RTE News - Ireland

I doubt very much it's an experiment. They have very little to show at that time and the news is the easiest option. Plus it's a different option to other channels. It will be dropped if it has ratings as low as other shows that TV3 have put out at that time but That's a pretty low bar. I would assume it will be a updated version of the 5.30 with very little new material.

TV3 news is very much the tabloid news service in Ireland and there's a place in the market for that, but it looks very cheap and tacky due to it's on screen presentation which is one of the worst I have ever seen. A revamp of presentation would do it the world of good.

When cutbacks happen at TV3 I would think the News would be the first on the chopping block, so this bulletin only has a few months to make a mark I would think.

Generous Move by RTE to give UTV Ireland a free run at 6.30 this week. All those that normally watch news between 6 and 7 usually have to put up with RTE Six One going into Holiday Mode every Easter Week. However, for the first time in years there's actual competition. I doubt RTE will be worried this year, but I'd assume it'll be the last year of this break if UTV decide to keep a bulletin on at that time.

It may be Dull in presentation but it's miles ahead of TV3 plus it seems that UTV Ireland have an outside of Dublin focus that's very different to TV3 and RTE.

That's a very fair point. I wonder if RTE will feel the need to maintain an hour-long Six One during it's massively long summer 'holiday' period, rather than cutting it down to 30 minutes as usual.

I guess it'll come down to finances. Losing a few viewers against the cost of mounting a 'full' news operation whilst the Dail is in recess.

It still seems so antiquated, doesn't it? Can you imagine the BBC cutting the Six down to 20 minutes during the summer? Imagine the outcry.

In the real world or on tvforum? Doubt many people are upset in Ireland about the lack of magazine filler during the height of silly season.
Which is heightened in Ireland due to the Dail often taking double the holidays of its UK equivalent!

In the real world actually. People were very unhappy with RTE back in the 70,s and 80,s when Home produced programmes used to disappear almost entirely for 4 or 5 months every Summer. That's why competition is good. 40 percent of the country had no choice but to watch RTE, During the 80's most places got either UK TV and/or Satellite and by around 1990 RTE didn't have a large chunk of the population to keep figures up. Now they still ease up during the summer but nothing like the old days.

There is still plenty of News out there to report, loads of World stories and a huge amount of Sport going on. You could easily fill the second half hour every week of the year. If UTV Ireland's bulletin gains traction the summer break is likely to disappear. (that's a big if at the moment) The only reason the Six One is a hour long most of the year now is because TV3 turned up.

Money of course has a part to play these days, but a lot of it is down to poor management of resources.

The Long Vacation in the courts no doubt also plays a role. But nowadays Six One being chopped to 30 minutes in summer is usually just August. As late as the 1990s it would have been from the June bank holiday until mid September.

You're right of course that it's now just August, and last year they had to do one or two Hour long bulletins because of News events happening. However, It does show competition works, It was in the late 90's that TV3 came along and at that time they were making a half decent attempt at News. We are indeed a long way from the 80's when RTE 2's Newsnight which focused on international news used to disappear up to 5 months of the year to be replaced by News Headlines.

However there really is no excuse for cutting back at Easter. There's a load happening that should be covered but It's no coincidence that the schools are also off this week. At least it's not as bad as their Radio operation where little work seems to be done for months at a time compared to the commercial sector.

There was some mistakes on the news & weather tonight.

Evanne Ni Chuilainn had some sort of a cold while she did a report on the Pro12 matches played by Munster & Ulster.

Even Siobhan Ryan had a problem with being out of sync during with her weather forecast.

Well, in earlier posts I talked about RTE giving UTV Ireland a free run, It now looks like that UTV Ireland are repaying the favour by opting out of covering the UK election almost entirely. Not only are do they not appear to have anything on the Thursday Night/Friday Morning, They're Dropping GMB and all other ITV regularly scheduled shows for the day it seems. UTV Ulster has it's own show from Friday Morning when they start to count the votes in Northern Ireland and they're not taking that either.

RTE will have a show on from about 11pm on Thursday and have a special show on Friday Morning at 8am on RTE1. Not only is it relevant to an Irish Audience, Irish Audiences love a good election, after all it's the original reality TV format. This is actually a big mistake and means that UTV Ireland will be showered with criticism once again. There is little point in having a sister station in the north when you don't use that stations resources.

Northern Ireland are counting the votes from the minutes polls close though, so will be all done by the time GMB even goes on air.

You are correct. I was under the impression that NI were counting from Friday Morning as they do for some elections. However, I don't agree in the slightest that it will be all done by the time GMB goes on air. Even if it was a straight forward year, there would be lots happening on the Friday. This is nothing like a straight forward year. It's a big blunder by UTV Ireland. It looks like they'll be the only ones in Ireland without News Coverage until 6.30 on one of the biggest news days of the year.

Until 2010 all elections in NI were next day counts (like the Republic) - 2010 was the first overnight count and they only do it for Westminister. You have to remember that NI uses PR-STV (like the Republic) for all elections other than Westminister and it takes far longer to count.