Why RTÉ is Irrelevant

Not all is miserable gloom-laden depression.

Not all is miserable gloom.

Not all is miserable.

Not all is.

Not all.

Not.

Oh, sorry. Sorry about that. Very sorry. I didn't mean to do that and I apologise. I was just overtaken by a Beckett urge and I am so sorry. It must have been that Bono moment on the radio last week. The one on prime time radio news at about a quarter to nine in the morning, when everyone is on the way to work and they just want to hear hard news. You know that slot? Yeah. That's right. The slot where RTÉ thought it appropriate to treat the nation to Bono delivering his pastiche of Beckett for five or six interminable minutes. The one where Bono delivered sly digs at his pals. The way we all know who Bono's pals are. All of us. The whole licence-paying nation. Who's Colgan?

The way, in fact, that RTÉ thinks it's broadcasting to Dublin only, even though two thirds of the population live elsewhere.

There was a cookery programme on the radio last week, which I listened to with interest, being interested in cookery. I like cooking. Cooking is good. And on this cookery programme, they had two chefs, though not celebrities, I suspect. Chefs are great. Chefs have no scruples, no morals and no mercy. Take one new-born kitten and twist its head off . . . This was an interesting item until the very end, when the presenter asked how people could get the organic vegetables for the chefs' recipes. Oh, said the louder of the two, the possibilities are endless. They could go out to Farmleigh, to the farmers' markets, or they could even go down the country at the weekend. Farmleigh? I live in Limerick. Why would I go to the Phoenix Park for carrots? Down the country? I thought that was Dublin shorthand for the rest of Ireland, so what does he mean? I'll tell you what I think he means. He's forgotten that most of the people listening to RTÉ, and paying for it, don't live in Dublin. He thinks he's on National Radio Dublin.

Not his fault. He's a chef, not a broadcaster. But I didn't hear the professional running the show correcting him, nor would I expect to. RTÉ is a Dublin-centred organisation, displaced and disconnected from its funding base, and it has nothing to do with the lives of those who pay its fees. On another show, I heard Terry Prone remark that a caller had "improbably" claimed to be from Ballydehob. Improbably, Terry? Why would that be improbable? Perhaps because Terry has never heard of the beautiful West Cork town of Ballydehob? Why else?

This is why RTÉ is irrelevant.