The Irish Broadcasting: 2014 ALTERNATIVE BROADCAST INDUCTEES

The Irish Broadcasting: 2014 ALTERNATIVE BROADCAST INDUCTEES: DUSTIN THE TURKEY Perhaps a strange inductee as a non-human puppet but the character has been part of Irish television history, folklore ...

The Irish Broadcasting: 2014 TELEVISION INDUCTEES

The Irish Broadcasting: 2014 TELEVISION INDUCTEES: TELEVISION BILL O’HERLIHY – PRESENTER Born in 1938 in Cork, Bill has been on RTE since the early 1960's. Following a stint in curren...

The Irish Broadcasting: 2014 HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES

The Irish Broadcasting: 2014 HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES: RADIO MAURICE O’DOHERTY – NEWSREADER Born in 1932 in Limerick, Maurice was an RTE newsreader from 1966 until his departure in 1983. Maur...

2014 ALTERNATIVE BROADCAST INDUCTEES

DUSTIN THE TURKEY

Perhaps a strange inductee as a non-human puppet but the character has been part of Irish television history, folklore and culture since first appeared on 'The Den' in 1989. He even unofficially garnered a significant amount of spoilled votes in a Irish Presidential election. The puppet has presented his own shows, had number chart singles and albums and represented Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2008 with 'Irland Douze Points'. The puppet is voiced by John Morrison whose brother Ciaran is part of the team who created Zig and Zag and Podge and Rodge.

ROBIN BANKS

Born in Kilkenny in 1972, he is probably most familiar to Irish viewers as the voice over on Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel. Born Christian Richardson, Robin was bitten by the broadcasting bug at a young age working for a pirate radio station in Kilkenny. He changed name when he joined Atlantic 252 at just seventeen years old. He would go on to work for a number of stations both in Ireland and the UK including Radio Nova, Kiss FM in London and Virgin Radio.

JOHN FRAWLEY

Known as John ‘The Man’ Frawley, this Limerick man began his broadcasting career with pirate radio station RLWE in 1978. He moved on to build his own radio station Radio Luimni and hosted the Breakfast Show until the station closed in accordance with the 1988 Wireless Telegraphy Act on December 23rd 1988. Originally a lead singer with the showband the Monarchs, John’s legacy is perhaps that on most rural independent commercial radio stations today’s the death notices are broadcast each day after the news. Radio Luimni was the first station to do this and gave the station a real sense of community. Six months after the closure of Radio Luimni, John passed away.

THE LATE LATE TOY SHOW

The Late Late Toy Show is an annual TV event since Gay Byrne and Pan Collins created the show in 1975. It has been consistently the most watched TV programme on Irish Television. Usually aired at the end of November the show is a two hour live broadcast featuring the most popular toys of that year. The hosts (Gay Byrne, Pat Kenny and currently Ryan Tubridy) are joined by nearly three hundred children who perform and demonstrate the products.

TONY BOYLAN

Tony began his broadcasting career in the 1940s setting up his own pirate radio station that broadcast under various names. Tony continued to set up his own stations like Radio Galaxy and present shows on stations like Radio Dublin and ARD specialising in playing old 78 records. Tony retired to the Isle of Man with his wife where he continued to be involved in radio setting up Community Radio in Laxey and Ramsey. Tony passed away in 2010.

2014 TELEVISION INDUCTEES

TELEVISION

BILL O’HERLIHY – PRESENTER

Born in 1938 in Cork, Bill has been on RTE since the early 1960's. Following a stint in current affairs Bill moved to the sports department where his first presentation was the 1972 Olympic Games. He is mainly associated with the station's soccer coverage covering all The Republic of Ireland games and major soccer competitions. His panel of Dunphy, Giles and Brady has been a ratings winner for many years.

SEAN DUIGNAN – CURRENT AFFAIRS

Sean Duignan was born in Galway in 1936 and married Marie Falvey in 1965. He joined RTÉ in 1963, working in the newsroom on 'This Week' and 'The News at 1.30'. He and Mike Burns won a Jacob’s award in 1968 for their coverage of the civil rights campaign. He graduated to become RTÉ’s political correspondent in 1976 and the Six-One News anchorman in 1988. He left RTE to become the Government Press Secretary from 1992 to 1995 under the Albert Reynolds government, but then returned to RTÉ and presented 'The Week in Politics' from 1995 to 2003. He published a memoir, 'One Spin on the Merry-Go-Round' (1995).

