RadioReview: Tommy Broughan, you're a man after my own heart. The Labour TD stood up in the Dáil this week and complained about the lack of choice on the radio between 9am and 10am. All the stations, he said, naming the presenters, essentially do the same show, and of course he's right.
His point - and why presumably he thought the impromptu radio review was Dáil-worthy, was that better care has to be taken when radio licences are granted to ensure diversity of content. But would he have made the same speech back in the happy days when Marian Finucane was in that slot on RTÉ Radio 1? I doubt it. Back then at least the State broadcaster provided choice on its two main stations - intelligent, music-free talk radio from Marian and, well, Gerry Ryan.
In the time since The Ryan Tubridy Show (RTÉ Radio 1, Monday-Friday) has been on air I still can't figure out what exactly it is for - or who it's supposed to appeal to. I suspect it's supposed to be light relief between Morning Ireland and Today with Pat Kenny. But there's light and then there's the scratchy sound of trivia expanding to fill an allotted space. Every day is the same - Tubridy prattling on in his earnest, self-important way, rushing from one over-contrived but pointless item to the next until - phew! - Radio One is back to its intelligent self again when Pat Kenny comes on air. That's if you stay listening that long.
Ian Dempsey played Broughan's Dáil speech (The Ian Dempsey Breakfast Show, Today FM, Wednesday) before suggesting to his listeners that never mind, they could always download a couple of podcasts during that gabby hour instead. I don't think he meant it - he just got carried away talking about Ricky Gervais's hilarious podcasts which listeners will shortly have to pay to download, proving that the comedian has reached cyberland's holy grail - making web content that people are prepared to pay for.
Pat Kenny provided the most hilarious - and at the same time, despairing - interview of the week (Today with Pat Kenny, RTÉ Radio 1, Tuesday) when he quizzed John Ellis, chairman of the Oireachtas Transport Committee, about the value of what sounded like rather a nice jolly to Australia. The fact-finding mission - three TDs and a Senator went - was to discover how road safety works Down Under. Kenny's point was that he'd found out exactly the same information on the show by simply phoning up the top Australian road safety guy last month and doing an extensive on-air interview. Ellis battled on. They discovered that speed, non-enforcement of legislation, and inexperienced drivers were some of the causes of road death in that far-away country. A listener suggested Ellis enter Mastermind with "stating the bloody obvious" as his specialist subject.
Mimi Tatlow finished her series on teenage problems (The Other Side of Childhood, RTÉ Radio 1, Wednesday) by bringing a panel in to studio to answer listeners' letters, and they showed the issues dealt with in the programme, from bullying to depression, hit home in households all over the country. What has been most interesting is the change in Tatlow's own tone. At the start of the series in January she appeared optimistic and hopeful when talking about child mental health services but by last week, on a programme about therapy, experience had chastened her and she sounded quite defeated. Every week, no matter what the problem, there has been one common denominator - an under-resourced mental health system where children can wait up to three years before even being assessed by a psychologist. At which point, some of them aren't even children any more.
Thanks to Good Night, and Good Luck and Syriana, George Clooney has changed from being the thinking woman's crumpet to the thinking person's thinking actor (see also W7). Francine Stock interviewed him (The Film Programme, BBC R4, Saturday), about the films, particularly Good Night, which he co-wrote, directed and starred in. (Incidentally, why isn't there a movie programme on RTÉ radio?) The film re-enacts the public battle between CBS newsman Edward R Murrow and Sen Joseph McCarthy. Reviewing the movie, veteran journalist and Murrow contemporary Charles Wheeler said that it's only flaw was presenting Murrow as the only journalist prepared to criticise McCarthy. American print journalists had, he said, also been vocal at the time. Clooney's intention in making the film is to draw parallels between 1950s Cold War hysteria and Bush's War on Terror, and Stock asked him if the black and white movie isn't a bit too subtle. "Six Oscar nominations, quadrupled what it cost to make - if it's too subtle, it's working," said Clooney. "I'm a big fan of subtle." All said without a hint of the Hollywood star's trademark charm.
