RTƒÕs dinosaurs policy shuns young viewers

Date Published: {J}

You would be forgiven for thinking that television stations, by their nature, would always be striving to attract a new audience with the intention of holding onto them and providing them with programmes that would keep them coming back for more. Most of the mainstream channels try to lure a younger audience every so often.

And then there is RTÉ who do things completely in reverse by driving young audiences away at every opportunity. It is almost as if they have a strategy devised which is aimed at dissuading any viewer under the age of 50 from tuning in. Basically they have no time in the world for frisky 48 year olds.

Well, why else would they decide to bring Mike Murphy out of retirement and get him to do a series of the most mundane of interviews? This is not exactly an attempt by RTÉ to cajole a more youthful audience to pledge loyalty to them on a regular basis – if anything, it is likely to drive them away.

What is going on in RTÉ? First we had Gay Byrne conducting a whole heap of interviews with people who had nothing really interesting to say. But the problem with the big ego Gay is that he spent much of the time talking about his days presenting the Late Late and the person he was interviewing came in a very definite second place.

I cannot understand the fascination RTÉ have with interviewing people. They have held onto the Late Late Show for 10 years longer than they should have and now we have to endure Ryan Tubridy nearly wetting himself when one of his guests makes a remotely funny comment. Apart from everything else, they have no one new left to interview.

The only ones that want to be interviewed by RTÉ are those who have books or TV shows to promote. How often have we listened to Tubridy saying that his guest will be signing their book in Eason’s in Grafton Street the following morning or that they are going on to appear in Vicar Street later that night. It is like a glorified ad break.

RTÉ have now unearthed Mike Murphy, who used to bore us to tears on Winning Streak, and he is now conducting a series of chats on the very pretentiously titled The Big Interview which doesn’t have any big guests although it is big on image. Murphy arrives in a merc and the interview is conducted in a penthouse-type setting overlooking Dublin which smacks of something awful from a best forgotten era four or five years ago.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.