RTÉ pledges rise in production of home-made shows
The national broadcaster yesterday published its first “statement of commitments”, which lock RTÉ into a significant increase in Irish-made programmes across its range of TV and radio channels.
The main thrust of the TV package will see an increase of over 150 hours in home-produced material on RTÉ1, including several new programmes covering drama, news, current affairs, music and entertainment.
An additional 40 hours of Nationwide will be broadcast as part of RTÉ’s commitments to provide greater coverage from the regions.
The broadcaster has also promised to provide a range of new services for young people on Network 2 as well as a weekly business programme for the same channel.
RTÉ director general Bob Collins, who retires later this year, said the changes should result in a home-produced output of at least 50% on both stations.
RTÉ will also establish a new investigative unit for its news and current affairs division, as well as expand its regional, foreign and specialist news coverage.
As most of the output on the station’s four radio stations is home-produced, changes will focus on increased broadcasting from the regions on Radio 1 with more news and current affairs content on 2FM.
However, the increased emphasis on Irish-produced programmes is expected to lead to a decrease in the number of popular imported series from Britain and the US.
The same programmes are also set to become increasingly more expensive for RTÉ to acquire due to the separate launch of a new “freeview” satellite by the BBC next month.
One of the conditions attached to the granting of a 43 increase in the cost of the licence last year was the annual publication of these statements of commitments.
“For the first time our audience will be able to chart how RTÉ meets its commitments across our three output areas, as well as corporately, to the highest levels of accountability,” said RTÉ Authority chairman Paddy Wright.
As part of its “statement of commitments”, RTÉ will also establish an Audience Council to provide feedback and comment on the station’s output.
However, TV3 criticised the plan, claiming it failed to provide adequate transparency and accountability due to RTÉ’s refusal to quantify its total output of home-produced programming for each channel.
TV3 managing director Rick Hetherington called on Communications Minister Dermot Ahern to introduce an Irish-produced programming quota for RTÉ similar to the one which applied to the independent broadcasting sector.
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