It probably wasn't the most fortunate timing for S∅le Valera to be opening an RT╔-hosted conference on the European film and television industry. The conference opened in Dublin on Thursday with the shadow of RT╔ cutbacks looming large over the proceedings.
The Minister shared a platform with RT╔'s director-general Bob Collins, but left the conference just before Collins took to the podium to talk about the technological, legal, economic and cultural challenges now facing broadcasting.
Out in Montrose, speculation as to where exactly the axe is going to fall is rife, with the general feeling that - where possible - programme areas will be protected and most of the 160 proposed job losses will be in services. Departments under threat include the Outside Broadcast Unit and the construction division.
In Limerick, the Lyric FM newsroom, which employs five journalists to provide a news service for the classical music station, looks almost certain to close. Elsewhere, programmes that rely heavily on freelance and contract staff are vulnerable.
Next week a consultation process with programme producers will get under way to investigate ways of implementing budgetary cutbacks without losing staff.
There were red faces in RT╔ earlier this week when a heavily promoted television documentary from the True Lives series failed to air at its scheduled time slot.
The Next Big Thing, a documentary following the fortunes of girl band Bellefire, was due to be screened on Tuesday at 10.10 p.m. But viewers were told that "due to circumstances beyond our control" the programme would not be shown. It was replaced by a Channel 4 documentary Beneath the Veil, about Afghanistan.
Immediate suspicion fell on a very public alleged disagreement between Bellefire's manager, Louis Walsh, and the band's record label, Virgin Records. There was speculation that there may have been legal difficulties. But an RT╔ spokesperson said the reason was a lot more straightforward than that: the tape had simply gone astray.
An Australian programme called True Loves had found its way into the transmission box for the True Lives programme. By the time the error was discovered, it was too late to retrieve a back-up tape from the station's library. The independent production company that made the documentary, Frontier Films, said it was "deeply disappointed" at RT╔'s failure to broadcast The Next Big Thing. A spokesperson said Frontier delivered two copies of the programme to RT╔ and both were mislaid on the night. The company was further disheartened by a quote from an RT╔ spokesperson, reported in a national newspaper on Wednesday, blaming a "technical problem with the tape". RT╔ has apologised to Frontier Films and the documentary will be broadcast on Tuesday, November 27th.
RT╔ is this month to begin a new on-screen classification service for viewers to flag the type of content contained in its programmes. Small icons will appear in the top left-hand corner of the television screen for 20 seconds at the beginning of programmes to indicate what kind of audience they are suitable for.
There categories are: General Audience (GA), Children (Ch), Young Adult (YA), Parental Supervision (PS) and Mature Audience (MA). RT╔'s "programme acceptance viewers" will decide which programmes belong in which categories.
RT╔ says the idea is to let viewers know more about content so they can decide whether to view or not. It picked up on the demand from both correspondence and public meetings around the country. No other broadcaster here or in the UK has this kind of facility. In the early days of Channel 4, the infamous red triangle was used as a warning that a film contained scenes of an explicit sexual or violent nature. But it remains arguable as to whether the warning deterred people from watching such a movie - or attracted them.
mkearney@irish-times.com