Last Wednesday on the the eve of the launch of the controversial Autumn schedule (and lost amid the Katie Taylor hoo ha), RTE managing Director, Television Glenn Killane appeared on Today Fm’s The Last Word. And gave a fairly fascinating insight into the RTE scheduling groupthink.
Matt Cooper: “How difficult has it been for you Glen to put together the schedule that you wanted, given financial constraints and also given all the problems you’ve experienced this year in current affairs because of the ‘Mission to Prey’ problem.”
Glen Killane: “Well, not difficult at all really, Matt. I think eh, our financial difficulties are there for everyone to see and we’re working through them. But all through the crisis which has kind of really been there for everyone since 2007, 2008, we’ve put content first, and we’ve had to make hard decisions in terms of content, but any of the cuts that we’ve made, we’ve tried to minimise the impact on screen. Now there have been choices; there have been, we’ve had to make some preferences; we’ve had to cut back on series, and some series we’ve had to drop, but I think eh, I think what we’ve launched today is something very, very compelling, something the Irish audience will engage with and I think eh, I think our viewership numbers should…”
Cooper: “When you say cut back on series and things, have certain programmes dropped but also if you had a series it might be that you only do four rather than six programmes, that type of thing?”
Killane: “Eh, in certain instances, I mean in some instances bigger is better in terms of longer-running shows, so for example one of our most popular lifestyle shows is ‘Room to Improve’. We went with hour-long versions of that series in the past and it proved very, very popular. That might mean being at the expense of another lifestyle series that was maybe less popular. Em, but yeah, in certain instances we have had to cut back, eh, and reduce the number of episodes but keep the content on screen at all times and try and drive more content out of the budget available.”
Cooper: “What are the untouchables when it comes to the RTE schedule?”
Killane: “Ooh, that’s a tricky question. I mean, you know, what are we known best for? We’re known best for our news and current affairs, our factual output, our entertainment, drama and sport. There’s children’s output as well. So I mean the range of programming that we provide is very comprehensive, and I suppose we are statutorily obliged to cover different demographics and different genres. So I suppose you know what we decided to do was concentrate most of our spending in peak time. When you’re faced with the Hobson’s choice that we’ve had over the last number of years – and other media companies and other companies throughout the country have had over the last number of years – no decision is easy. No decision to drop anything is easy. But what we decided to do as a strategy was to concentrate where most people were watching and concentrate our spend, and where we had spend, to peak time and pre-watershed slots – primarily 9.35 across the week and beyond that and then some early peak, from 6 to 9.”
Cooper: “So does that mean then pre-six o’clock, afternoon programming is taking the bulk of the cuts?”
Killane: “Yes I think that and some of our lifestyle programming has taken cuts. Again, I suppose, you know, last year we spend €170 million on television programmes. I think context is very, very important when you’re looking at what RTE does. I don’t believe there’s such a thing as an Irish television market per se, given the amount of digital penetration now. Our competitors are massive, massive UK companies such as Sky, BBC, ITV. BBC spent £1.8 billion sterling last year on programming. Sky spent £2.2 billion. Compare that to our €170 million. But yet, 47 of the top 50 programmes last year were broadcast by RTE. So we’re doing something right.”
Cooper: “Sorry, of those programmes, how many of them were Irish-made rather than imported?”
Killane: The vast majority. We don’t – the only programmes in the top 50 that were not Irish-made were ‘X Factor’, broadcast by TV3, ‘Coronation Street’ –
Cooper: And ‘Eastenders’?
Killane: ‘Eastenders’ may have been, I may stand corrected on that. ‘Eastenders’ was probably one of the ones. But the vast majority of RTE’s programming in the top 50 was home-produced.