I got texts and emails yesterday, some offering me sympathy (!), over the announcement of the ending of Questions and Answers next year. Some of us have been liveblogging it for a few months and we’ll be sad to see it go but in fact the programme lost it’s punch a long time ago. So I’m not wearing the above in mourning. I bet members of the Kevin Barry Cumman in UCD and the like will miss the free drinks and chance to wave to mammy from the audience.
Personally I feel it relied on a very limited pool of pundits and was badly affected of late by a policy of the Government Press Office refusing to put up senior ministers on a regular basis.
Now I fear RTE are going to replace the programme with a Stephen Nolanesque show and roving microphones, twitters and interactive video blogs where politicians can continue to avoid answering the questions or jibing at a panel member they don’t like.
What do you think RTE should do?
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While Questions & Answers has been impotent for quite some time, I’d be repressing the natural cynic in me if I didn’t think that whatever they replace it with will be far worse, at a time when we need someone who will barrack ministers who are trying to keep their heads down and avoid being associated with the recession (i.e. Micky Martin) or those who blithley deny it’s existence three times bfore the cockrel crows (Mary Coughlan.)
Primarily the probem Questions & Answers faced in recent years was that it was schedueled to be on when most people weren’t in the mood to think or talk politics or current affairs (I know, weirdos) and at a time when most government ministers were three sheets to the wind in the Daíl bar. If a minister didn’t go on the show they weren’t really going to be missed, because who was going to be watching the show at 10.25 anyway?
Whatever replaces it(and I pray that they get someone worthwhile to present it), it needs to be on immediately after the Nine O’Clock news if it’s going to succeed.
I agree that it needs to be in the 9.30 slot in order to be successful. Would hope that RTE will employ the internet in some form, although not in a “hip-down-with-the-kids” sort of way or a love in of ranters without anyone there to counter the argument or represent the powers that be.
I think that any replacement show will stand or fall on the basis of how successful the new presenter will be. Who will they get to fill Bowman’s big shoes is the real question, in my opinion.
At times like these, don’t ya miss Hall’s Pictorial Weekly… Scrap Saturday or Night Hawks… let’s be honest, they had the killer instinct for getting at politicians, whereas many journos just don’t.