{"id":669473,"date":"2026-09-02T22:20:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T22:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/669473\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T22:20:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T22:20:14","slug":"rte100-points-of-view-anniversary-show-gets-so-much-right-but-falls-down-on-the-basics-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/669473\/","title":{"rendered":"RT\u00c9100 \u2013 Points of View: Anniversary show gets so much right, but falls down on the basics \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

This year marks a century of public broadcasting in Ireland, and RT\u00c9<\/a> is honouring that anniversary with the watchable if tonally confused RT\u00c9100: Points of View <\/b>(RT\u00c9 One, Wednesday, 9.35pm).<\/p>\n

The feature-length documentary wants to be several things at once and ends up in a bit of a muddle. At one level it\u2019s striving for a Reeling in the Years-esque hopscotch down the yellow brick road of shared cultural experience. <\/p>\n

So we get journalist Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Carroll recalling Davy Fitzgerald<\/a> and Clare\u2019s 1995 All-Ireland win \u2013 their first since 1914 \u2013 and comedian Colm O\u2019Regan<\/a> remembering the life-changing thrill of going inside Bosco\u2019s cardboard home and watching the iconic puppet having a private moment as he painted and sang to himself. <\/p>\n

But it also strives to be serious, sociopolitical television. And so Lindsey Earner-Byrne talks about how The Late Late Show<\/a> became a sort of national wailing wall \u2013 a clearing-out for the traumas accumulated over decades of theocratic hegemony. Meanwhile, Irish Times columnist Fintan O\u2019Toole observes how Joe Duffy\u2019s Liveline served as a warning signal to the government during the 2008 financial crisis when people rang up to express fears for their savings. <\/p>\n

Most interesting of all is the contribution of film-maker Jim Sheridan, who draws a contrast between the anarchic thrill of gangland classic Love\/Hate and the more calculated high-jinks of its spiritual successor Kin, which he says has been tailored for international streamers \u2013 and that RT\u00c9 is trying to appease the very forces plotting its destruction. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0RT\u00c9 dominates airwaves despite Radio 1 rescheduling losses, figures showOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

But there are occasional lapses. We are told that Miche\u00e1l \u00d3 Muircheartaigh was \u201cthe voice of the GAA\u201d when that honour should surely be shared with his predecessor, Michael O\u2019Hehir. Later, someone delivers this stunning insight: \u201cWhat one person finds entertaining is completely different to what someone else finds entertaining.\u201d Hey, easy with the truth bombs, RT\u00c9.<\/p>\n

It is also incredibly on-brand for RT\u00c9 to make a documentary about 100 years of public broadcasting that at no point mentions the anniversary itself and leaves it to the viewer to work this out. <\/p>\n

The milestone is referred to in passing by a number of contributors \u2013 but the very fact that the predecessor of RT\u00c9 began to broadcast in 1926 is never explicitly referenced. That\u2019s a shame \u2013 as can be the case with RT\u00c9 across its many decades, this film gets so much right but then lets itself down in the basics \u2013 such as telling the viewer what they are watching and why. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This year marks a century of public broadcasting in Ireland, and RT\u00c9 is honouring that anniversary with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[75],"tags":[282642,50745,18,117,57656,19,17,208253,49974,48706,282641,1181],"class_list":["post-669473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-colm-o-regan","tag-davy-fitzgerald","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-fintan-otoole","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jim-sheridan","tag-joe-duffy","tag-late-late-show","tag-micheal-o-muircheartaigh","tag-rte"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117203777881815772","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}