Galway 2020 ‘not ungrateful’ about ‘dour’ RTÉ radio ads

Bradley Bytes – a sort of political column by Dara Bradley

As you know, RTÉ is national media partner of Galway 2020, the company set up to deliver the European Capital of Culture.

And as such, the national broadcaster promised “deliverables”, to use its own jargon, under the partnership.

This included pledges to broadcast The Late Late Show and other high-profile programmes from Galway, for example. It included collaboration on specific projects, such as a planned “major televised” midsummer concert at NUIG by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra.

The media partnership agreement with RTÉ also gave Galway 2020, “significant opportunities for branding”.

This involved RTÉ giving free advertising space to Galway 2020 on radio, television and online. Not only did RTÉ give over free airtime, they also produced the ad promotions for the group, like they did with other partnerships, such as Fleadh Cheoil.

But emails released under Freedom of Information (FOI) show the tensions between both organisations during the making of these ads, with Galway 2020 not altogether satisfied.

In August last year, Joe Hoban, Head of Communications and Corporate at RTÉ, told Fintan Maher, the then Communications Director of Galway 2020 who has since left, that the caveat was, “we are producing these from within our existing comms budget”.

“We work miracles” he said, with “some practical limitations”. But RTÉ puts forward “the best creative we can” to “produce something stunning”.

When Joe sent Fintan the results on September 6, he said the “piece is almost exactly as ideated and presented – a rare occurrence”. Alas, Galway 2020 wasn’t so sure!

Fintan replied that they “like the overall feel” of the TV ad, and then he listed all the things “we don’t like”. Fintan suggested: “Could you brighten this” and “beach doesn’t look great” and “heart looks anaemic”.

Most criticism was directed at the radio ad. “We don’t like the voice of the guy – it sounds dour”, Fintan said.

“Could he do more upbeat (voice)”, and “pace is very slow”, Fintan observed, with instructions to add and drop words.

Joe reminded Fintan that the Memorandum of Understanding “doesn’t commit RTÉ to producing the campaigns” but they did so “in the spirit of goodwill”. With limited budget, no extra resources and “challenging weather”, Joe replied, “we produced an ad of excellent overall quality”.

Agreeing to some tweaks, Joe said “we needed to be flexible with our expectations and realistic about what is achievable”. Regarding the radio, he said it was “a shame you don’t like it”.

“TG4 sourced us a west of Ireland actor with a Gaeilge blas (accent) to record it, and we felt he had nailed it”.

Fintan replied the “general agreement” in Galway 2020 was it was “too downbeat”. They “love the pronunciation of Gaeilge just the tone and pace is too slow”, and “we would rather a younger voice”.

He added the feedback on the ads, “was in no way to undermine” the support of RTÉ “or to appear in any way ungrateful”.
For more Bradley Bytes, see this week’s Galway City Tribune. You can buy a digital edition HERE.