THE programmers know it: there are some of us who just can't get enough current affairs talk on the radio. Even during the beautiful summer of '95, when there was little enough going on, RTE gave us a daily dose of Richard Crowley on Between the Lines and good stuff it was, too.
No, TV doesn't give the same hit at all. And, to be honest, even on the radio the contents of most of the national news programmes are so weak with dilution that they only just get us through the day; usually we seek an additional supply from overseas.
For Dublin listeners, blessed relief is at hand. But be careful you're probably not used to anything this hard, this pure. It's Vincent Browne Tonight on Classic Hits 98FM, Monday to Thursday from 10 p.m. to midnight (extended by an hour from tonight after last week's shorter shows); BBC Radio
Four's The World Tonight will, I suspect, be bidding farewell to a segment of its Irish audience.
Browne moved last week from a more furtive Sunday slot to this ambitious talk radio project, and in doing so gave this column a wee conflict of interest to declare. No, no relation; but I was recruited for a brief contribution to a Tuesday discussion of Gay Byrne light relief compared to the material on other nights.
On Monday, for starters, the programme took on the Pat Tierney suicide story, and became a forum for debate between the journalists who did, and supported, the Sunday Tribune reporting and one who opposed it Eamonn Dunphy. The tone of the questions from Dunphy and Browne (the latter was essentially the former's ally for the night) and of the answers from Brenda Power and company left scorch marks on my radio's speakers.
Power, Fintan O'Toole and Deirdre Purcell all made strong points for the "defence" and went back on the attack too but it was Nell McCafferty who set what one hopes will be the free speaking, slightly undisciplined tone for the show. Drawing on Ivor Browne's comments about the limitations on help for the suicidal, she trenchantly tore into what might be called the "professional fallacy" underlying notions that some psychiatric expert could, should and would have saved Tierney's life.
McCafferty repeated the line with Joe Duffy on the next morning's Gay Byrne Show and was interesting enough; but away from the heat of battle on Browne's programme she didn't make nearly such radio.
There's a danger with a arch journalist like Browne that things could sound insider-y. Certainly, a nightly feature when the host gets on the phone to various news editors to hear about next morning's sounds like an editorial
For the first pro tried to rise above the at the end with a long extract Martin Luther King's inspiring "I have a dream" speech (though he got the date of it wrong its hard to maintain those standards of accuracy on live radio).
Two hours and plenty of telephone lines, he should be able to get enough of the general public in con the discussion to "let freedom nag".
One difference between radio and other media was highlighted when RTE's Kevin Healy told Browne that the new health and consumer programmes and the Lee Duane soap opera should be regarded as "public service broad casting", sacrificing ratings for the greater national good. After all, newspapers and magazines see such features as circulation grabbers, and serials are a bit popular on TV. Let's hope that he doesn't mean 12.30 p.m. is a low budget ghetto on Radio One.
Duane's Konvenience Korner seems to have got the message and taken a dramatic turn for the worse the only thing dramatic about last Friday's episode. No Chalk, No Chance (Wednesdays) sounds like E&L of the airwaves in its choice of stories (nothing wrong with that), but its presentation ain't too smooth. Brenda Donohue's Health Studio (Tuesday), though, is going strong; she has a good voice, as the Gerry Ryan Show has long testified, and last week gave more coverage to homeopathy than a dozen conventional medical features on other programmes.
Pat Kenny bucked current conventional thinking on another topic, crime, with a discussion on Wednesday's Pat Kenny Show (RTE Radio One, Monday to Friday). Did you know there were three times as many killings in Ireland in 1905 as in a recent year? A huge majority of homicide victims are men? That there's no increase in crimes against the person here? So said criminologist Paul O'Mahony.
Which leaves another question: whose interests are being served by this orchestrated hysteria?
