John Bowman: Even during RTÉ's darkest hour, its public service ethos has prevailed

There is one silver lining in the cloud which has overwhelmed RTÉ in recent weeks. It is largely invisible: but it is important.

It is that public service broadcasting is now taken for granted, its merits repetitively proclaimed by politicians at the Oireachtas hearings who have chimed with Ciaran Cannon’s description of it as an “immensely precious” cornerstone of our democracy.

What may not be appreciated by many of these latest champions is that the development of public service broadcasting in Ireland owes nothing to politicians. It was initially achieved despite their indifference, antipathy and hostility.

It was essentially forged by the first generation of television producers and broadcasters in the early years of the 1960s on the fledgling station known at the time as Telefís Éireann. And it was hard won, created by that generation of pioneers enthusiastically committed to the new medium.

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They were aided by the fact that in Ireland there was a very large herd of sacred cows – whom many believed were in need of culling.

The pioneers were fortunate because these sacred cows attracted critics, many of them all too willing to use the new medium to hasten change

Among them were some very sacred cows indeed: there were the infallible confessors telling women how to plan their families; schoolmasters who reckoned corporal punishment to be an indispensable teaching tool; GAA presidents rebuking those “native weaklings” who played rugby, a foreign game of the “wily Saxon”; and Fianna Fáil ministers who believed that the new television station should content itself with being a mere megaphone for the Government Information Service.

As subject areas for beginners in television broadcasting, such controversies provided a testing, provocative and educational training ground. That many of the defenders of these sacred cows believed that the best defence was silence, merely added to the learning curve. Some producers even left an empty chair in studio to underline a refusal.

The pioneers were fortunate because these sacred cows attracted critics, many of them all too willing to use the new medium to hasten change.

Transformational impact

It was in such an environment that the public service model of programme-making was forged. And it is well to remember that this was achieved under the umbrella of a dual-funded model of broadcasting. Forged in television studios, this fresh approach to current affairs would soon trigger a transformational impact on the radio schedules – this was especially appreciated by women listeners who saw further sacred cows which had somehow remained invisible to the male establishment.

And now that the current crisis in RTÉ necessitates a review and some recalibration of how the service is funded, it would be well to appreciate that for most of its history RTÉ was managed under the increasingly derided model of licence fee and commercial revenue.

Nor was there a cleavage between the two: arguably, it was the extent to which the commercial side of the station encroached on the current affairs turf, that many of the most significant gains were made.

Indeed, navigating the complex challenges inherent in the dual-funding model, RTÉ managed to establish a station whose role in Irish society was the envy of many smaller countries.

Where else did such a large proportion of a society engage in debates about matters of great consequence to themselves? John Naughton, long-time television critic of The Observer, reckoned The Late Late Show to be the “only example in history of an intelligent chatshow with a large audience”.

He gave the main credit to Gay Byrne, whom he suspected would describe himself as an entertainer. “Someone once said that reading a great newspaper was like listening to a nation talking to itself.” Viewers of Byrne’s programme had over the years “had much the same experience.”

It would also behove today’s critics of what is RTÉ’s most spectacular fall from grace that they should not ascribe the blame solely to the hybrid funding model. Manifestly that model provided the quicksands which triggered some of the most egregious recent errors. But it remains the case that the public service ethos has largely prevailed – even the errors and lapses of judgment are benchmarked against failing to meet its high standards.

Far too much of the initial debate about how Ireland would finance a television service was that it could be funded at no cost to the State. To this end the most outrageous piratical proposals were entertained at hearings of the television commission, with time being wasted on the notion that a spare Radio Éireann wavelength could be used to create another Radio Luxembourg beamed at Britain where there was then no commercial radio. The profits would be used to fund a “free” Irish television franchise.

Excoriated

The pirates who were making these proposals were taken far too seriously by the Lemass government. It was Leon Ó Broin, secretary of the department of Posts and Telegraphs, who excoriated these proposals, won Lemass’s attention and was largely responsible for the shape of the dual-funded model for the new television service.

Time and again Lemass revealed that his essential outlook was that a national television station should not wash the country’s dirty linen in public. Yet television’s best work was doing just that

But the government had no vision as to what it might be and seemed content with any outcome if it could be established without cost to the exchequer. Lemass himself – the arch-moderniser – was singularly lacking in any awareness of what impact a public service television station might have. Or, indeed, how its modernising impact might chime with his own agenda of replacing de Valera’s Ireland with his own.

Lemass told that first generation of broadcasters that he expected them “to be wholly supportive” of his government’s policy.

Time and again Lemass revealed that his essential outlook was that a national television station should not wash the country’s dirty linen in public. Yet television’s best work was doing just that. Think of orphanages, clerical sexual abuse and many of the policy-changing agendas of RTÉ Investigates.

[ Diarmaid Ferriter: Culture of ‘open secrets and secret secrets’ has always surrounded RTÉ pay ]

Or think of money-lending. A measure of the advances that have been made in the relationship of broadcasters to government can be gleaned from the fact that a “7 Days” documentary exposing the practice of money-lending in Dublin housing estates in 1969 prompted a government inquiry. Not into money-lending but into how the programme had been researched and shaped.

Television production is not inexpensive: studios, cameras and productions costs can be similar whether one’s population is five or fifty million. Despite an acknowledged loss of trust over this recent debacle, it is important to remember the historic achievements of the station.

There have been some signs of this; not least in the credit which the station’s broadcasters have won in recent weeks for their coverage of the station’s own travails. But why should this be remarkable? Why should common integrity look like courage?

Dr John Bowman is a historian. He has been a broadcaster on RTÉ television and radio since the 1960s and is the author of Window and Mirror: RTÉ Television: 1961-2011.