01 February 2007
Dr. Henry: I thank Senator Norris for sharing his time with me. I welcome the Minister to the House and I also welcome the Bill. It must be a great change for him, a Minister charged with dangerous issues, to be getting such a welcome for a Bill on all sides.
As with Senator Norris, I hope the Minister will see a way to extend the Bill to cover radio and I will certainly support the amendment tabled by my colleague. We must ensure there is a digital short wave service as this would go to the European Union and down to north Africa. This should not just be for the Irish diaspora as a considerable number of people would welcome another English-speaking radio service. The BBC World Service is excellent but other voices are also welcome. I suspect many people would tune into such a service.
It was unfortunate that the long wave transmitter in Meath was sold off some years ago. Teamtalk bought it at that stage but it was later bought back, so it was sold as a result of some very short-sighted economy measure. I am glad we have it back again. However, long wave reaches only as far as the UK.
The quality of what we send out will be extraordinarily important. We managed to maintain quality on radio better than we did on television, even though the quality on our television channels is maintained at a higher level than channels such as Channel 4 which, as Senator Norris stated, has descended into the depths. Like Senator Norris, I query how one gauges what is competition. I recall being in the United States approximately 30 years ago with my children. One of them, who was tuning in and out of television stations as children do, said, "40 channels and nothing on any of them". We must be careful not to end up with nothing worthwhile on any station.
Apparently advertisers have deserted television. They have put their money into the Internet, which is a serious problem for raising money to make good programmes. As RTE is a public service, which the Minister recognises at the beginning of the Bill, it is most important we examine this. TG4 manages to hold its own with programmes of incredible interest. If it can manage to do so on the budget it has, I am quite sure RTE 1 and RTE 2 should be able to do more.
I always try to get RTE to take actions, such as buying the Russian version of The Master and Margarita, which apparently the Russians do not like. However, the Russians never seem to like any adaptation of The Master and Margarita. We could have it with Irish and English subtitles. This jurisdiction has people with excellent subtitling skills and I am sure if we broadcast it to the rest of Europe many people would want to see developments from other non-English speaking countries.
Radio programmes have held up well, although I regret bitterly the removal of "Rattlebag" from the middle of the day to the middle of the night.
Dr. Henry: Hear, hear.
Dr. Henry: It is a most interesting programme on the arts and I now do not get an opportunity to hear it. I once told a doctor I was worried because I went to sleep in front of the television at 10 p.m. He stated, "For heaven's sake, so do I". That was the end of that conversation. A large number of people miss programmes broadcast late at night.
I once though Lyric FM was as good as BBC 3. Why did it get rid of "The Full Score" in the afternoon? One rarely gets to hear the full score of any piece of music. On most afternoons now, one hears the scores of films.
Mr. Norris: What about Val Joyce?
Dr. Henry: One could give numerous other examples. In general, our broadcasters have steered away from these nauseating reality TV shows which appear to specialise in the denigration of the person. It does not matter who the person is. A recent outcry about racism occurred with regard to a programme I do not watch, namely, "Celebrity Big Brother". I do not know whether it was racism. I think it was just downright bullying. If advertisers feel what they put on television influences people to buy their wares we must assume shows such as this also have an influence on people.
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