Steve Carson took on the role of Director of Programmes for RTÉ television in February 2009. Coming from a production background he has already changed RTÉ’s commissioning method and has looked to refresh the schedules for both RTÉ One and RTÉ Two. IFTN spoke with Steve to find out what made him apply for the position in the first place, how ‘The Savage Eye’ reflects modern RTÉ programming and what Irish audiences really want.
A native of Belfast, Steve Carson joined the BBC in England in 1990 and worked as a producer/director on programmes including ‘Newsnight’ and ‘Panorama’before coming to Dublin in 1997 to join the team on RTÉ’s flagship current affairs strand, ‘Prime Time’.
In 2000 he set up the independent production company, Mint Productions, with his wife and fellow producer, Miriam O’Callaghan. With offices in both Dublin and Belfast, Mint became one of Ireland’s most high profile production companies producing critically-acclaimed and highly-rating documentaries such as the IFTA winning ‘Bertie’, ‘Haughey’ and ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’.
In his latest role as Director of Programmes, Steve has overall responsibility for the origination, management and delivery of RTÉ Television’s home-produced programmes, both in-house and commissioned, across RTÉ One and RTÉ Two. He is furthermore a key member of the RTÉ Television Management Board responsible for managing and organising all aspects of the Television IBD (Integrated Business Division). IFTN spoke with him to discuss the changes he has brought about since February 2009 and his thoughts on RTÉ’s autumn line-up.
IFTN: Steve, what made you apply for the Director of Programmes role in the first place?
Steve Carson (SC): “I had been running Mint Productions at that stage for about eight years and I was very happy with what we were doing there – we were still making some very good stuff. But I was aware of the dangers of getting stale, of repeating ourselves, so by mid-2008 I was already on the lookout for a challenge. So much so that I started a Masters course in UCD. It was definitely in my mind that I wanted to stretch myself more. Then the job came up and I went for it and I got it.
“And it was bittersweet in a way because taking the job meant winding down Mint and there was a lot of sadness about that. We did it over a nine month period because we were in production and then we all left it on a high.”
IFTN: Has the position been as demanding as you envisaged?
SC: “Yes it has. It was a hugely sharp learning curve for me – as it would have been for anyone coming in. The other thing that happened pretty simultaneously with me arriving was the financial picture darkened fairly dramatically – our advertising revenues fell off a cliff essentially. So I was learning on the job – putting things in place that I wanted to do while there was a lack of finance which had not been there the year before. And then across the schedules there was a need to refresh quite a few pieces.
“In a way though, I knew no different and I think that if I had been here in the ‘good times’ it might, in an odd way, have been more difficult. And however hard it was for me I was acutely conscious of it being an extremely difficult year for indies. RTÉ staff also faced real challenges and pay cuts so we were all in it together.”
IFTN: What do you see as being the most important aspects of your job?
SC: “It’s quite a wide ranging job but it does just boil down to Programmes, Programmes, Programmes. There is a lot of admin, systems and personnel management but - in the past eight months particularly - I just made sure I spent the maximum amount of time possible talking to people about programmes. I talk to commissioning teams, in-house producers and independent producers and that has to be my focus because I wasn’t brought in to be an expert spreadsheet manager.
“I have a programmes background and it’s what RTÉ wanted me to do. I’m very aware of that side of things. Whether I’m doing a good or bad job here is visible in the programmes we make.”
IFTN: You mention above that there was a need to refresh RTÉ’s programmes when you took on you role - what steps have you taken to make this happen?
SC: “You have to constantly refresh the schedule. Just looking at the last year or so we re-launched the ‘Late Late Show’ which was a big success and that then had the knock on effect that we had to then re-invent Saturday nights. And we had some really strong shows in that slot in the last year including Miriam’s show in the summer which was the sixth series and put on a lot of share, and of course now Brendan’s show.
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| Steve Carson and Miriam O'Callaghan |
“We’re also now concentrating on Thursday nights on RTÉ One for the autumn schedule with strong faces like Craig Doyle on ‘The Panel’ for example. When I came in I created an in-house documentary unit and we have had some really strong output from that. We’ve had seasons like ‘Aftershock’ which we did earlier this year, we just did the ‘Coming of Age’ season and those are quite complicated things to do when you’re co-ordinating different indies and different TV departments along with radio and online. I’m really pleased we did that because it makes you punch through the clutter.
“And on RTÉ Two this autumn I think we’ve done some good groundwork for the future shape of the channel. And I think we’ve had some good left-field successes with RTÉ Two with projects like ‘The Savage Eye’ which we’re very proud of.
