Commissions and creepy crawlies as RTÉjr turns one

RTÉjr is celebrating its first birthday this week, and the channel will mark its new status as a one- year-old by staying up 10 minutes later every evening and getting a little calmer as bedtime approaches.

New shows on language learning, photography, urban living, the sea and current affairs are all in the programme pipeline, while the channel closedown has been moved to 6.55pm, with the final hour restructured “so that the schedule quietens down”, says Sheila de Courcy, RTÉ’s cross-divisional head of children’s content.

“The first year was about establishing the connection,” says de Courcy of RTÉjr’s birth. It also saw the commissioning of more than 30 new Irish series and programme strands. “All the time, we have to look at what’s there, what’s not there,” she says.

One thing that is missing is a world current affairs show for the under-7s. “What they see is what they know, so you don’t want to unsettle their world. But it would be good to show global lifestyles, just to embrace even more diversity.”

Also among her plans is the development of a replacement show for Hubble , the magazine show for under-7s fronted by Emma O'Driscoll. After making more than 250 episodes, RTÉ stopped producing new episodes and began repeats.

“We still show it and people love it,” says de Courcy. But it is time for something new. The as-yet-untitled programme will include more location material, and will have episode themes, she adds. “All the time we are making sure we sustain fresh content.”

She believes it is not the place of children's television to tell kids "they should or shouldn't be doing something". Shows such as the insect-themed Bug Hunters reflect the fact that "kids love creepy crawlies", for example. "We're not just doing cute little stories for cute little girls in pink or whatever".

Programming budget
Above all else, she feels it is the duty of RTÉ to put out a varied schedule for children. "I always say, if you put Peppa Pig on for 12 hours a day, there are a lot of kids who would watch Peppa Pig for 12 hours a day. But we would be responsible for giving them a diet purely of Peppa Pig ."

De Courcy’s vision all has to be produced within a young people’s programming budget that, like many budgets in RTÉ, has fallen sharply in recent years, with the RTÉ Two spend sinking from €10.9 million in 2011 to €7.5 million in 2012. Last year, despite the raft of new commissions, spending nudged up just slightly to €8 million.

As for 2014, “we will have to wait and see”, she says. “We can’t drop standards, you know, because children are very sophisticated.”

Good stories
Independent producers commissioned by de Courcy have been successful with applications for Broadcasting Authority of Ireland funding, she notes.

Even more important, however, are co-productions, which RTÉjr has pursued with both commercial operators such as Nick Jr and like-minded public service channels such as CBeebies.

While RTÉjr gets an average of more than one million views per month across its online platforms, with much of that coming from the app, the evolution in distribution methods hasn’t distracted de Courcy from the fundamentals.

“The under-7s like good stories and they like good characters and that never changes,” she says. “They haven’t been tainted.”

RTÉ "names" such as Brendan O'Connor, Ryan Tubridy, Áine Lawlor, Rick O'Shea, Bryan Dobson and many more, have read for RTÉjr's Tell Me a Story , and O'Connor has even written a few of his own tales for the slot. "He went completely to the brief. There was no special treatment," she says.

“The people who contribute programmes really love children and love making programmes for children. You have to love it, because it’s not easy.”

She never press-gangs RTÉ personalities into appearing on the channel. If someone responds that it’s not their thing, she moves on.

“I haven’t begged anybody, I have literally said, ‘Would you be interested in doing this?’,” she says. “We don’t have the resources to deal with egos. The kids have to be at the centre of it.”

Authenticity is a word that comes up “again and again” at industry get-togethers, she notes. “Children smell immediately when they are being patronised.”