MEDIA AND MARKETING:In its presentation to the Oireachtas last week, UPC also suggested the channel should include educational programming and weekly round-up packages – 'My Big Fat Legislative Process', perhaps, or 'Made in Kildare Street'
THE GOOD NEWS for Ireland’s public representatives is that their very own television channel, Oireachtas TV, is moving up in the world.
No longer will it be languishing in the 800 channel range on UPC’s electronic programme guide, side-by-side with community television and the God Channel, where it has nevertheless managed to build up a niche audience of political nerds.
Encouraged by positive viewer feedback, UPC plans to move the channel to an as-yet undecided spot in the 200 channel range reserved for news and documentaries. There, it will live alongside the likes of Bloomberg and the National Geographic Channel.
This is a promotion – a channel’s position on a digital electronic programme guide (EPG) is critical to its overall viewership, as the occasional eruption of testy corporate battles between Sky and the BBC over such matters reveal. The inhabitants of Oireachtas TV are, curiously enough, more likely than their EPG neighbours to move successfully from talk of six-packs and sheep farming to horrified speeches about the moral perils of fornication.
It has the makings of TV gold, in other words; it just needs to be moulded and shaped into something more sophisticated than its current existence as a kind of CCTV for the water-sipping elite.
Only last week, TV3 chief executive David McRedmond told RTÉ Radio 1’s The Media Show that the semi-reality of Tallafornia “reflects what’s going on in Irish life an awful lot better than an awful lot of what goes on in the Senate”, by which he presumably meant the present-day Seanad and not the Cicero-starring heyday of ancient Roman oratory – Tallafornia’s protagonists having quite a bit in common with the senators of ancient Rome, who were also known to enjoy a naked hot tub on occasion.
Happily, thanks to Oireachtas TV, it’s possible to assess McRedmond’s claim from the comfort of one’s bank holiday couch. So in the name of research, I flicked up to UPC channel 801, joining the 20,000 armchair democrats the digital television provider claims tune into the channel daily.
It seemed very much like Senator David Norris speechifying on a loop. And David Norris on a loop is not an entirely inaccurate description of what is currently transmitted on Oireachtas TV. The schedule for the zero-budget service is essentially live Dáil sessions during the week, recorded meetings of the Seanad replayed on the weekends, and a couple of Oireachtas committees thrown in – just to break things up and keep it fresh.
The Committee of Public Accounts features a lot, which makes Fine Gael’s Brian Hayes, as Minister with responsibility for the Office of Public Works, another of the accidental stars of “beta”-phase Oireachtas TV.
Every now and again, all this democracy becomes compelling – sometimes so compelling you can even understand how it has the power to knock epic tales of missing suburban tortoises off the front page.
“Let atheists teach geography!” Norris declared. I don’t think he meant it as a punishment. Sitting in the gallery, a selection of the public sat with faces so robotically blank, it was as if they had just wandered in from a recording of RTÉ’s short-lived chat format The Social. Unable to locate Norris’s point, my mind wandered to the harp motifs on the backs of the Seanad seats and whether they tend to stay in pristine condition or have a habit of peeling off like cheap transfers.
With just an “Oireachtas Pilot Transmission” banner slapped across the bottom of the screen, Oireachtas TV, as a spokesman admits, “lacks context” right now. “More explanation” of what’s going on is likely to be part of the planned enhancements to the service.
UPC’s survey of 946 customers suggested 55 per cent believe their viewing experience would also be improved by highlights and discussion programmes. In its presentation to the Oireachtas last week, it also suggested the channel should include educational programming and weekly round-up packages – My Big Fat Legislative Process, perhaps, or Made in Kildare Street.
BBC Parliament, which over the Easter weekend had the ingenuity to re-broadcast irony-laden real-time coverage of the 1992 British general election, is one of about 30 parliamentary channels around the world that provide an example of what can be done. It, of course, has the luxury of two parliaments and two assemblies from which to glean footage. It also has a budget.
And while the Oireachtas may soon decide to invest in some captions and someone resembling a channel controller, the future incarnation of Oireachtas TV is still likely to be “very basic”, according to the Oireachtas spokesman – RTÉ Parliament is perhaps a dream/nightmare too far.
Whether Oireachtas TV is good for democracy boils down to the positives of giving viewers convenient access to unfiltered parliamentary debate versus the potential negatives of cementing a political culture where witty “performers” rise up the ranks faster than those with other talents and where celebrities are regularly invited to liven up committee sessions. The needs of the television viewer and the needs of the voter are rarely the same. The Cameron government, for example, is more entertaining to watch than any government has the right to be, but I don’t suppose that makes living under its rule any more fun.
Notably, UPC customers weren’t too quick to agree with the idea that small-screen stardom made politicians look any better.
McRedmond is probably right that Tallafornia is a more accurate mirror of Irish society than the Seanad. The jury is still out on which one is the more cringeworthy.
