the contest, the longer the programme.

The problem is that it's origins lie as a project of the web team (at RTE Commercial Enterprises)rather than RTE News and that thinking is still in the channel. Even international viewers can still watch the bulletins seperately online though, so the argument still holds.

That would be a fair enough excuse... if it were say 3 or 4 years ago, but they have had years to put this right and they still haven't. There's a general lack of imagination within RTE and risk taking isn't really encouraged (even when there's almost nothing to lose) However, this is not entirely RTE's fault, it's a wider problem within the Irish Media industry.

What is stopping RTÉ News & Current Affairs from taking control of RTÉ News Now?

Probably a mixture of internal Politics and red tape, plus it's likely that no one really cares about the station as such. Half the News Department didn't appear to even know it existed until about 2 years ago. It's slightly more important now than it was in the past as they have moved the late bulletin to the channel and there doesn't appear to be a Late News on RTE1 most nights at this stage. (However, this kind of proves the point of lack of passion and joined up thinking, there's a Late News on RTE1 some nights but not on others with no real pattern)

Yesterday though surely wasn't about the bigger picture for the channel as a whole but for the simple fact that due to a historic vote in the country plus a couple of non-moveable commitments on the main channel that they had a service they could utilise should they have needed to continue the coverage beyond the end of the RTE broadcast. RTE News now has occassionally been used for events which fall out of it's usual remit (think it was home to RTE's limited Winter Olympic coverage for example), so no reason at all they couldn't have continued for however long it took on the channel.

I would agree, but RTE in their wisdom do not. When the Six One was basically pulled off the Air there was nowhere to get live TV coverage of an ongoing Story. UTV Ireland and TV3 went to their ITV shows at 7 (which is fair enough, they're commerical Networks) RTE had that dreadful Lottery Show on RTE1 and a Show about Abba on 2. Meanwhile there was a repeat of Six One on News Now with a banner saying that there would be a press conference at some point.

I turned over to BBC News where they had live coverage at Dublin Castle with Interviews and Ex RTE London reporter Brian O'Connell doing anaysis back in studio. This is not the first time and probably won't be the last when you have to go to UK broadcasters to see live pictures of a Irish event.

I know it's only a small thing but the press conference was live on RTE News Now in SD, if you wanted to watch it in HD you had to go to the BBC or SKY.

This isn't the first time they've done this. Last year when local elections were on most of the results were given out after 7pm on Saturday Night. RTE One and Two had their own shows and News Now knowing they couldn't repeat the same bulletin over and over went to 6 hours of Nationwide repeats. Even Irish TV had a 2 hour news special that evening from Mayo.

All news operations in Ireland need a shake up in various ways, but RTE News needs to be first in the queue. After all we have no choice but to pay for it.

The extended summary that used to be on RTÉ 2 is on RTÉ News Now but the News Extra bulletin is still broadcast on RTÉ 1 after the Late Late Show probably so that people who watch the Late Late Show won't have change over to RTÉ News Now to see an update.

I think that the late summary on RTÉ 1 is anachronistic because it just shows a newsreader and no video footage and people are more likely to use Aertel, the RTÉ News website or the RTÉ Player to catch the latest news.

To be honest, I don't think that Irish viewers were fussed about a press conference not being available on Saorview in HD - most of them probably didn't even think about it.

I'd agree that the late bulletin on RTE1 with just a newsreader is old fashioned, but they could easily do a 5 or 10 minute summary on 1 before midnight with pictures, much like the bulletin that is now shown on News Now (which many can't watch because News Now is not on SKY).


I'd also agree about the HD/SD thing, that's why I said it was a small point. but I do think there were a lot of people that were interested in this particular story (it was the lead story on almost every European News bulletin) What's the point in having a Irish News Station, which doesn't cover Irish Breaking News properly?

They can still use an aerial for the second TV, in another room of the house, to get the Saorview channels, or watch News Now on the Internet, or, if they have neither Saorview nor the Internet, use Saorsat, which can be combined with a conventional satellite dish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-6PKamgIkg

Here's some info about Saorsat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saorsat

There is also news on the hour at night on Radio 1 and 2FM.

Satellite viewers can get the latest world news on various news channels.

All in all, Sky viewers are not missing out.