THE men and women across Britain who successfully supported our campaign to save the RTÉ Radio longwave 252 service now await news of the broadcaster’s plans to survey the community this year.
In December, when RTÉ announced its plans to shelve the closure of its popular longwave service until 2017, following a backlash from loyal listeners across Britain, they committed to undertake “specific research to understand the community in Britain who listen to the longwave service”.
That survey is due to commence this year, supported by a €100,000 funding grant from Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs.
Senator Paschal Mooney, a member of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport and Communications, was one of the Irish-based politicians who welcomed that decision.
Having raised the need for funding to research the impact of the proposed RTÉ closure with Moya Doherty, who was appointed Chair of the RTÉ board in November, Senator Mooney was “delighted” to hear they had revised their scheduled longwave closure date.
“I wholeheartedly welcomed the news of the closure postponement in December, but in particular the news that €100,000 will be used this year to undertake a scientific survey on listenership,” he told The Irish Post.
“I welcome the initiative and think it’s a great moral victory for the Irish in Britain,” he added.
“I had discussed the funding situation with Moya Doherty as the campaign to save the service was under way and we agreed there was a need for scientific listener research to progress this.
“So I compliment her and her board for immediately issuing a review of a decision that had been taken by a previous board, but I also compliment the Irish community in Britain and indeed The Irish Post newspaper for leading this campaign.”
Now the Dublin-based politician hopes to see the research funding used to garner as much information about the viewing trends of RTÉ listeners in Britain as possible.
“Obviously the modalities of the research will be a matter for the DFA to decide, as it’s their money, but my understanding is that there will be input from the Irish community in Britain and presumably this study may go out to tender,” he said.
“If so I would suggest it is important that this research goes to a British-based company that would be familiar with the Irish community based there and would ensure input from the community with whoever is doing the survey. I would also like to see that starting immediately, in the early part of this year.”
Across Britain the thousands of people who signed an online petition or wrote to The Irish Post in protest against RTÉ’s plans to close its longwave radio service permanently — which was originally due to happen on October 27, 2014 but was postponed until January 19, 2015 before being postponed until 2017 in December — are now similarly hoping RTÉ chiefs will listen to them as they undertake their survey.
However RTÉ currently has made no decisions as to who will conduct the survey in Britain this year or how it will be undertaken.
An RTÉ spokesperson told The Irish Post: “There is no information available about the intended survey. We are currently in discussion with the Department of Foreign Affairs, but nothing is in place in regards to the undertaking of the survey at the moment.”
