Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

A Sunday Times article about RTE being “forced to broadcast more ‘public service content’ during primetime viewing hours” generated lots of coverage yesterday. Eamon Ryan TD, Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, wants the state broadcaster to invest less of its annual budget in shows like Eastenders and Desperate Housewives. RTE will have to invest in high brow programming instead.

Interestingly something similar is happening in France where Nicolas Sarkozy plans to ban advertising on public television. According to an article in the Economist, Sarkozy also wants to “liberate public broadcasters from the ‘tyranny of audience ratings’ so they could focus instead on quality.“

The problem however is the audience isn’t interested in high brow programming. The Economist rightly points to the most popular show on the BBC - Eastenders. The move is a bit like taking celeb gossip magazines off the shelves in newsagents and replacing them with copies of Hard Times. Any guesses to whether the public will change channels or not?

While Ryan’s move is certainly laudable, it is going to be difficult to enforce. As the Economist article points out, who benefits? TV3 gets extra ad revenue and a better chance of landing shows like Lost and ER. Is that the answer though? The quality of TV3’s programming has been called into question on numerous occasions and the station has been criticised for its lack of Irish content. At times you’d struggle to switch between TV3 and UTV and notice the differences.

In many respects, the problem with RTE isn’t its content during primetime viewing hours, it’s everything else. What educational programming of note is the station investing in? In its defense though, it isn’t economical to produce children’s content. The Economist had another interesting article a couple of weeks ago. Here’s a snapshot:

The squeezing out of original programming for teenage viewers is one unexpected early consequence of the arrival of multi-channel digital television. Children are among the most eager adopters of digital TV, and now spend 82% of their viewing time on specialist digital channels rather than the old analogue five. Their parents are happy to indulge them: 90% of households with children have multi-channel television, against 76% of childless homes. More channels have meant lots more choice: some 113,000 hours of children’s programmes were broadcast in 2006, compared with 20,000 in 1998.

But there is a catch: nearly all of this is either imported or repeated. By 2006 only 1% of children’s broadcasting consisted of original material made in Britain. Increased competition for viewers from the new channels, as well as bans on advertising junk food during children’s shows, has made it unprofitable to commission expensive new children’s programmes. Britain’s main commercial broadcasters have halved their investment in children’s shows since 1998.

Pre-schoolers are getting the lion’s share of what is left, partly because they are more likely to watch with their parents, whom advertisers will pay more to reach. The BBC, which is funded by a tax on households with televisions, has managed to increase its spending on children’s programmes—yet it too seems to be focusing on younger kids. Its children’s service, which used to cater for under-16s, was redefined in 2006 to attract under-12s away from competitors such as Disney and Nickelodeon. Programmes for older children, such as “Grange Hill”, are having to soften their content accordingly. A new teenagers’ brand, BBC Switch, was launched in October, but its output is slim and mainly on the web, where Beeb bosses reckon teenagers now lurk. The television-minded among the over-12s are increasingly left to watch adult-oriented programmes or imports for children.

I think it’s fair to demand more from the State broadcaster, but it’s other areas where it should invest the licence fee, particularly in areas like children’s programming which no-one is investing in.

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