BRENDAN O’REILLY – SPORTS

Brendan O'Reilly (1929 – 1 April 2001) was a versatile broadcaster, journalist, actor, athlete, singer and songwriter. He is best known as the first presenter of the long-running Sports Stadium launched in 1973. Between 1966 and 1968, O'Reilly had the honour of commentating for Ireland at the Eurovision Song Contest, as well as presenting the National Song Contest (to select Ireland's Eurovision entry) from 1966 to 1970. He was a High Jumper, studied in America at the University of Michigan, he set the Irish High Jump record and also set the Irish Javelin record. He had a minor chart hit with the Ballad of Michael Collins.

DEREK DAVIS – PRESENTER

Derek was born on Dublin and joined the RTE news department in the 1960s. He is best remembered for his double act with Thelma Mansfield on 'Live at 3' from 1986-1997. A lover of the water he presented four series of 'Out Of The Blue' on RTE 1. In 1995 he hosted the annual Rose of Tralee festival and in 2009 won RTE's GAA reality show 'Celebrity Banisteoir'.

DECLAN LOWNEY – DIRECTOR

Wexford born Declan has been involved in some of the most iconic TV programmes since the 1980's. In 1985 he was credited as director of TV Ga Ga on RTE TV and in 1988 was selected as director of the Eurovision Song Contest that was held in Dublin. He won a Jacobs Award for this production. He moved to UK TV and has been associated with shows such as Help and Father Ted for both he has won BAFTA's. More recently he has won an IFTA for his direction on Chris O'Dowd's Sky One series Moone Boy.

TIM McGARRY – PRESENTER/COMEDIAN

Tim McGarry was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1964. He is best known as a presenter and comedian. He is a member of the comedy group Hole In The Wall Gang, and played "Da", a fictional Sinn Féin spokesman, in the BBC NI comedy series Give My Head Peace. He also hosts many radio programmes on BBC Radio Ulster, including weekly comedy quiz The Blame Game which also transferred to BBC One TV. He also provides a monologue played over the ending credits of the weekly politics show, Hearts and Minds, in the guise of a Belfast 'black taxi' driver. He most recently presented a two part documentary of the Ulster Scots language.

2014 HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES

RADIO

MAURICE O’DOHERTY – NEWSREADER

Born in 1932 in Limerick, Maurice was an RTE newsreader from 1966 until his departure in 1983. Maurice’s early career was with Met Eireann at Shannon before joining RTE. He was a familiar face on the flagship ‘9 O’Clock News’ with fellow anchors Charles Mitchell and Don Cockburn. It was Maurice who delivered the news bulletin announcing the death of former Irish President Eamonn DeValera. He was known for his ad lib quips during bulletins and his epitath reads ‘I’m sorry I’ll start that again’.

JOE LINNANE – PRESENTER/HOST

Joe Linnane was born in 1910 and is probably best remembered as the host of the Radio Eireann's 'Questiontime' in the 40s and 50s. He was also an actor, known for Five Angles on Murder (1950), The Angel Who Pawned Her Harp (1954) and The Stranger in Between (1952). He appeared on a number of BBC shows including the serials 'The Great Gilhooly' and as host of the 'Double or Quits' cash quiz show. In 1974 Joe won a Jacobs Award for Radio for "long and meritorious service to broadcasting". He died on September 28, 1981 in Dublin, Ireland. One of his most famous shows was a sponsored programme production of the last tram heading to Howth in 1959.

SEAN O’ROURKE – CURRENT AFFAIRS

Portlaoise born Sean is an Arts graduate from NUI, Galway. He has previously worked for the Connacht Tribune, The Sunday Press, and The Irish Press. In 1989, he joined RTÉ News and Current Affairs. For RTÉ he has presented Morning Ireland, and This Week. In 1995, he moved to The News at One. On television he has presented Today Tonight, Prime Time" and is a regular host of the Sunday show 'The Week in Politics'.

