Sunny vibes abound at TG4 autumn launch despite gloomy spillover from RTÉ scandal

As choices of location go, TG4′s told a story. The broadcaster plumped for the Irish Film Institute (IFI) in Dublin for the launch of its autumn season of programmes, reminding everyone who had forgotten that it is now in the business of cinema. Oscar-nominated cinema. Take that, Montrose.

Of course, there was no such triumphalist message – not least because RTÉ's hidden payments affair will also negatively affect TG4′s future if it gives politicians the excuse to further delay their already interminably delayed reform of public service media funding.

But cheered by the success of An Cailín Ciúin and in a position to pursue some – though crucially not all – of TG4′s other ambitions, director general Alan Esslemont was able to briefly strike a jubilant tone of the sort that has been missing in action at RTÉ since the Ryan Tubridy crisis broke in June.

“This occasion every year fills me with optimism, just seeing you guys, and pride, because of all of the creativity associated with TG4, both through our own staff and our fantastic independent sector,” Esslemont told the gathering in the IFI’s Cinema 2.

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The upstairs screen was, indeed, too small to hold the volume of attendees, with those standing told they would have to return downstairs for safety reasons and wait for a second screening of the TG4 preview reel.

“I’m literally losing them in real time, I’m losing my audience,” wailed event host Louise Cantillon in jokey panic as the surplus guests departed.

The exuberant Cantillon, who last year fronted Junior Eurovision for TG4 and is now a regular stand-in presenter on Today FM, had earlier proffered a microphone to a string of TG4 presenters as the sun streamed through the IFI’s atrium roof.

Her upbeat chat began with rugby presenter Máire Treasa Ní Dhubhghaill enthusing about the October return of TG4′s Rugbaí Beo, while Hector Ó hEochagáin was on hand to promote his latest travelogue Hector: Ó na Philippines go dtí na Solomons, which incorporated what sounded like an eye-opening visit to Papua New Guinea.

Cúla4 presenter Niamh Ní Chróinín praised the high standard of entries ahead of this November’s Junior Eurovision, the European Broadcasting Union competition broadcast by TG4. Sophie Lennon, Ireland’s 2022 entry, came fourth, which Cantillon pointed out was the best result Ireland has had in any Eurovision, junior or senior, in 25 years.

“I think we need to send a song ‘as Gaeilge’ to the senior Eurovision as well,” she reasoned, which is the sort of fresh thinking we need more of in Irish media.

It certainly went down well with the crowd who ventured into a calm morning version of Temple Bar for TG4′s Sceideal an Fhómhair (autumn schedule) event, which its pun-loving social media team had taken to calling “TG Fómhar”.

TG4 isn’t the only broadcaster launching its new slate in a cinema this year, with Virgin Media Television ditching its Covid-era habit of pre-recorded shows for a trip to the Stella Cinema in Rathmines next week. RTÉ's choice of location for its autumn season launch is, however, strictly small screen. The broadcaster has eschewed a physical event, opting instead to share details of its new programming slate via press release.

Interview rounds to mark the arrival of Patrick Kielty’s Late Late will follow, as will a documentary preview screening and invitations to journalists to events it is staging in connection with Culture Night and the Decade of Centenaries.

Even in normal years, this more spread-out, focused approach to publicising its output makes a lot of sense, both for RTÉ and for over-stretched showbusiness reporters with limited print space, and it would have been discussed pre-Tubsgate.

Still, the absence of a broad-spectrum show – in which panels of RTÉ names are interviewed live on stage by other RTÉ names – also has the obvious benefit of swerving commentary that might prove awkward in the current, post-scandal climate. A spate of press stories last December, for instance, documented how “cash-strapped RTÉ” spent more than €80,000 on its new season launch the previous August.

Most of that expense was due to the cost of hiring the RDS in Dublin for the occasion, which was unburdened by hospitality – and flip-flops – and was chiefly memorable for a stunning, stop-in-your-tracks performance by singer Tolü Makay.

RTÉ can always remove venue costs from the equation by staging a season launch event on its own campus, as it has done most years. Still, the risk would remain of interviewees going off-message in a room full of journalists, triggering another avalanche of Tubridy headlines, while the sight of happy-clappy publicity banners and breezy photoshoots right on the doorstep of riled-up staff would be a test of employee morale that no one needs.

Much has changed since almost exactly a year ago, when Tubridy took his place on an RDS entertainment panel alongside new Ireland’s Fittest Family coach Nina Carberry, comedian Justine Stafford and 2FM duo The 2 Johnnies. The erstwhile Late Late presenter did a joke mock-exit from the stage in faux-aggrievance after suggesting that Johnny B and Johnny Smacks – announced last – had received more applause than him.

Now his departure has happened for real, licence fee sales and renewals are plunging off a cliff and everybody still working for RTÉ is left stranded and staring at the fallout.

And though the vibes at TG4 seem bright and confident by comparison, its future is just as dependent as RTÉ's on the Government’s licence fee reform cliffhanger. As Esslemont noted at the IFI, the diversity and innovation TG4 helps bring to a “monolithic public service media ecosystem” can only flourish if the State wants it to flourish, and he is unconvinced that it does. There is, he said, only one way to change its thinking: “Through persuasion, persuasion, and more persuasion.”

The saga that is public service media funding has more sequels to come.