“I also had felt that the annual commissioning round had had its day and pretty soon after I came in we moved into the system of rolling commissioning which was difficult to do but I’m glad we did it because I think it has improved the flow of ideas. And I hope, from an indie point of view, it has smoothed out the development cycle from the old ‘Boom Bust’ of the annual round where at the end of August you’d be up for three nights in a row finishing off proposals.
“And then recently we launched our new daytime schedule and our schedule for young people which I’m particularly proud of. In fact, looking back over 18 months of the schedules for both channels, they are pretty different from what they were when I began. Across the board, we had 50 returning series and singles, and 50 new series and singles in the autumn launch, so I think that’s a good balance.
Can you think of any programmes that you feel reflect RTÉ currently?
SC: “I think ‘Savage Eye’ is a great example of something that didn’t rate particularly strongly but again it comes down to making things that wouldn’t happen if we weren’t here. Scripted comedy is so difficult to pull off too and RTÉ has had - perhaps not a well-deserved - bad reputation for it. ‘The Savage Eye’ wasn’t an instant obvious commission but I felt, along with Eddie Doyle, that the pilot was very strong and that we should give it a go. It did quite well and I’m delighted to be bringing it back for the second series. I see it as a brave new model and I’m pleased we took the risk.
“We also have ‘Hardy Bucks’ coming up soon and I’m excited about that. That came from an innovative initiative; Storylands and we’re very keen with Jane Gogan in Drama, to progress that through onto the TV offering. There’s no point doing these things in isolation, they’ve all got to feed into each other. We’ve got ‘Fade Street’ coming up too, which is a 12 part commission, an observational documentary about young people living in Dublin. And of course ‘Love/Hate’, which is on at the moment, is a key new drama series for us.
IFTN: Announcing your new role within the company former RTÉ MD, Noel Curran commented: “It is very important that RTÉ continues to emphasise what makes us different to our competitors”. Do you feel you’ve upheld this goal?
SC: “I think the situation is two sided, isn’t it? I think we have to be differentiated partly because of the public service remit. And I think also, in a very crowded digital landscape, you need to stand out on the EPG. People have a huge range of channels to choose from –81% of people now have digital television, so they’ve got loads of choice, and you have to stand out from the crowd commercially.
“Clearly as a public service broadcaster we have to differentiate ourselves and I think we do. We have a huge range of public service commitments - we have Arts, Irish Language, Diversity, Literacy, Education, and we play them in peak slots, in primetime. We are much more public service on RTÉ One than on BBC One for example, and they are completely license funded.”
“The good thing about Irish broadcasting is you don’t have to choose between the high road and the low road. People here will watch serious programming, stuff that in Britain, which is the other market I’m familiar with, you might get 8% on BBC 2, here you can get 25-30% on a serious documentary or a serious drama. I think you can actually fulfil your public service remit and attract an audience without having to go down to the lowest common denominator in chasing ratings. I think again, we’ve introduced these themes, the ‘Aftershock’ Season and ‘Coming of Age’, I think they help raise the visibility of a lot of stuff that we do anyway, we make our own documentaries, we have got very good news and current affairs coverage, so if you can put that together and commission some new pieces around it, you can make a big impact. I think that makes us different. We do campaigns, ‘Operation Transformation’, which was before my time, we are looking at two or three iterations of that type of campaign model, and then again, well crafted Irish Language programming or a performance piece on ‘The View’.
“I have a real mantra that I bore everyone here with which is: ‘We need to create things that wouldn’t exist if we didn’t exist’. There’s a whole range of things that just wouldn’t be here if RTE wasn’t here - and I’m not saying we’re great for doing it, it is what we are meant to do and it’s what we are here to do. I’m confident in myself that we are making a difference with the money that we get from the licence fee. But we are now majority commercially funded, so we have to bear that in mind too.”
IFTN: And your experience with Mint is obviously enormously helpful in your dealings with producers and production companies.
SC: “Absolutely, I think it mentored me up a level from what I had been before which was a freelance director/producer. When Mint came along I had to get involved in the other side of production, the money side – you’re running a business, you’re managing people and it’s a whole other variety of experience. Mint was a great training ground really – running my own indie. If I had come straight from being a producer to this job I think it would have been too much of a jump for me. Mint gave me an idea of stuff you wouldn’t pick up from day-to-day production.
“I do see this job as, in a sense, running a massive indie. I think of our in-house production as an enormous indie of 200 odd people and then I’m dealing with all the other indies out there. I’ve an overview of programme making at one or two removes; I understand the indie background in that no programme is made without money and that one needs to be careful about where that money comes from and how it’s spent.”
IFTN: What is RTÉ seeking to make in the line of independent productions – more drama, documentaries etc.?