He has one ESB National Media Award, The Radio Broadcaster of the Year 1997, in 2008 he was named PPI News Broadcaster of the Year. In June 2011, he was awarded an honorary doctorate of laws from his alma mater, NUI Galway.

LIVELINE – PROGRAMME

In May 1979, RTE Radio launched a new lunchtime programme titled 'Women Today' but was renamed Liveline in 1985. The show was intially hosted by Doreain Ni Bhrian and Marian Finnucane with the latter being associated as the main presenter for many years. The show went from a discussion forum with a small amount of listener interactions (in the early days by phone and post)to a show driven by listeners with listeners being both the problem questioners and the solution givers. The show has courted controversy ever since its inception and has been commended at the highest levels of Government of setting as national agenda and getting the nation debating important issues.

Joe Duffy the current host began as a temporary replacement presenter in 1998 but has been with the show as its main presenter to date with his 'I'm listening' introduction to caller being often imitated. In 2011 as the country suffered significant austerity measures the show introduced the popular 'Fiver Fridays' where business large and small across the country offer their products and services for just five euro. The show has a JNLR average listnership of over 400,000 reflecting the €350,000 cost P.A. as the shows title advertising sponsor.

JOHN QUINN – PRODUCER

Born in County Meath in December 1941, John after a spell teaching joined RTE as an Education Officer in 1975 for the Radio Scoile. He went onto to be one of RTE's greatest producers. His award winning programmes have included 1988 Jacob's Award winning 'Ewan and Peggy' on the lives and music of Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger and John's documentary 'Final Day' which won the Gold Medal in 1990 at the New York Festival of Radio. His body of work has been recognised by Radio awards in Europe, New York & Tokyo, by critics including the Sunday Times who described his interview with the late Seamus Heaney as 'spellbinding' and listeners.

DECLAN MEEHAN - DJ

Having made his name in Dublin with many of the pirate radio stations including Radio Melinda and ARD, Declan joined the new RTE Radio 2 from Big D Radio in 1979. He left RTE and joined pirate station Radio Nova where he presented the popular Deckie Wekkie's Brekkie Trekkie with American Bob Galico. He was one of the main programme directors at the ill fated Century Radio. Since 1994 Declan has presented the Breakfast show on East Coast Radio and also guested on the national commercial station Today FM.

Is UTV Ireland the new Sky News Ireland Failure?

All the main Irish television channels have recently launched their autumn schedules and in January 2015 a new player UTV Ireland took to the airwaves. Perhaps this is an opportune moment to look at the state of the Irish Television market.

After its first week on air, what did we discover about UTV Ireland and how it would impact on Irish TV? There contribution to new programming has been exclusively its news output, 90 minutes per day (6.30pm x 30minutes, 10pm x 60minutes). This is familiar ground as Sky News Ireland, which aired from May 2004 to November 2006, simply broadcast a zone specific opt out news broadcast and rebranded themselves as Sky News Ireland. UTV Ireland’s content is based on ITV’s network output but differs from its Northern Ireland sister station by airing old repeats such as Surprise Surprise. The station’s news output was their only contribution with the exception of Pat Kenny’s first night broadcast to Ireland and even this was limited to Monday to Friday. Even the viewing figures for the experienced ex RTE broadcaster was poor with a ratings average of 73,000 tuning in. There was no news content was available on Saturday (Jan 10th 2015) despite the fact that their Northern Ireland station broadcast a number of UTV Live news bulletins during the day.

But even their news bulletins are struggling in the ratings war. Ratings released for the period January 1st-15th 2015 show that TV3’s early evening bulletin averages 183,000 viewers while UTV Ireland’s early evening bulletin averages just over 31,000. RTE’s Six One news was averaging over half a million viewers for the same period.

The dominant player in the Irish TV market remains RTE Television with their two main channels One & Two and their additional digital package that includes tRTE, RTE News Now and their +1 channels. The station is funded through a combination of statutory licence fee paid by the viewer and advertising. In second place in the ratings war is TV3, now in its sixteenth year on air and owned by the British private equity company Doughty Hanson & Co. TV3 also operates their sister channel 3e which they purchased as Channel 6 in 2009. TV3 in anticipation of the arrival of UTV Ireland launched a TV3+1 channel.

