Religion on RTE TV and Radio

May 29, 2007 10:26 AM

Irish and Northerners: Tell me your reflections on religious programming on present-day RTE TV and Radio?

I am writing a white paper on American vs. European Religious programming and looking for reflections or anecdotes of religious programming on RTE TV and Radio.

Good or bad, please share your thoughts. Thanks.

posted by parmanparman to grab bag (6 comments total)

I'm Irish, although I'm only home about a month a year these days. Don't know if you're aware of the fact that the Angelus is played every day before the news (on both RTE TV and radio, which I listen to daily). Here's a Youtube video of the TV version. There is something of a recent argument about whether it should still be played, although it's kind of half-heartedly argued among my peers and family.
posted by jamesonandwater at 11:07 AM on May 29, 2007

I’m Irish, and home even less than jamesonandwater is. From that not-particularly-contemporary perspective, Radharc and Would You Believe were, historically, some of the better TV RTE produced; serious documentaries with high production values on a broad range of subjects. Also very Catholic. They contributed strongly to the culture of broadcasting that produced The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, which was a net win, I think.

Beyond that, the state broadcaster shows (showed?) mass every Sunday morning; an interesting choice, since anyone out of bed at that time is either at mass or really uninterested in tuning in to a sermon. IIRC they did mix denomination, so you had Anglicans for some proportion of the time, and maybe even Presbyterians.

They still broadcast A Prayer at Bedtime, which is insipid and a waste of time and provokes ridicule from the drunkards awake then. The Angelus is still broadcast at 6PM, and the last survey I saw said 60% (in the Republic) were in favour of that.
posted by Aidan Kehoe at 12:30 PM on May 29, 2007

Aidan, the Mass broadcast on Sunday morning is (I believe) intended for the elderly or infirm who cannot leave their house to attend in person.

parmanparman, it may not be entirely relevant given your paper's broadcast focus, but I've often thought it interesting that the Irish Times still has a Methodist news section quite prominently every week, despite the fact that this faith is hugely outnumbered by others, especially those of the large number of non-Irish-nationals.

Incidentally, I've had occasion to deal with RTE's press office one or twice, and you might find them quite helpful if you're looking for hard data on the area.
posted by StephenF at 1:06 PM on May 29, 2007

I've been here for two years after thirty-odd in the UK.

The Angelus and the Prayer at Bedtime (or whatever it's called) are startling to an outsider. However,

* While both are obviously Christian, neither is overtly Catholic (the pictures broadcast on TV over the Angelus bells even make a stab at multiracialism and, last I checked, contain no specifically-Catholic imagery)

* Combined, these two represent about 150 seconds of air per day

* They're both on RTE 1. There are three other channels a person could be watching (two in English), if you're in one of the fewer-than-50% of homes remaining which doesn't have 30-plus more channels from the UK on satellite or cable.

* The Angelus is on at 1800. Most working adults aren't even home yet (yes, it's also on at 1200 and 1800 on RTE Radio 1).

Um, basically I'm saying that they're punching above their weight, attention-wise. If you ignore these two minutes per day, I'm not even sure that the UK doesn't carry more religious programming on free-to-air networks -- certainly you are likely to encounter it on three of Britain's five major channels whereas here it is (or at least seems) very much restricted to just the one.
posted by genghis at 4:55 PM on May 29, 2007

Irish TV doesn't really have anything like the UK's Songs of Praise or Heaven and Earth, but then we're in a unique position here in that many (if not most) people have cable or satellite and watch British TV all the time.
posted by macdara at 2:17 AM on May 30, 2007

‘… but then we're in a unique position here in that many (if not most) people have cable or satellite and watch British TV all the time.’

Well, it's true of the Dutch and the Scandinavians as well.
posted by Aidan Kehoe at 1:10 PM on May 30, 2007