RTÉ Audience Council
Final Report 2004-2007
In its wisdom, along with a requirement following the last licence fee increase, RTÉ decided to set up an Audience Council. This report highlights the successes of same over the term and suggests areas for consideration for a new Council. From the outset it must be clear that any new format or operation of a Council will be underpinned by the Government’s impending Broadcasting Bill. RTÉ’s commitment has been shown from the outset of this venture as seen in its publication - Statement of Commitments for 2003 which is an annual statement of commitments to its audience.
This Council has 22 members made up of 11 representative bodies, (coming from Social Partners – IBEC, ICTU, IFA and the Community & Voluntary Pillar, Arts Council, Office of the Minister for Children, City & County Managers Association, Equality Authority, Foras na Gaeilge, Irish Council of Churches and Irish Sports Council. 10 individuals represent regional interests with 2 each from Connaught/Ulster, Munster, Leinster, Dublin and Northern Ireland and 1 ex-officio drawn from the RTÉ Authority. There are currently two vacancies on the Council: ICTU and Irish Council of Churches.
Participation throughout the four years from the RTÉ executive has been full and across the Executive Board, RTÉ Radio, RTÉ Television, RTÉ News, RTÉ Publishing, RTÉ Network, RTÉ Performing Groups and RTÉ Communications to name but a few of the willing contributors at meetings of the Council.
The Council held 5 meetings during 2004-2006 and 4 in 2007 along with other meetings on an ad-hoc basis to prepare issues/items for consideration by Council.
In its initial brief for setting up the Audience Council the key points of success were set as to facilitate communication and to enhance accountability. A scan of the communiqués on the website will illustrate that both have been achieved in that transparency was shown at all times from RTÉ to Council members, although communication to a wider audience is proving more difficult and could perhaps be addressed in a future Council by doing road shows. Accountability has been apparent by the willingness of the various Directors in RTÉ and members of their various teams to stand in front of Council members and illustrate their team’s roles fully in providing the overall service.
A meet and greet function was held in late 2003 in order to set out the agenda for 2004, the first meeting of which got under way on 8 January 2004 at which the IFA’s Derek Cunningham took up the daunting mantel of chairing the first year of the Audience Council. Under his excellent stewardship the initial meetings covered important topics such as diversity, children’s advertising code and Audience Council models in other countries.
The Council has set aside the facility of having a meeting outside headquarters in Donnybrook and in 2003; this was held in Galway, where the commitment of RTÉ was shown again in the guise of a passionate discussion on the regions, lead by the dedicated Jim Fahy.
During 2004 the Council discussed, and indeed a presentation was made, on RTÉ's diversity/multiculturalism policy. Discussion included representation of minority groups in audiences, panels and dramas as well as a diversity update as part of RTÉ's Annual Report. The Council was pleased to have its input taken into consideration.
It is interesting to state the first year set about the modus operandi of the Council which now always has in its core agenda a report from the Secretary and a discussion on programming for the relevant period preceding the meeting. Another key point in any meeting is the audience reaction to RTÉ TV & Radio programmes which inevitably gives food for much debate. The Audience Council also receives emails at times about its general workings but as it is relatively new compared to BBC terms, the amount of email traffic to the Council is miniscule.
Complaints to RTÉ and treatment of same is an area of prime interest to the Council and they are dealt with by the Head of Public Affairs Policy, Peter Feeney, a skilled and experienced member of RTÉ’s teams who has never shirked dealing with sensitive and complicated issues that the Audience Council has asked for opinion on and this was dealt with early on in Council business in the March 2004 meeting.
Moving on to 2005, and led by the outstanding Rev. Dr. Alan McCormack the Council embarked on a key initiative on 3rd March when they held a joint meeting with the then BBC Broadcasting Council for Northern Ireland hosted by RTÉ where mutual cooperation was the main theme. Indeed the RTÉ Audience Council benefited from learning from the work of a Council that had at that stage been in existence for more than 20 years.
The May meeting had a worthwhile presentation from the Audience Research department and the discussion on programming included recent events like the coverage of the death of Pope John Paul II and subsequent election of Benedict XVI, which as a once-off event, the Council members agreed was particularly astutely handled by correspondent, Joe Little.
Indeed one of our Council members, Eilís Boland, attended a BBC NI road show held in Ballymena and this brought about welcome discussion on how RTÉ’s Audience Council might interact with the audience.
