The Byrne-ing issue of audience selection

The Government and the Opposition are convinced that the selection of audience members on television programmes is a "Machiavellian" business, says RTÉ's managing editor of current affairs David Nally.

“Sometimes you turn on the TV and there’s as many plants as you see inside a garden centre,” Fine Gael TD Patrick O’Donovan insisted at a meeting of the Oireachtas Communications committee meeting this week.

So how does the audience selection process work on RTÉ's newest current affairs programme Claire Byrne Live?

Its audience seating fits 95-110, who comprise a combination of ticket applicants and representatives of relevant special interest groups, with the latter contacted by researchers to see if they might fancy contributing to that week’s show.

On arrival at RTÉ’s studios approximately one hour before broadcast, audience members fill out a “declaration and comment” card on which they are asked to state their name and the name of any political party or campaigning group to which they belong. The card also provides space to leave an optional comment that can be read by the team before the show goes on air, with the audience asked not to write anything on the card that they wouldn’t be happy saying live on air. In her first two shows, Byrne has appeared careful to identify the associations of audience members.

Nally says the "very rare" times that Ministers in the spotlight were "shouted down" by audience members on The Frontline they over-reacted to it. "At one point with The Frontline it was impossible to get a government minister to do it."

The new show, however, should benefit in its first year from a pre-election atmosphere: “When we come back next September, there will really be a crackle in the air.”