When Cathal Goan swivels in his chair he looks out on a windswept Connemara landscape with nothing except what looks like a TV mast in sight. TG4's location at Baile na hAbhann, Co Galway, is symbolic of its decentralised nature, far from Donnybrook, Dublin, where its parent company, RTE, is located and where Mr Goan worked for many years.
A former television producer, he sold the family house in Dublin in 1996, and moved to Galway with his wife, Maighread Ni Dhomnaill, the sean nos singer, and two children. He now has a 25-minute daily commute. "There is no comparison. Even on bad days, there is a light that comes off the sea," he says.
He has been in the job almost six years, steering the station for more than three of those years through controversy and opposition, lowish ratings, TV aerial growing pains and a name change (from Teilifis na Gaeilge to TG4). But the station appears to have left low ratings behind, with latest figures showing a doubling of its audience in the past year. On Christmas Day, 25 per cent of the national audience tuned in to the station at some stage.
"The rebranding has helped us. We consolidated on over 2 per cent of the share of the national audience from mid-December to now with a daily reach of 650,000 people."
The rebranding, which came into effect in September, was undertaken so that the station would be seen as a national one and as part of its campaign to be given prominence by the cable companies in their channel application. "It is equally important with some national newspapers to be given fair play in billings," he says.
Currently TG4 is an RTE subsidiary but it will soon become an independent corporate entity to herald the digital television age. "What is proposed is the entire transmission network for all the services which enjoy RTE's maintenance, including radio, will be sold off to a potential owner of the analogue transmission system who will also develop the digital terrestrial system."
It will mean a more commercial environment and Mr Goan's next challenge will be to consolidate the station's launch and make it stand among equals. "One of the things we would like to see in the broadcast legislation is that primary [channel] position is specified for all the national services. We attach enormous importance to that."
He describes the station's aim as "confirming Irish as a living language, taking it out of a characterisation as a hole in a bog or a badly taught curriculum subject". "That does not mean that I am trying to reinforce existing cliches. What I am trying to show is that they were wrong in the first place."
He travels to Dublin regularly, remarking that he is "expert on all modes of transport". He reports every six weeks to Seirbhisi Theilifis na Gaeilge, which handles the station's finances. Since last November, Dr Peter Bacon, best known for his reports on the housing crisis, has been the chairman of that committee.
There is also an advisory committee on the service's nature. "They are the ones who preoccupy themselves with, if you like, the philosophical outlook of TG4."
One of eight children from Ardoyne, Belfast, he is the only Irish speaker in the family. He read Celtic Studies in UCD and joined RTE as an archivist in 1979 and went on to become a radio producer. Later he worked on the television current affairs programme, Today Tonight, and describes moving "reluctantly" to the Irish current affairs programme, Cursai. But he enjoyed the experience enormously.
Later he was appointed editor of Irish language programmes in 1990 before taking up his present position in 1994. The station made its first broadcast on Halloween, 1996.
TG4's output has surprised some of its critics by broadcasting award-winning documentaries, chat shows and light entertainment programmes. It has targeted younger audiences with dubbed cartoons and an interactive game show. "We are very conscious that the kids' audience is the future," he says.
It has balanced these with the coup of getting the live broadcast rights to the Public Accounts Committee DIRT tax hearings. The latter caused havoc to its schedules but often provided compulsive viewing as the inner workings of banks and Government departments were subjected to unprecedented scrutiny.
TG4 also broadcasts English and foreign-language films, lateat-night commercial presentations, innovative sports programmes and Euro News, a Europe-wide news service.
Mr Goan defends the output, saying that even the Irish language output, over half of the total, is a long way above market aspirations. TG4 currently broadcasts for more than 12 hours a day. "I do not assume that this country is ever going to be Irish-speaking. What I do assume is that an awful lot of people will wish to maintain their ability to speak Irish and pass it on to their children."
He says a lot of new talent has found its way to television because of TG4, citing, in particular, Ros na Run, the popular soap opera produced by Eo Television and Tyrone Productions. "We have changed a lot of people's approach on how TV can be made in the independent sector."
Meanwhile, the 40 people who work directly for the company have "the advantage of looking over the edge" in terms of developing technologies.
Aged 45, Mr Goan says he is one of the "oldies". "They think in different ways," he says of the staff. "They are very flexible, very adaptable. They are sharp, they see things. They want to find out how it is done. They do not bring baggage to the table and it is just great to be around young people who are like that."
Last year, the State provided £14 million (€17.8 million) for the service, but Mr Goan points out that three-quarters of that figure - about £10 million (€12.7 million) - goes back into the independent television sector through commissions. The station employs around 250 people through programme commissioning.
"I do not know anyone, anywhere who is putting TV on as cost effectively as us. . . This place is as streamlined as it is possible to get in terms of the administration system that we adopted and the configuration that we have here," he says.
Looking back, he regrets not marketing the station more in the early days, hinting at a lack of self-confidence. "We did not want to draw too much attention to ourselves in case we got our heads blown off by our detractors. But that will be less so in the future."
He uses an Irish proverb to describe the new thinking: "Mura bhfuil agat ach pocan gabhair, bi i lar an aonaigh" (If you only have a billy goat, be in the middle of the fair). "That is what I am learning, and I am still learning it," he says.