The regional meeting was held in Cork in September 2005 to coincide with the Ploughing Championships and Grainne McAleer Commissioning Editor Daytime and Lifestyle outlined the daytime scheduling of programming, while Adrian Moynes, Managing Director of Radio listened intently to a presentation on Radio - Arts Programming (non-music) and assured the Council that he would feedback to his colleagues.
The issue of the non-reporting in English language programmes of Dáil and Seanad debates conducted through Irish was raised by Maolsheachlainn O’Caollaí and concern was expressed that Oireachtas members might be discouraged from debating in Irish as a consequence. RTÉ took this on board and in response appointed a journalist competent in the Irish language to the Oireachtas Unit.
2006 saw the Council having Mark Connolly as the first individual chair of the Council and he led the Council diligently into its third year. He dealt adroitly with difficult items even from the very first meeting of 2006 in February where an agenda item was RTÉ’s refusal to carry ‘political’ advertising. He spoke candidly at the second joint RTÉ/BBCNI meeting on this occasion hosted by BBC in Belfast on the 21st March. A key theme on this momentous occasion was the ability for both Councils to discuss in a frank and open manner, diversity in broadcasting, with the BBC highlighting how this is fundamental in their strategy – Diversity, Creativity and Audiences. Another main area championed by the RTÉ team under the leadership of Peter Feeney was a paper given on Taste and Decency in broadcasting. This meeting was deemed the ‘away’ meeting for 2006.
June of that year saw the discussion of Council becoming diverse in its own right, with a presentation on podcasting of radio programmes handled adeptly by John Paul Coakley Head of Operations, RTÉ Radio, pronunciation of languages other that English, (commanded phonetically by Council member, Maolsheachlainn O’Caollai) and a report from the Audience Council delegation meeting with the Authority Programme Sub-Committee.
Key issues for the September meeting of 2006 included a discussion on the Heads of the Broadcasting Bill where it was noted that the Minister for Communications, Marine & Natural Resources included a provision that the Audience Council would be established on a statutory basis. Despite much work on same and appeals to the Oireachtas Committee responsible for the Bill, up to the time of commencement of writing this report (late October 2007), a definitive response on this item had not been received. This leaves any future Council post 2007 in transition mode.
The November meeting of 2006 devoted much time to a splendid presentation given by Roisin Carroll and this was more than adequately responded to by the Irish Sports Council Member of Council, Paul McDermott who succinctly presented a paper on their view of Sports Coverage by RTÉ. The recent Ryder Cup coverage was discussed as an example.
Paul Kinsella was elected chair for 2007 and the first meeting was held in February. We immediately had an update on diversity from Bride Rosney, Director of Communications RTÉ and indeed the executive underpinned the keenness to inform with an enlightened presentation on Corporate Responsibility from Jennifer Taaffe.
March and the second meeting of 2007 honed in on two areas (i) RTÉ’s role in the General Election with a paper by Peter Feeney and (ii) a paper given by Des Sheridan on the meeting of a delegation of the Council with the Authority Programme Sub-Committee where major points worked out between the two parties was the role of the Audience Council and Adrian Moynes pointed out that this independent input was invaluable to him in working with his programme makers.
The June meeting was treated to an in-depth, factual and fascinating presentation by Tom Quinn, RTÉ Group Secretary who recounted about the role of the RTÉ Authority and its developments since inception. The recent programming element of the agenda included welcome discussion on such areas as the arts and recent General Election coverage.
This short report on activity from late 2003 till November 2007 (final meeting took place on 8th November 2007) talks of the meeting between the new BBC Trust and Audience Council and RTÉ Audience Council held on 10th October at which areas such as co-operation, collaboration and co-productions were raised. Looking to the future it was suggested that both Councils would look at the possibility of placing an ‘observer’ at each other's Council meetings. There was no decision reached but both Councils agreed to bring back the suggestion to their respective Councils for investigation. Digital switchover, digital availability along with network commissioning were areas raised also.
It is beyond the scope of this report to cover all the areas of activity that the RTÉ Audience Council endeavoured to work on over their tenure, suffice to say, that it got involved in such items as multiculturalism including the MAMA awards, general programme content, scheduling, audience participation, commercial radio and tv, current affairs, drama, night time-morning and daytime TV, among many others.
November 2007