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International TV Day: TG4

Into its 21st year on the air TG4 has just as many problems. Perhaps even more considering the language barrier. The channel continues to provide a great alternative services along with providing a channel for Irish speakers. The language is endangered and the fact that the national Irish Language broadcasters are split among 3 separate organisations doesn't help. Either both TG4 and Radio RiRa need to become part of RTE or they need to be merged with RnaG to from a separate entity. I prefer the later. I would even go as far as saying I would like them to get more of the licence fee and that their remit would be made to include Children's and Irish Film, allowing them to better promote the language to non-Irish speakers. No I am not suggesting they commission purely Irish language Children's programming or feature film, I am suggesting that they use economies of scale that would be clear under such an organisation.

TG4 have retained their audience over the last 2 years. This has been hamper by the lack of quality programming coming from other Irish broadcasters. TG4 was buoyed in 2006 by strong TV from both RTE and TV3 but since then both companies have dished out crap.

As a public service broadcaster TG4's audience should not be the sole measurement of the channel, take BBC4 in the UK its audience share is lower than that of TG4, should it be dropped, or take Oireachtas TV should it be drop purely because of audience. Guess not.

If only the English language broadcasters would take a leaf from TG4, then we might have better TV.