The indigenous Irish Language service TG4 continues to impress viewers with their limited financial resources. Now the latest channel to tempt the viewers and aiming to attract what is no longer a slice but a sliver of the advertising revenue pie is UTV Ireland. This however will impact on the Northern Ireland channel as advetisers from the twenty six counties who advertised with UTV now move to UTV Ireland.

UTV Ireland is a sister station to UTV (founded as Ulster Television in 1958) and a constituent company of UTV Media PLC. The company is owned by a group of small shareholders and loan & financial management firms.

According to Nielsen rating most viewers still watch traditional television on tradition TV sets but the way we watch and what we watch is changing by the month. We can watch TV on multiple devices from computer, to lap top to the mobile phone. In Ireland initially cable, then satellite and now digital age has brought in a large overspill of UK channels into the twenty six counties. UK channels such as Channel 4, MTV and Sky use out opt facilities on their channels to air dedicated Irish advertising.

New players on the market such as Netflix and Amazon have demonstrated new ways for viewers to watch their favourite programmes and have begun produces series of their own. Viewers can also log into illegal sites to watch the latest episodes of their favourite shows weeks before they are aired on terrestrial TV, reducing audience figures and therefore the reach for advertisers.

Further choice can be found on the Sky Platform with Irish TV aimed both at a domestic and a growing global Irish audience. An Lar TV is a internet based channel who like Irish TV is aimed at a global diaspora but eating into an audience that advertisers would be delighted to share.

One of the most asked questions about the arrival of UTV Ireland is why? The most obvious answer is that UTV believe that there is a viewing market share available and that viewing figure translates into revenue. But perhaps the question being asked is ‘how?’ How is a channel broadcasting to a franchise area of six of Ireland’s thirty two counties able to afford to launch in the south. RTE for many decades until the late nineteen eighties in both radio and television enjoyed a monopoly but yet despite a licence fee, advertising and government subvention the station continued to make a loss, due in large to high staffing levels and high salaries. UTV broadcasting as an ITV franchise area to the six counties of Northern Ireland now operates successfully and profitably sixteen radio stations in the UK including the national TalkSport Radio, the world’s most successful sports radio station, five radio stations in the Republic of Ireland including FM104, the market leader in Dublin, a TV channel from January 2015 now an all Ireland channel. How can a small station like UTV outgrow RTE and threaten RTE’s status in the television market in Ireland. UTV have only being expanding since 2004, until then they had concentrated on their franchise remit from ITV. The contrast between UTV and RTE is stark with the national broadcasters deflecting the threat of the new channel pointing out that UTV Ireland will be a bigger threat to TV3 than RTE.

But as all economists point out the figures never lie. A comparison of the end of year figures (2013) for the main Irish TV stations can lead the way.

RTE UTV

Revenue €182.4m € 135.0m(*excluding RTE’s €145.2m generated from the licence fee.)

Operating Costs € 306.9m € 110.2m

Staff Costs € 132m € 41.4m

No. of Employees 1,856 1,012 (*Includes all Divisions)

Figures for the other two main channels TG4 and TV3 are a little harder to show but in 2012

TV3 TG4

Revenue € 57.6 € 3m (+ € 32.7m in Government Subvension)

No of Employees 260 84

(The TV 3 total includes 3e)

What has prevented RTE being UTV? They have had the opportunities over the decades. UTV currently own and operat e the world’s largest sports radio station TalkSport but in the 1990’s RTE were involved with Radio Luxembourg in the Atlantic 252 venture before that station metamorphosed into TeamTalk 252, a sports radio station but the station failed when out gunned and muscles by TalkSport.

RTE have had a monopoly on the radio airwaves for decades and prior to the launch of independent commercial radio in 1989 put forward the case to operated regional local radio. This sector eventually went into the commercial arena. With the advent of the digital age RTE Radio did expand with channels such as RTE Pulse and Gold but their two main broadcast channels RTE One and 2FM have haemorrhaged listeners to local commercial radio in both urban and rural areas.

Allied to the loss of listeners has been the loss of advertising revenue although RTE’s financial stability is aided by the use of their finances from the licence fee.

