rte news studios

Talking of bad set design, what about the table in the ITV studio for the rugby world cup coverage? It was shaped as a boomerang!

Dont much like the very noisy music intro , that requiring a flying lunge for the remote every time, or the flying numbers graphic either.

Lucky the traffic is so bad this season that I am usually only home in time for the C4 news at 19.00.

Will there be tellys on the Luas / Metro I wonder.

if there are i’m sure they will follow the Docklands Light Rail example – i.e. full of adverts with some syndicated news snippets at regular intervals

Not a fan of a number of elemnts such as the desk, but overall it’s reasonably nice and architectural – back-lit cycloramas are dead now. Using ‘wholesome’ materials like wood and carpet are fashionable now – post-modern and all that.

The 3000w you refer to what? is presumably that everything is so bright.
Its cause the newsroom is so small, its ceiling is only 14-15 feet high, hence the lighting is a bit intense to say the least, being so close to the subjects.
Its upstairs in the Television Centre, hence the ceiling height is the same as the office space around it – which is silly. Should use one of the studios downstairs.
To relate this all to architecture, the TV Centre is fantastic, a Miesian pile of aggregate columns and glass – as is the Admin Building and the Radio Centre – award winning at that.

I agree with you Graham. Fantastic buildings. I often admire them as I go past on the bus. I became worried about their future when there was talk in the media about the movement of RTE to another site. That was probably just speculation but do you know anything about what the situation is at present?

They’re alright now – since the licence fee increase.
It was proposed to sell off some lands to the rear, and perhaps move admin to a more low cost base but the RTE Authority were not at all in favour of such a move (and rightly so).
It was never really going to happen though – just the papers revelling in the broadcaster’s misfortune – most knew the increase was on its way – consolation for Sile de Valera’s stranglehold on the organisation.

They’re alright now – since the licence fee increase.
It was proposed to sell off some lands to the rear, and perhaps move admin to a more low cost base but the RTE Authority were not at all in favour of such a move (and rightly so).
It was never really going to happen though – just the papers revelling in the broadcaster’s misfortune – most knew the increase was on its way – consolation for Sile de Valera’s stranglehold on the organisation.

The main RTE TV studio building is hated by those who work in it. I was unfortunate enough to work in it for a few years and it is a sick building – parts of it are either too hot or too cold, the air conditioning is crap in places and there is no access to natural fresha air – no openable windows. Many of the rooms have no windows, whearas many of the corridors run alongside the windows – when the other way around would be much more humane for those who work there. This was not a building designed with people in mind. At least in the Radio Centre the offices are near the windows and have natural light and the corridors are nearer the centre of the building. Ditto the new TV building which also has widows which can be opened and a naturally lit airy central atrium which gives the building a nice human focus where people can gather and drink coffee. It is also a less monotonous drab design than the old TV building, which doen’t really offer the eye much relief or variety.

I agree about the lack of openable windows, but this was a common feature of buildings of the 60s when air conditioning cost nothing.
The corridors that run along the windows are downstairs & are recent infill & shouldn’t be there anyway.

I much prefer the older building it is perfectly scaled in terms of the height of the windows to columns. I love the sweeping of the columns into the distance also.
The interior is apallingly dated & is in need of a massive overhaul, some corridors upstairs still have the original floor tiles, all uneven with miles of cabling running beneath. It is largely this reason that employees hate the building.

In contrast I hate the new building, a bog-standard mid-nineties pile of blah architecture.
(atrium’s nice though!)

You are wrong about the outer corridors being only downstairs – they are upstairs on two and a half sides of the building, leaving many of the offices within them with no natural light.

I agree with the criticism of the News Set but the new Late Late set is even worse.

I think the most important thing for an architect to do is to design a building for the people who work in it, although ideally he or she would also achieve a building that aesthetcially pleasing to non-occupants. In terms of a building for people, the new TV building wins hands down, over the old one.

Oops – forgot about the other corridors, incl the one running into the old canteen.
I think most people would prefer the new building simply by being bedazzled by its newness, rather than its external design quality.

RTE… *sigh* I work in TV too, nothing to do with design or anything glamourous like that. I used to work for TV3 though and their studio height is pretty low too and they manage to get it right with the light. I think the reason it all looks so bright on RTE is cos in the good aul days the old tubed cameras needed a massive amount of light to function properly. As we all know RTE staff tend to stay on a while and I think the old traditions havent adapted to the use of ultra light sensitive digital camera technology. Thats my theory anyway.

As for the set…. well its pretty woeful alright. The news is a flagship for any station and it should get priority really. Well at least it’s not as bad as the mid nineties ‘chromakey’ set that was just too unrealistic to be believeable. Total anoracks will notice that they still use the opening graphics from that on Oireachtas Report… with the title stuck over the old one. Cheap blighters…

Too much light… too little thought…

Leave the chromakey alone!

It was fun for its time – all broadcasters meddled with this new-fangled technology then – still, its pretty laughable now alright!