RTÉ News & Current Affairs

In an unprecedented year for Ireland and the world, more people turned to RTÉ for News & Current Affairs than ever before, with 90% of Irish people choosing RTÉ as their primary source of information on the Covid-19 pandemic (Amárach Research on behalf of the Department of Health).

The year began with General Election 2020, and a series of innovations to RTÉ’s election coverage. A ‘digital-first’ approach saw Campaign Daily report developments in real time, online and on social media, while in the first set of Bryan Dobson Interviews…, the main party leaders were questioned, live and in depth, on their manifesto promises. RTÉ teamed up with NUI Galway to broadcast The Claire Byrne Live Leaders’ Debate, in which a live audience of more than 300 people questioned seven party leaders. Days before the first weekend election in almost a century, Prime Time broadcast RTÉ’s final debate, with the leaders of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin answering questions from Miriam O’Callaghan and David McCullagh.

The results of Election 2020 saw the public turn to RTÉ in record numbers in February. For the first time, as the polls closed on Saturday night, RTÉ News went on air to reveal the projections of an exit poll conducted with the Irish Times. It suggested a three-way split, with the result too close to call. As nail-biting counts unfolded, the public interest in politics broke records across RTÉ’s services. On television, over 2.5 million viewers tuned into RTÉ One’s Election 2020 results and news coverage across three days and 31 hours of live TV.

Online, RTÉ News saw record levels of engagement, with the number of users increasing 30% on the 2016 general election. A total of 3.4 million unique visitors accessed RTÉ News online from 202 countries worldwide, including Greenland, Chad, Vatican City and Turkmenistan. Younger audiences were particularly engaged with RTÉ programming. 51% of 15–34-year-olds watching TV chose to watch the special exit poll programme on RTÉ One.

RTÉ produced over 20 hours of live Irish-language election results coverage for TG4 in addition to regular Nuacht bulletins on RTÉ One. Election 2020 delivered the launch of an Irish-language live online tracker by RTÉ with all the latest news and results, for the first time. RTÉ had over 30 journalists on the ground dedicated to providing Irish-language news content from constituency counts, drawn from both RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta and Nuacht RTÉ.

E​lection 2020 also saw RTÉ engaging with the future journalists of Ireland as it teamed up with universities around the country. 39 young student journalists joined the RTÉ News count centre teams, delivering live coverage for each of Ireland’s 39 constituencies.

As the country was voting on 8 February, Six-One presenter Keelin Shanley lost her fight with cancer. With over 20 years’ experience as a journalist and broadcaster on programmes such as Prime Time Investigates, Crime Call and Morning Edition, Keelin made history in 2018 when she and Caitriona Perry became the first all-female team to present a television news programme in Ireland. Keelin was loved and respected by both colleagues and the audience and is deeply missed. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam.

Weeks later, Covid-19 would transform life in Ireland. Extensive contingency planning ensured that RTÉ maintained essential news and current affairs programming, with teams working throughout the pandemic to provide coverage of breaking news. Instead of covering parades on St Patrick’s Day, the RTÉ News team worked to ensure that the Taoiseach could speak directly to the Irish people – a moment watched by more people than any other in Irish television history.

Prime Time and Claire Byrne Live scrutinised the global crisis, extending their runs into the summer. For the first time in a decade, Prime Time ran all year round, winning some of the biggest audiences in its 28-year history. RTÉ News launched a special podcast, Pandemic. To date, more than 75 episodes have been produced, exploring the crisis at home and abroad – and all produced remotely.

A major refresh on the nation’s most listened-to radio station, RTÉ Radio 1, in autumn saw Áine Lawlor and Mary Wilson join Ireland’s most listened-to radio programme, Morning Ireland, while lunchtime became home to RTÉ News at One with Bryan Dobson. Morning Ireland increased its audience by 62,000 in 2020, with 491,000 tuning in each morning – the biggest audience for any radio programme in Ireland in nearly 20 years. News at One grew its audience to 370,000 listeners every lunchtime, an increase of 50,000.

