Maryrose Lyons blogging since 2003...

Spelling Police are onto Storyland!

April 27, 2009 at 7:27 pm

Posted in Business Culture Ireland | No Comments

RTE Asks Us What We Think

March 18, 2009 at 12:21 pm

I dislike RTE because:

Presenters way past their sell-by dates get paid exorbitant amounts to annoy us. Same presenters wouldn’t be employable outside of the state broadcaster. And why is Lucy Kennedy everywhere? I don’t know anyone who finds her amusing or even talented.
The website uses Windows Players for video content. Mac users are unable to access. This flagrant ignorance really annoys me.
They don’t take risks like UK channels do. I’m not talking ground-breaking risks, but just mild ones like actually allowing 20-somethings write comedy rather than 40 year old men who know nothing but just happen to be on the Montrose payroll (The English Class, Leave it to Mrs O’Brien, The Big Bow Wow anyone?)

But giving credit where it’s due, RTE is finally doing something that should be applauded. Acknowledging that ‘television is changing’ they put out a call 5 months ago for film makers to put forward new and creative ideas for drama. The finalists are now over on the Storyland part of the site and we the people of Ireland can vote for the ones we’d like to see produced into a second episode.

Amazingly, the videos can be viewed by all! They play as Flash videos. Now why can’t the good people behind Storyland have a word with their colleagues over on the main site?

You’ve got until 5pm on Monday 30 March to cast your vote. Go now.

I don’t want to sound like a whinger here, but the few I’ve looked at all look crap.

Happy Slapper is just 29 seconds long and doesn’t reveal enough
The intro to Pub World is too long, it took about 2 minutes (out of 4) before anything actually happened. Lots of overacting man looking surprised in pub before that.
Chez Spuds‘ description reads well, but I stopped it after 10 seconds as it looks like another attempt at humour not working
Same for Rental Boys. I like the concept, but unfortunately it’s another bad example of stereotypes.

I applaud RTE for this ground-breaking attempt at user generated content. But it’s just not doing it for me.

PS – I don’t hate all of RTE’s stuff. Last year’s drama ‘Raw’ was worth staying in for. Excellent stuff.

Posted in Email Marketing, Ireland, Video Content | 8 Comments