SC: “Where young peoples’ programming is concerned we’ve had a good range of documentaries for kids over the years. One of the big changes of the new schedule is that we would have been primarily studio based for a lot of our children’s programming. That new model has been very successful in that Sheila de Courcy and the team including Colm O Callaghan, who is the exec there, and Pauline MacNamara, who is the indie exec, have managed to do there is get the best of the studio schedule but they have also moved it outside into EFP format. And there is some really good stuff coming up there like ‘The Mountain’, an adventure challenge series for kids, and that’s done on Irish budgets. The CBBC budget is as big as our commissioning budget for everything. But that’s not to say that we shouldn’t be offering that level of quality. We are always on the lookout for studio formats for young people. But equally, something outside of the studio that can be turned into good solid programmes that run to half hours, that kids can really get their teeth into.
“In terms of the general schedule, non-fiction drama pieces are now an absolute priority. We definitely want them. We are also always on the lookout, particularly on RTÉ Two, for big, popular formats. I think return-ability is a key for both channels. There is always a place for the one-off and the strong single film. But clearly something that can bring a viewer back, week by week, across three, four, or more weeks...that’s important.
“That said, I never want to suggest that a good single idea is not wanted. We do them, and we are really pleased to get them. Some of the best things we have done have been singles. But you always think: ‘What more could we do here?’ and ‘Without compromising, could this become bigger?’ I think ambition is important, and I’m conscious I’m using lots of big commissioning words that used to drive me mad when I was a producer. But it is true, when you actually look at the schedule – you need to have the gems, you need to have the ‘small moments of beauty’, as I call them – but you also essentially need to have programmes that people will respond with “Oh I like that programme, and I’ll watch something similar to that next week”. That’s really important whether that’s in factual or drama, animation, or any genre.”
IFTN: Have you been inspired by anything being introduced internationally that you would like to introduce to Irish television?
SC: “Clearly it’s absolutely ridiculous to cut yourself off from international markets and international formats, but our preference is always for a good home grown, indigenous format. ‘Celebrity Banisteoir’ would be a classic example of that - a very well formatted programme that plays to very distinctively local Irish themes of pride of the parish, pride of county, Gaelic sports. That’s the paradigm. But even if you look at something like ‘Dragon’s Den’ – a Japanese format originally – I think it is possible to take an international format and do it in an Irish way, but I think the key is to do it in an Irish way. So our Dragons would be less pompous and up-themselves than the BBC Dragons would be. And that works well in an Irish market.
“We just did a one-off there of ‘Don’t Tell the Bride’, a format that runs on BBC 3. That is a great format, and there are a number of other things coming up which I don’t want to discuss too much because I don’t want to give our competitors too much notice! But yes, we are always looking; we have a couple of people out in MIPCOM at the minute. I think particularly on RTÉ Two there is a role for international formats there. But we need to balance that with making sure we are creating original, new work ourselves. ‘Dragon’s Den’ is original because it is different to how it is done elsewhere.”
IFTN: Mary Curtis has just started her position as Director of Digital Switchover – do you see her movements altering your approach to programming at all?
SC: “In terms of DTT, I’m not passing the ball, but I’m a programmer, so whatever channels are there I’m going to program into and I think it’s an opportunity ultimately. We can get new channels and we can deepen the offering we can give. It’s good that we are nearly up and running with the launch and I hope that will deepen as we get closer to the switch off at 2012. I welcome it, and we just want to get stuck in to it.”
IFTN: Is there any genre of TV programming that has proved surprisingly popular with Irish audiences?
SC: “It’s not something that would surprise me now, but it certainly surprised me when I came to work here in the late 90s and that is Irish people’s appetites for what the British call ‘Specialist Factual’. This could be an Alan Gilsenan documentary, a really well crafted history piece, obviously current affairs output. People in Ireland watch them in huge numbers in a way they don’t anywhere else. That’s not an observation I’ve just had recently, but it is certainly an observation that still holds true.
“There is also a really strong Irish appetite for ‘talk’, however you skin that. Obviously radio in Ireland is primarily talk driven, and that’s something you need to be conscious of. Frankly there is a huge appetite for chat – a good studio chat show, with good guests and a good host is really popular.
“I think the overall thing that seems to drive Irish viewers predominantly is programmes about Irish people - showing ourselves to ourselves. It is actually amazing in a way that RTÉ - despite the problems that we and indies have gone through in the past 18-24 months - is a growing share in digital homes, it is actually growing. So where people have the most choice, they are watching more of our programmes. I think that’s because of a nice virtuous circle that exists in Ireland that we, as a public service broadcaster, alongside the fact that we have to make home produced programmes, they are very attractive, in a purely commercial digital world. Because Irish people given a choice will tend to watch, in large numbers, programmes about Ireland, about themselves. With very few exceptions, ‘X-Factor’ being one of those. And even ‘X-Factor’ has Irish people in it!”
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