TG4 thrives in a multicultural Ireland because respect for the rights of minorities has finally taken root, writes Farrel Corcoran
It was a magical Halloween night in Connemara 10 years ago, fireworks and bonfires lighting up the rocky terrain, the sound of massed Macnas drumming reverberating around the coastal lakes, the whole ritual unashamedly evoking the old Celtic festival of Samhain.
To all of us involved in the launch of TnaG, it was unbelievable that after so many years of bitter argument about Irish and its place in radio and television, we were now toasting a major new cultural initiative.
It was never going to be easy, not just because of severe resource limitations but because of the hostile ideological environment, policed by a small number of newspaper pundits trying to shout down the message from opinion polls showing broad support for public funding of broadcasting in Irish. It was clear by the 1980s that the old polarised ways in which we thought about Irish were changing. Insistence on a highly prescriptive sense of Irish identity, based on claustrophobic policies that held sway since Independence, began to wane, as did its opposite, the post-colonial shame that associated the Irish language with backwardness. Deepening contact with the EEC fostered the novel idea that linguistic minorities in all parts of Europe should have a "right to communicate". This new self-confidence was put to the test in the campaigns of the 1980s to establish a Gaeltacht television service, a reaction to the arrival of S4C in Wales and to the perceived marginalisation of Irish language programming in RTÉ, where commercial pressure to maximise audience size was getting intense. Those campaigns were a direct riposte to what Gaeltacht activists rightly saw as political dithering and posturing in Dublin.
What has changed in the 10 years since the launch of TG4 and how do we evaluate its current role in Irish society?
For media critics working totally within a market ideology, with no interest in TG4's actual output, the only question has been its audience share. In fact, TG4 has managed to increase its audience each year, to the point where its share is now five times greater than when it started.
In the digital and broadband era, where the audience for indigenous Irish channels has shrunk to just about half of the audience for all television viewed in the country due to intense competition from abroad, this is a solid achievement.
TG4's share is now slightly less than BBC2 or Channel 4, but larger than Sky One, Sky News, Nickleodeon or MTV, all of which have a significant presence in Ireland.
Its flagship children's programme, Cúla 4, regularly attracts 20 per cent of the child audience. Given the long-standing argument that Irish-speaking children in particular need significant daily contact with their own language on television, this is a significant statistic.
TG4 clearly has repositioned the Irish language in the cultural life of the country, where there are now well over 100 languages spoken in the schools and streets.
There are however important funding questions to be asked. TG4 gets a Government grant of €28 million and generates a further €4 million from advertising. The Welsh channel S4C is the nearest comparator in terms of mission and size of core audience, but by contrast, it receives a government grant of €135 million and earns a further €13 million commercially. RTÉ provides TG4 with 365 hours of "free" programming a year, while the BBC provides more than 550 hours to S4C.
It is doubtful if the Government will ever significantly increase its funding, so rather than wait for the impossible, TG4 creates cost-effective schedules that are clever blends of original production in Irish, acquired content dubbed into Irish, archival material and English language television bought on the global market, some of it aimed at niche audience interest.
TG4 is admired, even by its detractors, not just for its success in cornering awards at international film and television festivals, but more importantly, for the canny way it manages to provide a wide range of programming, from stimulating children's entertainment, to the long-running soap Ros na Rún, to the international televisual gallivanting of the intrepid Hector Ó hEochagáin.
Its impact on employment in the independent production sector, especially around Galway, is significant, since TG4 is a publisher-broadcaster (like S4C or Channel 4) that commissions most of its programming. It competes with another new channel, Setanta, for what might now be called niche sports rights, including major tennis and cycling events.
Of particular relevance to anyone concerned with the improvement of political communication is TG4's live coverage of Dáil sessions and Oireachtas committee hearings, as well as its retransmission of Euronews, the European public broadcasting news service. In an important development negotiated in the Belfast Agreement, the public sphere nourished by TG4 now includes most of Northern Ireland.
So, who is complaining? Well, mostly TV3 executives, who want TG4 to become a full-time Irish language station and who insist that it should be funded totally from the licence fee. This would leave better advertising pickings for private television companies, including the many foreign television channels now drawing income from the limited pool of Irish advertising.
It would suit TV3 very nicely if both TG4 and RTÉ were to survive on licence fee revenue frozen at its present level. It remains to be seen how this argument will be regarded by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, the regulator proposed in the Government's new Broadcasting Bill, which for the first time will amalgamate the regulation of both public and private broadcasting under one roof.
It is easy to get frustrated with the amount of Irish language material on TG4. Is seven hours a day enough, or too much, in a schedule that stretches up to 19 hours?
There are good reasons to criticise this ratio, especially if you want more Irish programming for your family, or if you feel the channel is oriented too much (or too little) towards specifically Gaeltacht (as opposed to all-Ireland) interests, or if you think TV3 would provide as much content made in Ireland as TG4, if only it didn't have to compete with those people in Connemara.
For those who seriously want to increase the amount of Irish language programming, it is primarily a decision for government, not for the thrifty TG4 staff who have produced so much already with a tiny budget.
Public appreciation of what TG4 is adding to the mix of television in Ireland is much more positive now than it was 10 years ago. TG4 thrives in a multicultural Ireland because the democratic value of respect for the rights of minorities has finally taken root.
We recognise this by guaranteeing access to television for those who speak Irish in their daily lives - and for quite a few more of us who also enjoy what TG4 is adding to the current globalised television landscape. The staff of TG4 can proudly raise the champagne glasses again in Connemara this Halloween, no doubt toasting the wisdom of the strategy that has guided them over the last decade: An fear nach bhfuil láidir, ní foáir do bheith glic.
Farrel Corcoran is professor of communications in Dublin City University and a former chairman of RTÉ.