Radio: In with the old

There was a big fuss when John Kelly lost his Mystery Train, a good bit of noise about Mary Wilson hosting a new evening radio show, tears from Tubridy (apparently) when he lost his production team earlier in the summer, but not a whisper about what happened to those 45 minutes of news (or was it an hour?) on Saturday lunchtimes on RTÉ Radio 1.

Of course, there is This Week on Sundays, excellently, if safely, presented and edited by veteran journalist Gerry Barry – but surely there is room for two hours of news analysis over an entire weekend? The new-ish 11am to 1pm slot on Saturdays and Sundays (hosted by Marian when she's not on holidays) is not a substitute, and anyway, there used to be both.

Sometimes the Marian slots cover the stories of the week with their often poor panellists on a Saturday (alongside a long, soft-focus interview) and conduct a weak paper round-up on a Sunday. But was there really a need to dump the Saturday lunchtime news analysis slot without mention or explanation?

Instead, The Brendan Balfe Show has been extended, so now there is a whole hour and 55 minutes of bad music with surreal pre-recorded 1970s comedy. Who is this show for?

The 'new' schedule for RTÉ Radio 1 doesn't seem that new at all on weekdays between 7am and 7pm. Morning Ireland is still there, as are The Tubridy Show, Today With Pat Kenny, Ronan Collins, the News at One, and then Joe gets another 15 minutes.

The next two shows are new. Derek Mooney, between 3pm and 5pm, has a "very broad brief" and "will be covering everything". Who knows what that will be like without the wildlife and his excellent panel from Mooney Goes Wild. Mary Wilson is up next. Hopefully she will bring the skills from her years of fantastic court reporting to bear as the anchor of Drivetime from 5pm to 6.30pm.

And then Des Cahill is getting a whole half hour of his own – one sure way to guarantee that half of the population will never listen to that slot, and to ensure a changeover to The Last Word and The Right Hook on Today FM and NewsTalk. Although Matt Cooper and George Hook may both be guilty of overdoing the boys' sports talk, they are positively erudite compared to Cahill's irritating banter.

Overall, there's not one presenter on the revamped daytime schedule with whom RTÉ listeners are not already familiar, no new talent, nobody young and – God forbid – nobody who's not Irish born and bred.

After 7pm, there is something 'new' – Páraic Breathnach is hosting The Eleventh Hour, the late-night arts slot, at 11pm. Breathnach is a maverick (that means 10-12pm will be filled by two male mavericks). He is a big personality with big ideas, a great voice and a passion for all things Irish and artistic, which don't often get an airing on the national airwaves. But Breathnach is the only new face in the much-hyped revamp.p