Will Knott

I took two minutes. Have you?

To: complaints@rte.ie, Joe@RTE.ie
From: Will Knott

Dear Sir or Madam,

Recently things have changed in RTÉ, in particular, afternoons on RTÉ 2FM.
I used to listen to the “wittertainment” (wit combined with entertainment) of interesting conversation about music, musicians, movies and anything interesting from the news on your afternoon shows.

Since the new year, Nikki Hayes and Rick O’Shea seem to have been gagged. Gone are the insightful riffs on air and conversations with their audiences to be replaced with “that was a song off the play list, here is another song off the playlist“. If I want pure music I have an extensive collection of CDs on my shelves and online music streaming services at my fingertips. (The less said about mp3 files at this moment, the better).

In one stroke (probably of a pen) you have removed the added value of the presenters. At times I wonder if the show has been prerecorded. These are presenters who would appear on Radio One’s playback on a regular basis. If the editors in RTE thought they were worthy of a special mention, why shut them up?

Was Jerry Ryan complaining about the upstarts of talk in the afternoon? Did Joe Duffy fret about being upstaged by rivals on the “youth” channel? Did other presenters resent their repeated appearances in the highlighted clip show? Did the fact the aiding the public in ways over multiple channels of communication hinder a target number of plays somewhere (the kind of thing usually reserved for a payola scheme, I assume you can confirm that this is not the case). Is this a preparation routine to move them off to other projects?

So, could you answer why the afternoons have been turned in to a “all music, no talk (except for the adverts)” festival, exactly like your rivals and so eliminating the sole distinguishing feature between most of the commercial stations and your own 2FM?

Instead of “more music”, any chance of “more entertainment”?
take care,
Will Knott

Related articles by Zemanta

• Taking Two Minutes…

• Take two minutes for Rick and Nikki!
• Today is “Complain to 2FM about Rick” Day

Well 2007 is on the way out. And as usual in Ireland, all things come to a halt for a while. Christmas is a scary time of the year because, usually, everything gets changed this week. This is probably the reason why resolutions are saved for this time of the year in this part of the world. You’ve just survived one week of changes intact. Why not make more…

For some people, this is a time of the year when they are handed responsibilities that they normally don’t look after. (Some even learned new skills this way). These people (of which I’m one) have their lives thrown a little off kilter for a while. And they have to consider what’s important and what needs to change.

For others everything comes to a stop. Work stops. The life of the office stops (and some people try to hide the evidence of what happened at the office party… ah flickr and facebook) and the news cycle slows. For them this comes as a chance to think. And they have to consider what’s important and what needs to change.

So the adverts change from “buy this” to “stop smoking” or “start a new hobby with this magazine” and of course “sale now on…” since the Christmas stock costs too much to store.

And so the resolutions begin. The “I’ll never rush in to a sale again” is heartfelt but unheeded within a week. So I’ll ignore that one.

Yup… resolutions.

What do I want to do or change? Trust me I’ve had a while to think about these things so…

1) Be master of my own domain…
I don’t mean tidy the house (but now that you mention it, the bathroom mirror does need to b put in the bathroom. I mean it’s time that WillKnott.net and WillKnott.ie actually got used as something more than a redirect. Part of this is to do with changes that seem to be afoot. The “cork” in “cork-host” may need to change.
All advice gratefully accepted.

2) On your bike…
Personally, I need to get out more. I’ve used every excuse not to cycle this year. 2008 will see a saddle put under strain. Regularly. That and go back to Capoeira again. Things sort of stopped over December.

3) Learn (or relearn) a language…
I’ve always been more a OnLamppp man than an AJAX man. So I’m going to refresh and perfect my Perl, python and PHP. I do intend to get Ruby (and maybe rails) in my head. Sort of useful with a domain eh? Somehow I just know that Java will need something more formal than a commitment by me. Any pointer to classes or tutorials would be appreciated.

What, you assumed French? (Actually Portuguese would be useful for Capoeira but that’s another story.)

4) Take time to smell the roses…
Or actually plant them. Simply put, my garden is a mess. Actually that not true. I was careful. My garden is black. Black weed-proof plastic. I need to do some things. Lay a patio. Do “something” with a terrace. I genuinely don’t know what should happen out there. I do know I need the hardscaping finished. Help?

5) Give voice…
This is neither a resolution nor a commitment. But my attendance at PodCamp Ireland and the forthcoming Creative Camp gave me an idea… which I’ll post later.

I think that is enough. You can’t make yourself too many resolutions simply because putting too much pressure on yourself almost guarantees that you won’t do any.

Any resolutions or advice?

take care,
Will Knott

tags : 2007, 2008, change, resolution, domain, WillKnott.net, WillKnott.ie, cycle, capoeira, onlamp, garden, PodCamp, PodCamp Ireland, Creative Camp, podcasting