the f-rant-line

First, take a few minutes to watch the clip above. In case you’re reading via my Facebook account and the clip may not be there, I’ve posted it already – it’s “Crazy Front Row Guy”.

His rant brings up for me three things that require discussion in this post…first, the validity of rant itself, second, the topic that he was distracting us from and finally, the format of Pat Kenny’s new show.

(1) The rant itself

At time of writing I still don’t know this guy’s name, which is strange since it’s not as though he committed a heinous crime.

Of course he was lacking in the delivery, conciseness and timing departments, but although perhaps it was a topic for a different occassion, it was one I wouldn’t mind seeing conducted.

In a way I suppose we have to applaud Pat Kenny for voluntarily taking a cut in his pay. But that has nothing to do with what I want to discuss. Had he not done that, as CFRG points out, he would still be on €900,000 per annum today, so we must look at his employers.

Apparently RTÉ’s argument for this extremely over-the-top remuneration is that if they didn’t pay that much, people like Kenny would be poached by another station.

OK, fine. But here’s the thing. As a payer of the TV license fee (for my views on that see this brief post) I consider myself to be a shareholder in our national broadcaster.

If you were a shareholder in a company, and the board of directors told you they paid one of the employees WAY over the odds because if they didn’t he’d go to another company, how would you feel?

Would it not at least cross your mind that maybe, just maybe, the world wouldn't come to an end if he WAS poached and you tendered his position to someone who was willing to accept the going rate?

Imagine…Kenny, Ryan, Finucane, Duffy, Tubridy…all forced to either reduce their salaries to an acceptable level or feck off to another network willing to support their current lifestyle.

Won’t exactly solve the recession, but it would definitely feel better about forking out money for the license every year!

(2) Hanafin’s Hero

Unlike many Ministers of this current shambles of a government, you have to hand it to Mary Hanafin for at least being willing to sit and face the music as she was being grilled on threatened cuts in Social Welfare in the upcoming Budget.

You could have pretty much written the script for the discourse. Member after member of the audience telling us their various hard-luck stories, each of course with their merit, and each time Hanafin could swat it away with an assurance that “nothing has yet been decided”.

I was beginning to wonder just how long the repetition would last, until CFRG made the decision for us.

Now, when we should all be at our watercoolers assessing the Minster’s performance, instead we’re going on about “yer man in the yellow-check shirt”.

Mary must’ve thought Christmas had come early. She got to make a quick exit and surely the news cycle will move onto yet another area where Lenihan threatens to wield the axe.

Now even a seasoned conspiracy theorist like myself doesn’t believe the situation was orchestrated to get her out of a sticky situation, but the fact remains the interruption was at least a godsend for her.

And while CFRG does radio ads today content that his 20-year-long wish to have a go at Kenny has finally come true, I wonder does he appreciate that in that three or four minutes, plus the extra ten at least that I’m sure the show’s producers planned to devote to the topic, he deprived at least three or four audience members the small crumb of comfort of outlining their plight in a public forum.

(3) The Frontline

For whatever reason, Kenny chose to quit the light entertainment of The Late Late Show and go back to his more comfortable ground of current affairs. I think that was a wise choice.

It also seemed like a natural transition for him to take over the slot previously occupied by John Bowman on Questions and Answers.

But here is where the common sense seems to have gone awry.

Though I understand that Pat wanted to put his own stamp on the Q&A slot, I fear he has done so at the expense of what the viewers/shareholders get out of it.

With his own style, plus additions like the use of Twitter and other social media, Kenny had enough to bring to the Monday night table without fixing a format that was never really broken.

And worst of all, the new measures introduced by Frontline…fewer topics, fewer guests, more interaction with the audience, have come at a price – less discussion of the topics that matter by the people who matter.

If you ask me, if serious changes aren’t made to this show soon, rather that discussing important matters at the watercooler on future Tuesday mornings, we’re more likely to be exchanging more are more shocking YouTube clips.