Radio Review: August isn't the best month to get a reminder in the post that it's time to stump up €155 for the TV licence fee. In principle I'm pro the licence, but I could have done without that great big cloud of irony hovering over my head as I paid the bill on-line while listening to BBC Radio 4 through my laptop's speakers.
It's the tail-end of the summer, which means that talk radio fans are getting a poor deal from RTÉ Radio 1 - particularly in the late afternoon and evening when there are far too many music fillers. At the BBC they don't seem to consider August a non-month and continue to fill the schedule with documentaries, discussion, features and drama. (Incidentally whoever thought up the title of Thursday's BBC Radio 4 programme on what goes on in suburbia Analysis: The Gnome Zone, deserves a prize)
It's got so bad, I'm hatching a conspiracy theory that the director of RTÉ Radio 1 is deliberately serving up endless reheats and repeats just so that when the new and controversial autumn schedule is launched the week after next, we'll be so desperate for anything that appears fresh and lively we'll think it's fantastic.
Even the Book on One: In Great Haste (nightly) was a repeat - can it really be that taxing to fill that slot? More grassy knoll fodder came listening to Playback (Saturday) one of my "rarely miss" programmes. I listen to it nervously looking back to what I've written for this column - there's always the dread that Ruth Buchanan will pluck out some gem that I've missed. Her holiday stand-in, Gerry McArdle, started his programme at 9am on a Saturday morning with that corny old belter, Bless Yore Beautiful Hide - in its entirety. Even in the Keel household at Christmas, I bet Howard never got further than the chorus before being told to give it rest.
McArdle's programme snippets, combined with leaden introductions, wouldn't have encouraged anyone to believe that they missed something fantastic - which is surely what Playback is all about. She may sing off-tune and talk too much about her husband and dogs, but Ruth in her trademark eccentric way knows how to gather even the slimmest pickings and make it all sound lively.
And there's far too much music. It's as cheap as chips and easy programming but RTÉ Radio 1 listeners have a right to expect more challenging content. Musaic, a nightly world music, whateveryou're- having-yourself programme, is a poorman's Mystery Train. It's already on its second presenter - neither of whom are able to match their self-consciously out-there playlist (Mahotella Queens from South Africa followed by Lefty Fritzell, anyone?) with interesting links that somehow make sense of it all.
Other evening offerings - and this, after all, is the time that hardcore radio fans tune in - included a concert by Karine Polwart (Monday) recorded live in Vicar Street (why?) - and To Your Humours Changing We Tune Our Supple Song (Wednesday), a five-part series on the world of Gilbert and Sullivan. It was well-produced and interesting, but surely it belongs on Lyric FM instead of hogging the prime-time slot on amidweek evening. Ryan Tubridy (The Tubridy Show, RTÉ - Radio 1, Monday to Friday) is the only big-name presenter who didn't stick to school holidays but, with the week he's had, he may have wished he'd stayed on the beach.
It started last Friday in an interview with TV presenter Anna Nolan when Tubridy rubbished in his harrumphy way the need for Gay Pride marches and suggested that everything is just grand for gay people. On foot of an outraged response - gruelling tales of gay-bashing and discrimination - he spent much of the week backpedalling furiously, pompously talking about being "delighted to provide a platform" for the subject and talking up what he called the "great debate" on Wednesday, where mainly gay and lesbian activists were in studio for a discussion.
It wasn't a "debate" and it wasn't "great" but I'd be interested to hear any of the people in that studio in a more considered programme. As if commenting on something that could validly be put to a vote, Tubridy talked about the e-mail response from listeners - "it was 75-25 yesterday but now it's reached 50-50 pro-homosexuality sort of thing". Later, the mother of a gay woman chided him during the studio discussion. "It isn't about percentages," she said.
Tubridy's so used to his role of being the lite entertainment turn between Morning Ireland and Pat Kenny that throughout the week several meaty subjects seemed to push him outside his comfort zone.
He seems happiest introducing the dog-eared playlist made up almost exclusively of songs from the last century - and two hours of that is far too long.
