Let’s have a look at the TV listings for the Thursday just gone. And the Thursday of the equivalent January week a full decade before, in 2005.
RTÉ One's evening featured the usual popular fare of EastEnders, Fair City, more news and then Prime Time.
RTÉ2’s consisted of imports from the UK and US, plus a mildly diverting Hollywood flick at 9pm.
TG4 had Ros na Rún and an American murder mystery.
UTV was heavy on Emmerdale and other British shows.
Have a guess which year that’s for: 2005 or 2015?
The obvious, and correct, answer is that it is for both. The listings are so similar at either end of that decade that you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference if each were presented to you stripped of dates.
There is one exception: TV3. Of all the channels, including the sort-of-new UTV Ireland, it is the only one that shows much of a gap between where it was then and where it is now. Still, appearances are deceiving. The past week has seen something of a reboot of the station, forced by a rival that has taken its goodies away. The flourishing of home-produced prgrammes on TV3 is new growth in a forest that's just had a major fire sweep through it.
Nevertheless, change is change, and variety is important, because although the Irish viewer lives in an era of unprecedented choice, Irish television has largely been a boulder slowly shunting along while the river rushes around it.
In fact, in that direct comparison of listings over 10 years, RTÉ One shrank in its offering. Between 6pm and 10.15pm the RTÉ One listings for the Thursday just gone had a single programme that was different from that of the same day of the same week a full decade ago. The Thursday of 2005 had more programmes, because of an episode of Ear to the Ground in a slot that was this week overrun by an hour of EastEnders.
Flick back a further five years, to 2000, and you'll find a schedule busier again with choice and variety, not yet having to make room for the hulking alpha that Prime Time would become.
It is telling that current affairs is where UTV has taken on RTÉ most directly, its evening news slot and signing up of Pat Kenny the most obvious ways to push forward native programmes even when they are surrounded by familiar imports. The rest of UTV's schedule is largely about the programmes you liked on that other channel, now on this channel instead.
TV3, meanwhile, now seems to be re-creating an Irish version of the ITV schedules it had previously fed from, including developing a soap (Red Rock). But, again, it is at least movement in an often static Irish television landscape. Because, despite the growth of channels over the past decade – Ireland now has six – little has truly changed. 3e is mainly repeats. TG4, for all its merits, is by necessity a minority station. UTV Ireland is, so far, a Julian Simmons-free version of UTV. RTÉ2 and TV3 slug it out, while RTÉ One dominates the top 20 programmes every year.
The limits of budget, population and expertise has always meant that Irish television would only slowly gather fresh and strong dramas, comedies, documentaries and lifestyle shows over the years.
But, just as a decade ago, those remain almost entirely confined to the national broadcaster. As do any of that general but vital category of great TV moments. How many times in recent years have you had a conversation about Irish television that sprang from somewhere other than an RTÉ source?
The curious thing is that Irish viewers have been among the most spoiled of any on the planet. Speaking English and sitting between the two great television cultures have always been extraordinary advantages, and being able to leech off the BBC without having to pay the licence fee was something many Irish took for granted. Meanwhile, the quality of British television raised that of Irish programme-making.
Yet, while on the surface Irish television has expanded this year, the supposed widening of choice is from a narrow selection. There are extra channels, but there has long been a strong hint of the Henry Ford line that any customer can have a car painted any colour he wants so long as it is black. shegarty@irishtimes.com @shanehegarty
