TV can’t compete with podcasts in telling complex true crime stories
NEWS AT ONE
RTÉ News, Monday, 1pm
THE REAL SERPENT
Channel 4, Tuesday, 9pm
COUNTDOWN
Channel 4, daily, 2.10pm
How much does the dedicated RTÉ News channel actually cost? That’s a harder question to answer than it should be. Unless I’m mistaken, RTÉ’s most recent financial report doesn’t break down the figures to that meticulous a degree.
Either way, you have to wonder if it’s worth having a 24-hour news channel at all when there’s nothing on it a lot of the time.
Like most news junkies, I remember the excitement when Sky News launched. We all imagined it would lead to a thrilling new world of breaking stories around the clock; in depth analysis and discussion; live coverage of events as they happened. Instead it quickly became clear that all we were really getting was the same reports we’d always got, only now on endless rotation.
Tuning into the RTÉ News channel on bank holiday Monday, I found myself watching a simulcast of RTÉ Radio 1’s News at One, in which Gavin Jennings, standing in for Bryan Dobson, sat largely motionless in an otherwise empty studio, reading the news from a laptop screen.
The only change to the scene was when Joanne Cantwell came in to share the latest sports news. Viewers could see them chatting and joking together as the audio played a pre-recorded report; and if we could have heard what Gavin and Joanne were saying, as you can on the Celebrity Big Brother live stream, that would definitely be worth tuning in for.
But of course, like the Celebrity Big Brother stream, they’d probably have to switch to bird song when the gossip got too juicy.
The fact that Leo Varadkar’s surprise resignation as Taoiseach and Fine Gael leader was carried live on Wednesday on RTE One, followed by an in-studio discussion anchored by a heavyweight like David McCullagh, simply underscored the pointlessness of a rolling RTÉ News channel. When important stories break, they’re on the main channels anyway.
One problem with news and current affairs on TV is that it now seems behind the times, which is ironic when, by definition, it ought to be the most up-to-date part of the media landscape. The internet has left them behind.
As an example, the BBC recently broadcast an hour-long documentary called Why Planes Vanish: The Hunt for MH370, which reported on potential new developments in the search for the Malaysian airline which vanished with 239 people on board an astonishing 10 years ago.
For anyone familiar with the story, it was unsatisfying, to say the least. Most of the show consisted of a basic recap of the available evidence, followed by a final 15 minutes of new developments.
By contrast, the podcast Deep Dive, which is dedicated to the MH370 mystery, currently runs to 26 episodes, some over an hour long, and it’s still ongoing. TV cannot match that commitment.
Spurred on by the popularity of true-crime podcasts, terrestrial TV has, though, started producing more long-form investigations. The Real Serpent, subtitled
Investigating a Serial Killer, took the classic format of getting retired detectives and forensic psychologists to re-open an old case in search of new insights.
The subject of this one was Charles Sobhraj, the eponymous “Serpent”, who is suspected of murdering as many as 37 tourists on the so-called “hippie trail” in south east Asia in the 1970s. The basic facts are well known, not least as the subject of a recent big budget BBC/Netflix drama.
Now an unassuming, ordinary-looking man of 79, Sobhraj denies having killed anyone, despite previously confessing to some of the murders; and, after spending more than half his life in jail in Asia, he’s agreed to be interviewed to give his side of the story and “let the people decide”.
The chances of the programme concluding that he had indeed been the victim of a miscarriage of justice were less than zero. So in that sense there was no mystery, no revelation. There’s no riddle to solve, as there is with MH370. The interest was in seeing if the team could uncover new evidence of Sobhraj’s guilt.
Over three episodes, that’s what they did, leaving viewers in little doubt this man was and is a monster, who cares nothing for human life and remains chillingly unmoved by his crimes. Three hours was about enough; but at the same time, it felt as if The Real Serpent was only dipping its toe into a deeper, darker narrative.
It was a compelling programme, but there are numerous different threads to the story that could only be touched on briefly. It really needed to be a podcast.
Sections of the Irish media continue to be inordinately fascinated by what Ryan Tubridy is getting up to in London. The answer to that question is surely: he presents a show on a radio station with a tiny market share. That’s it.
What makes this annoying is that there are so many talented Irish people doing well over the water who barely get a mention.
Take Offaly-born comedian
Neil Delamere. He regularly fills out venues across the UK, and has appeared on some of the highest profile shows there, including Pointless Celebrities, Richard Osman’s House of Games, Celebrity Mastermind (which he went on to win) and Live at the Apollo, as well as being a permanent panellist on BBC Northern Ireland’s hugely popular The Blame Game.
Last week, Neil was accorded the ultimate honour of appearing in Dictionary Corner on Countdown. You’re practically royalty if you get into Dictionary Corner.
If this was Tubridy, his PR team would ensure we’d never hear the end of it. It’s time we weaned ourselves off the tiresome and toxic psychodrama that says success only matters when it strikes people from the RTÉ gene pool.