Radio for the people
RTE Radio's audience ratings have been in decline for some time.
One of the most sobering aspects of being a journalist is discovering how little most "ordinary" people pay attention to the bylines on our stories. "You're still writing for the Irish Times, aren't you?" someone said to me the other day. As it happens, I think that day was probably the third anniversary of the phone-call that terminated my employment by that paper.
Even when I still worked in the Irish Times, people would start talking to me in the lift about my wee TV-page previews of the films on telly – for many years after I'd been relieved of my short sojourn filling those particular holes.
These days, I must admit, I have become one of that annoying majority of readers who are largely bypassed by bylines, the main exception being when they name former students of mine doing something really commendable (or appalling).
An example of my inattention: it was not until I noticed her writing, oh, about half of last week's Irish Times Saturday magazine that it occurred to me – hey, Catherine Cleary is back. A fine colleague and reporter in the 1990s, a prize-winner when she went away to the Sunday Tribune, and then I don't know what, she's evidently been contributing to the magazine for the best part of a year. And I eventually registered the name only because her good, long piece on food was such an obvious, albeit implied, rebuke to the dreadful series on the subject that laboured through the newspaper's pages a few weeks ago, earning dishonourable mention in this column.
Radio daze
Her story, as it happens, points to one of the undoubted strengths of a big, pluralistic media institution such as the Irish Times. It can feed its readers awful bilge – in the case of the food series, a whole week of it – but in the fullness of time, it can offer some relief from indigestion, because someone around the place knows where to find the tablets. And so we keep coming back for more.
As it happens, last Saturday Cleary also played a part in an example of more instant pluralism, as the Irish Times simultaneously though separately provided both sides of the intriguing, ongoing RTÉ radio story. In the newspaper, Shane Hegarty interviewed John Kelly about his dreadful treatment at the hands of management, while in the magazine Cleary spoke to the head of RTÉ Radio One, Ana Leddy, to get her views on the shake-up she has imposed.
Kelly the interviewee was a predictable combination of angry and politic (the latter predictable given that he still has to work for the TV and Lyric FM outlets of the State broadcasting organisation). In contrast, Leddy's interview-answers resided in the narrower realm bordered by "bland" and "evasive" – assuming that Cleary actually posed the tough questions of which she appeared capable.
Perhaps Leddy didn't feel she should give much away to the Irish Times, lest her staff feel compelled to read that paper: one of her most notorious early interventions on arrival last spring consisted of an indication to assembled radio producers that she was sick of seeing nothing but the Irish Times lying around on radio-centre desks. Apparently it's no way to keep in touch with De Plain People of Ireland.
The popular vote
Whether this tabloid-friendly attitude is cod populism or the real thing is vaguely interesting and probably irrelevant. RTÉ radio has blundered itself into a position whereby the only acceptable marker of "success" would be to stem or even reverse the haemorrhaging of audience, at least in the most advertiser-friendly demographics. And given the increasing plurality of media and the commercial stations that fill the air with expectations of frivolity, the task of retrieving Radio One's ratings is either impossible, or achievable only with further, dare I say, dumbing-down.
We shall see, or rather "hear". Obviously at the moment all media outlets are more or less engaged by what we might call political stories (eg Bertie's troubles), though the coverage is largely shallow and celebrity-esque, certainly well within dumbed-down range. Moreover, it's especially interesting that just as public interest in potentially catastrophic ecological issues is visibly rising, Leddy has handed over Radio One's main afternoon slot to Derek Mooney, who has arguably done more than anyone in Ireland to depoliticise environmental matters.
The omens, as with so many things today, are at least mildly depressing.