There was change too for Ireland’s most watched news programme as David McCullagh joined Caitriona Perry at the helm of Six-One in September. There were further moves on RTÉ One, with Ray Kennedy becoming the weekend anchor of RTÉ News and Eileen Whelan named the permanent presenter of the One O’Clock News.

In 2020, traffic to RTÉ News online doubled, with 2.267 billion page impressions. A refreshed version of the RTÉ News app launched, ensuring an enhanced user experience and more prominent live content and video, with a rebrand to the core RTÉ News identity for the app and the RTÉ News television channel.

RTÉ also launched phase one of a new marketing campaign aimed at highlighting the issue of misinformation and the importance of accurately sourced news.

2020 saw the appointment of Ailbhe Conneely as Social Affairs & Religion Correspondent and RTÉ News’ newest presenter, 24-year-old Mícheál Ó Scannáil, joined news2day.

A new weekly podcast series, States of Mind, hosted by RTÉ’s Washington Correspondent Brian O’Donovan and RTÉ journalist Jackie Fox, was launched. It sorted through the spin and misinformation of US Election 2020 and gave Irish listeners a real insight into how the US public might vote and analysis of the issues that could affect Ireland. RTÉ also provided extensive results coverage across television, radio and online of the US Presidential Election in November, which saw TV audiences increase by 55% on 2016.

RTÉ had two key priorities: maintaining services to our audiences while keeping our staff safe. Across RTÉ News & Current Affairs, teams adapted and changed the way they worked to ensure they could continue to provide trusted, insightful and informed reporting and analysis. Thanks to their professionalism and commitment, on radio, on TV and online, RTÉ was Ireland’s first choice for news and current affairs in 2020.

RTÉ Investigates The gold standard of RTÉ’s journalism, in 2020 RTÉ Investigates again made headlines with ground-breaking reports. In June and July, the three-part series Inside Ireland’s Covid Battle brought us inside St James’s Hospital in Dublin as healthcare staff fought to keep patients alive. The series revealed for the first time the enormous impact Covid-19 was having on patients, staff, families and Ireland’s healthcare system. The first in the series, Covid: Life & Death took us to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in the hospital, where we heard first-hand testimony from doctors and nurses. Student nurses described what it’s like to be catapulted from lecture halls to the frontline of a worldwide pandemic. Patients gave an insight into the rollercoaster ride that is Covid-19. Families described the anguish of not being able to visit their loved ones in hospital and sitting at home nervously waiting for the phone to ring with the daily update. There were stories too of hope and triumph from patients who survived Covid-19 and returned to their families. Covid: Survival & Recovery looked at the role of infection control, and the wide-ranging impact a single case can have on a hospital system. We saw how the news that a patient is coming off a ventilator and is leaving the ICU is welcomed by patients, their families and hospital staff alike. However, for many patients, leaving the ICU is only the first step in their recovery journeys: they will spend days, weeks or months recovering from the virus. Speaking to survivors, the programme demonstrated that, with help and support, people can and do get back to living their lives. The final programme in the series – Covid: Future Healthcare – examined the enormous challenges facing the system as it battles to provide ‘normal health services’ with the threat of Covid-19 ever present. The series was accompanied by an extensive digital and online project that examined the stories behind the daily Covid-19 statistics. Online we also had the opportunity to meet some of the people working in St James’s Hospital in a series of portraits titled The Face Behind the Mask. Whistleblowers: Fighting to be Heard gave an insight into the lives of several whistleblowers in Ireland, some speaking for the first time, and the personal price they paid to expose secrets. In November, Barrister & Conman – The Patrick Russell Story revealed how one of Ireland’s most prolific fraudsters conned millions of euro from more than 60 men and women across the country. RTÉ Investigates spoke to over 20 victims who say they reported Russell to Gardai over the years. Despite this, he evaded prosecution for more than three decades. In 1972, just three days after Christmas, a no-warning car bomb killed two teenagers and injured nine other people in Belturbet, Co. Cavan. RTÉ Investigates: Belturbet – A Bomb That Time Forgot revealed new evidence that British security forces failed to act on credible information, allowing militant loyalists to operate freely in South Fermanagh. In the wake of the programme the Gardai reopened their investigation, and have interviewed several individuals at length.