RTÉ’s sizzling summer alternative to sport
It will be hard to avoid sport completely as the station will be showing 56 matches live over the 25 days of the 2006 World Cup from Germany next month, as well as extensive coverage of the GAA championships, although sadly no live footage from the first ever staging in Ireland of the Ryder Cup in September.
Perhaps, there’s already enough sport in the Rose of Tralee, which will herald the end of the holidays at the end of August.
In the intervening period, RTÉ bosses believe there is plenty to appeal to all tastes on both stations, even for those with an aversion to sport.
Three new series hope to capture the zeitgeist of 21st century lifestyles in Ireland through varied formats of reality TV-style programmes.
It’s My Party will follow the fortunes of six amateur party hosts who are assisted by professional party planners, Joanne Byrne and Sinead Ryan, in their attempts to stage the perfect night to remember.
Celebrity gardener Diarmuid Gavin will feature in a brand new six-part gardening series, Gardening from Scratch, by explaining how he works out a commissioned design for different individuals on budgets from €5,000 to €80,000.
Meanwhile, Life Without Me follows the fortunes of the family left behind for a week by individuals who think they are indispensable.
Despite forewarnings about the demise of the traditional chat show, bubbly current affairs presenter Miriam O’Callaghan returns to our screens for a second series of Saturday Night with Miriam.
Other light entertainment series include The Irish Tenors and Friends, while 1 to Remember, starring Brian Kennedy, will see this year’s Irish Eurovision entrant and guests perform No 1 hits from the Irish charts since 1962 as selected by the public.
More highbrow music lovers will be catered for by The Mozart Sessions, which will feature internationally acclaimed soloists and the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra.
Factual programmes have been one of RTÉ’s strengths in recent years and the station will hope to reinforce its reputation in this area with several new series, including Charity Queens on quasi-professional fundraisers, otherwise known as ‘ladies who lunch’, and Milking the USA, which follow the fortunes of two Irish men and their families who begin new lives as dairy farmers in South Dakota.
Other popular factual programmes such as Townlands, Cracking Crime, Three 60 and True Lives will all return for a new series. The latter will feature a special documentary to mark the 10th anniversary of the shooting of detective Garda Jerry McCabe by an IRA gang during an attempted post office robbery in Adare, Co Limerick.
Another new series Stars of the Sea will chart the lives and folklore of people from the Dingle peninsula.
Meanwhile, two brand new US drama series will hit the screen later this summer. Prison Break — which tells the story of a man’s elaborate efforts to get a brother whom he believes is wrongfully convicted of murder out of prison — is billed as a cross between the Shawshank Redemption and The Great Escape, while Grey’s Anatomy is the latest medical drama series from the US which has already proven a major hit Stateside.
For younger viewers, there is also a new schedule with new faces and programmes within the ever-popular, Den on RTÉ 2.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
