RTE News - Ireland

Who on earth is in charge of RTÉ News editorial? It is nothing short of breathtaking, never mind downright disgraceful, that there wasn't so much as an LVO of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations on either Six One or Nine tonight. Not that it is in the least bit surprising, as RTÉ News has an appalling record of reporting British state events - events that are of keen interest to the majority of Irish viewers, with Britain being both our closest neighbour and the strongest cultural link beyond our shores.

Instead, they were obsessed with the usual financial stories, with the majority of reports either focused on money, money, money, or mind-numbing civil service disputes. Never mind not having a full report on the London events, there wasn't even an LVO of them, with two of their LVOs concerned with matters as trival as third level salaries being higher than permitted and a new appointment to the High Court. Even these issues were considered more significant than the greatest UK public celebration - royal wedding aside - held in a decade, with over a million people filling central London, not to mention the achievement of the second longest serving British monarch in history and her recent connection with Ireland.

RTÉ continually maintains a truly bizarre, bordering on a parental 'we know best' mentality, that Irish people are not interested in British affairs of state, and less still relating to the monarchy. It is a preposterous and thoroughly outdated viewpoint they continue to peddle, even after the Queen's immensely successful state visit last year. Though one must question if is indeed a relief that proceedings were not reported, given the typically infantile, patronising and detached stance they take on such stories on the rare occasions they feel obliged to cover them, with personalities being so over described that you'd wonder if Mick or Paddy ever heard of the Queen or the Duke of Edinburgh. Grow up RTÉ and serve your public.

Really Telefis? I am a little surprised, but for the reasons you've mentioned, not that much. RTE are closing their London bureau in September which is, of course, a much more fundamental problem than not covering this weekends event alone. But it certainly does bring their often questionable agenda into focus . . .

I know there's been quite a bit of criticism of the collective Irish media's approach (and RTE especially) to the Irish economic crisis, with many blaming the media for being overly pessimistic and, to a certain extent, 'dragging the country down'.

Well, on a brighter note, Eileen Dunne is up early this morning for the first of the special programmes on the Olympic Torch Relay. Normal RTE News presentation. Quite surprised to see Eileen - surely this is more of a Dobbo event (but then again, what isn't?)

Telefis, you may have a point in what your saying but I think you're a bit excessive. When you see Tommie Gorman reporting from Mauritius you really see the best side of RTÉ doing its job as a public service broadcaster.

Those reports from Tommie Gorman are of great quality journalism. He even included a more extensive report on Prime Time earlier this evening.

http://www.rte.ie/news/av/2012/0607/primetime.html#

Start his report at 24:18

According to the Irish Independent; RTE News and Current Affairs which are currently in talks to slash €8 million in it's departments budget have been stalled. The cuts that are coming through a voluntary redundancy scheme have so far amounted to 10 people signing up out of a target of 40 to be made redundant.

http://www.independent.ie/business/media/bid-to-slash-8m-at-rte-news-stalls-3132388.html

An extra €15 million is being sought to be cut in the other divisions of RTE. Further job losses are likely if the targets are not being met.

A little disappointed with Six One's coverage of the Macareavey Trial verdict. The verdict came in at around 3pm Irish time and they led with two reports from Dublin based journalists. The second report, from the deputy foreign editor Anthony Murnane was poorly sound edited. A prerecorded report from the man they had sent to Maritius to cover the trial, Tommie Gorman was shown around 20 mins into the program. There was no attempt at a live link up to Tommie, not even by telephone to discuss the trial. Even BBC Newsline managed a live link up.

I think the Tommie Gorman report was late arriving as he was doing a lot of work on radio whilst also doing interviews with the lawyers etc. There was a live link to Tommie Gorman of around 5 minutes when he was talking to Brian Dobson. He is also doing a 45 minute program at 10:15 which Im sure will be gripping.

Ray Kennedy has been doing a bit of presenting on RTÉ News this week, doing summaries and the One O'Clock news. Very rare to see someone new break through to presenting on the station.

But then Ray isn't exactly a novice at this, he did cover bulletins for Sky News Ireland, and I felt was quite a good anchor.

Quoting myself maybe weird, but Brian O'Connell anchored part of the Nine last night from London! Sharon Ní Bheolan meanwhile part-anchored Six-One from the RTÉ Sport set there.

EDIT: And a short news summary on RTÉ Two now. Haven't seen one of them on RTÉ Two in a long, long time, must be an Olympics thing.

Can anyone shed any light on what caused RTÉ Two to be off-air for about ten minutes this morning (around 8:35-8:45 or so)?

On analogue terrestrial in Dublin, the screen was light grey, with a dark (and blank) grey box where the 'X 24 October' graphic would usually be for the DSO. On Sky Digital, the screen was black. Occasionally, the screen would flicker simultaneously on both formats, albeit in different ways. This was a bit more interesting on Sky, where a green line appeared and then a box with the text 'NETWORK 2 - no video input' - and yes, it did say 'Network 2'!

Normal programmes resumed simultaneously and it was all up and running again about five minutes after I first noticed it, albeit without the DOG, and in good time for today's live coverage of London 2012. So... systems failure or maintenance deliberately scheduled off-peak in the assumption today's youngins don't watch Animaniacs any more?

Six One gone on its summer break early this year, they are airing single headered with Brian Dobson in a half hour slot this week. (No prizes for guessing what's in the 18:30 slot either). Mind you, I remember when that summer break was over two months.

Meanwhile due to an overabundance of sports to be shown on Saturday its looking likely there'll be no Six-One at all that day.