UTV have seen an opportunity in the Irish radio market by purchasing FM104, the Dublin market leader. This position as market leader in the main catchment area, the capital city is augmented by Q102 also in Dublin aimed at the older demographic, 95FM in Limerick, 96FM and 103FM in Cork and LMFM in County Louth.

RTE’s ability to move apace with other stations had been hampered by large salaries and high operating costs. Some of these costs have been reduced with new contract agreements, staff departures and reduced running costs such as the closure of the medium wave transmitters. RTE’s statutory obligations as the state broadcaster, has tied one hand behind its back. The freedom that other broadcasters have is denied to RTE. The station has attempted to fulfil its obligations of being all things to everyone and to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln ‘you can keep some of the viewers happy some of the time but you cannot keep all of the viewers happy all of the time’.

With an increased number of channels available to the Irish viewer, how much local originated content is broadcast. On January 7th 2015 from 6pm – Midnight, a total of 360 minutes of airtime the Irish content was as follows,

RTE One – 325 Minutes (A total of 90 Minutes were produced live consisting of the main news bulletins) RTE 2 - 120 Minutes (No Live and no News) TV 3 - 330 Minutes (60 Minutes Live with the Vincent Brown Show) 3e - 0 TG 4 - 300 Minutes (30 minutes News (Nuacht) live) UTV Ireland - 90 Minutes (90 Minutes news bulletins) Irish TV - 360 Minutes (No Live Programming) Setanta Sports - 210 Minutes (30 Minutes Live simulcast with Newstalk Radio) An Lar TV - 360 Minutes (No Live Programming) DCTV - 360 Minutes (No Live Programmes – All Repeats) CCTV - 240 Minutes (No Live Programming)

(DCTV - Dublin Community Television CCTV - Cork Community Television)

The top performing TAM rated programmes for January 7th were

RTE 1

Fair City 463,000 (Irish Soap) Nationwide 349,000 (Irish Factual) Operation Transformation 347,000 (Irish Factual)

RTE 2

Padraig Nally 104,000 (Irish Factual) Home & Away 99,000 (Australian Soap) Neighbours 65,000 (Australian Soap)

TV 3

Red Rock 225,000 (Irish Soap) Restaurant 145,000 (Irish Factual) Vincent Browne 122,000 (Irish Current Affairs) Ant & Dec 110,000 (ITV Repeat) Vincent Browne special 108,000 (Irish Current Affairs) Xpose 102,000 (Irish Factual)

UTV Ireland

Coronation street 249,000 (ITV Soap) Emmerdale 241,000 (ITV Soap) Surprise Surprise 72,000 (ITV Repeat)

In 2014 Irish viewers watched on average over three hours of TV per day. RTE TV dominates the rating battle with nineteen of the top twenty TAM rated programmes in 2014 been produced by RTE. TV3’s ITV made Coronation Street was the only programme breaking into the Top Twenty. The arrival of UTV Ireland has put that one position in jeopardy as Coronation Street is aired exclusively on UTV Ireland instead of TV3 from January 2015. TV3 have attempted to limited the impact of loosing this advertising market leader to UTV Ireland by producing their own soap Red Rock which began in January 2015.

Top Twenty TV as revealed by Tam Ireland (Nielsen Ratings)

2014 2013

10 RTE News (Mar 2nd) RTE News (Mar 16th) 9 Mrs Brown Boys The Voice of Ireland 8 GAA Hurling Final RTE News (Jan 20) 7 GAA Football Final The Eurovision 6 Mrs Browns Boys All Ireland Hurling Final 5 World Cup Final Mrs Browns Boys 4 Amber (Finale) Mrs Browns Boys 3 6 Nations Rugby (Ire v Fra) All Ireland Football Final 2 Love Hate Finale (1.150m) Love Hate Finale (1.117m) 1 Late Late Toy Show (1.594m) Late Late Toy Show (1.54m) Top Ten Advertisers in 2014 1. Proctor & Gamble 2. BskyB 3. Unilever 4. Diageo (Guinness) 5. Reckitt Benckiser 6. Lidl Ireland 7. Loreal 8. Aldi Ltd 9. UPC 10. McDonalds

http://www.rte.ie/

www.tv3.ie/

http://www.irishtv.ie/

http://www.anlar.tv/

www.corkcommunitytv.ie/

utv.ie/