Helen Shaw is Director of Radio at RTE, with responsibility for the output of the network's four stations (Radio 1, 2 FM, Raidio na Gaeltachta and the infant Lyric FM) plus RTE Radio Cork. This is the 37-year-old s first job in management after many years as a programme maker/producer, including a stint on Liveline. In the two years she's held the post, RTE has come under increasing pressure from the growth of local and community stations and Today FM.
Jackie Hayden: How important is RTE radio within the overall context of RTE?
Helen Shaw: We have about 300 people working in radio, with three 24-hour stations. By the Spring of next year, Raidio na Gaeltachta will also extend to 24 hours. That's a phenomenal amount of radio for such a small country.
Radio is a huge and integral part of what RTE does. One of the strongest connections we have with our audience is through radio. From our public meetings around the country it's quite apparent that even if people have differing views on radio as against television, they have an intimate, personal connection with radio which they don't have with television. You can't often pick up a phone and call a live tv programme, whereas with radio it s quite commonplace. Radio is also the way in which most people first came in touch with RTE and the basis of our most durable relationship with the public.
But what is RTE radio's brief? What's it there for?
Well, each service has it's own function. We provide a national service, we provide choice. We cherish the idea of choice and of competition, not just among our own stations but among the independents. We have to provide a package of services right across the whole spectrum.
We all know of the great output of programmes RTE Radio puts out across all its channels, so what are the things that most need to be worked on, let s say, in Radio 1 and 2FM?
Radio 1 is and has been going through a significant transition in its role and its output.
What I said two years ago when I first started this job, and it remains the same brief and the same ambition, is that the role and the future of Radio 1 is to be contemporary and relevant, to be relevant to a modern audience. That means it has the task of continually asking itself who it s talking to and has it got its own language right. The last thing Radio 1 can do is be complacent about its role.
Why the reluctance to be specific? We know RTE does this, this and this very well, but what about the things it s not so good at?
We do so many things. In the past year, particularly since January, we ve been investing enormous attention into the area of drama. We decided to make sure that the drama we did was relevant and that we had an active relationship with the theatre houses, that we had a real relationship with new modern writers.
We had a similar debate about our sports output and again there are changes happening. We invest a tremendous amount of both human and capital resources into our sports output on Radio 1 and yet sometimes we ve sorta said why are we not making the connection with the audience that we d like to see? ,
Why do you think you re failing at that?
I don t think we re failing.
You are if you re not achieving what you would like to achieve.
Well, I don t think we have failed. I think we re saying we d like to be better. I think what we re doing in sport is the most expansive coverage of sport on radio, but there has often been a feeling from our point of view that we would like to have a much deeper connection at weekends with sport.
That s something that a tremendous amount of work has gone into over the past year and in the autumn there will be changes, i.e., Des Cahill is going back into Saturday and we re building up the whole profile of Saturday and Sunday.
I would like to see Radio 1 in a situation where it s recruiting, where there s never a sense where somebody feels it s not for them.
What was the last thing that made you tear your hair out over something you heard on RTE radio?
I don t! To be honest, I m not saying that there are not times when you hear things and you don t . . . If something goes wrong on air and you hear it, you naturally feel you want to find out what s happening and what s gone wrong. But it would be a crazy situation if I was to personally get upset every time I heard something that didn t work. I mean, there has to be a sense in which my role is to stand back from everything and not to be getting emotionally involved at that level.
While many people will be glad that you ve reinforced the music output after 7pm, is there any truth in the suggeston that you ve tamed John Kelly?
Hand on heart, all I've ever said to John Kelly is, 'do what you want to do and play to your strengths'. The big difference is that he had three hours on Today FM, and he has one hour on Radio 1. According to the figures, he's converted a Radio 1 audience which in our view is a major achievement, with 25,000 listeners every night of a very eclectic age group and gender base. How many venues have 25,000 every night? But I've never said to John Kelly, 'tame down'. No way.
Where do you stand on the view that where once radio used to bring information and entertainment to listeners, now it just brings listeners to advertisers?
I'm not in this business to be driven by advertising. My background is in print journalism, and I'm a real enthusiast for radio. My reason for getting up in the morning and doing it is to make good radio.
But I have to acknowledge that 62% of RTE's revenue comes from commercial advertising and sponsorship. I realise that if I want to invest, say, in drama, I need to have that financial backing. But our sales and marketing people don't come to us and say that they don't want this or that. They accept that I'm going to make every decision on the basis of whether it'll make good radio. If you make good programmes first, you then get the listeners, and if you get the listeners then you get the advertising. If you do it the other way round it just irritates the listener. Where we've ended up in difficulties is where someone had what they believed was a good idea but hadn't thought about what it was actually going to sound like.
What about the recent criticism in the Irish Times and elsewhere about falling standards at RTE? Do you remain as detached from that or do you think people have a point?
(Pause) It s not that I d be detached. I m very committed to my job and I m very passionate about the role of radio and the pursuit of excellence. I do think that s what we are about. People may not think that s what we achieve every day, but it s certainly why we re in the business.
Most people who come in to work every day in RTE radio want to do the best they can, and we want to make the best programme whether it s a music show, a talk show, or whatever. So if thing s go wrong you do want it to be better, so it s a question about how you handle it. When something goes wrong what I would try to do is find out why it went wrong, not to be in a situation of culpability.
In terms of the Irish Times, I think there s been some comment about pronunciation and AA Roadwatch.
There s also the case of the newsreader on Lyric FM who repeatedly refers to the nooz and nooz headlines . I ve heard a female newsreader on Radio 1 mispronouncing the name of the England rugby captain. How does a person who is that disinterested in words and language get into a job like that? I can understand somebody in other areas of radio making those mistakes, but not a newsreader on national radio.
Sure. I would agree with you. When I hear a mispronunciation or when I hear somebody getting it blatantly wrong it s not a situation where I think Oh, there you go . It s usually a situation where you try to find out if that person had any training, what is happening on air, what kind of back-up have they had. Have they been in a situation where they follow-up when they get it wrong?
There is a balance between getting things right and having an agreed accent. I would always say that mispronunciation is unacceptable, but I would draw the line where sometimes there will be criticism of a regional accent, or a certain type of accent . . .
That s a different area.
It is, but both criticisms come in about on-air staff. The criticism in relation to news presentation is one that is not taken lightly and we have been talking about it quite recently in relation to the level of training that on-air staff are getting.
I think the worst aspect of these mistakes is not the mistakes themselves but the sense that nobody in RTE really cares either way.
Well, I can certainly say that s not true. In radio obviously we have presentation and there is a presence which is a support for anybody who has difficulty with pronunciation. There is continual voice training going on, and if we hire or have somebody we think has a problem, they re always picked
up on. n