Former RTE star Ray D’Arcy has blasted the national broadcaster for hiring a UK-based company to conduct the station’s Radio 1 jingles – saying ‘it’s a crying shame’.
It emerged earlier this month that RTE had hired London-based audio branding agency, WiseBuddah, ‘following a competitive public procurement process’, with ‘key elements of the new themes, performed by the RTE Concert Orchestra’ to produce a new jingle to refresh Rte Radio 1’s sound.
The new intro music was unveiled across RTÉ Radio 1’s daily schedule on April 13, along with new music for news bulletins.
Ray D’Arcy. Pic: VIP Ireland
Ray – who was sacked from the station last October after 11 years – said the ‘writing was on the wall’ when station bosses removed Stockton’s Wing’s ‘Over The Moors’ to Joe Duffy’s Liveline intro after 40 years when Kieran Cuddihy took over.
He said: ‘We’re very good at the arts…we punch above our weight. We’ve given the world Oscar Wilde, William Butler Yeats, Beckett..
‘Musically, we’ve given the world U2, Riverdance, The Chieftains, The Cranberries, the list goes on and on and on. And Irish music has influenced other music across the world, because we have this large diaspora.
‘We got onto ships and we went and we brought our fiddles and we brought our music with us. Yeah, we punch above our weight. We’re very good at that sort of thing, aren’t we?
Ray D’Arcy RTE Radio 1. Pic: RTE
‘And yet, our national broadcaster, our public service media, what do they do when they want a suite of music for their number one radio station? They go to England. Of course, they go to England. Why wouldn’t they?
‘Yes, WiseBuddah created a comprehensive round the clock sound suite tailored to the station’s evolving identity. That’s what they say about the new sound of RTE Radio One.’
He told his listeners on his weekday podcast, Ray D’Arcy Daily, that his view was not ‘some petty score settling’, adding ‘this is a real gripe’.
‘I have a real gripe. And if you have a gripe, what do you do? Where will I go?,’ he said as he played the old original intro intro to Liveline.
Host Ray D’Arcy at RTE studio. Pic: RTE
‘The writing was on the wall when they removed Stockton’s Wing ‘Over The Moors’ from Liveline. And of course, you could understand that there was an overhaul – out with the old in with the new – I understand that.
‘But when you have something as recognisable as that, why would you get rid of it?,’ as he referenced how the Late Late Show theme tune remains untouched.
Ray ranted that it is a ‘crying shame’ that RTE didn’t ‘tap into the talent we have in this country.’
‘And look, we’ll get used to it as we get used to everything. But I can’t get over the fact that we have so much talent in this country, and we haven’t tapped into it. It’s a crying shame.
‘And they say they put it out to public procurement process, fair enough, they probably did, but they could have commissioned it.’
He called for the Oireachtas Committee on Media and Communications to haul RTE bosses in and question them on why they hired the UK company to do the jingle instead of commissioning it.
‘So are they going to have the Oireachtas Committee on Media and Communications ask questions about that. It’s RTE supporting the arts, me a**e. What an own goal. They shot themselves in the foot there,’ he added.
Ray isn’t the only one upset at RTE for not using Irish artists.
The Screen Composers Guild of Ireland (SCGI) and the Association of Independent Music (Aim) Ireland issued a joint statement expressing disappointment with the national broadcaster’s new ‘audio identity’, saying the new music ‘represents a direct loss to the Irish music sector’, with a value of up to €100,000 a year in music rights and royalty income.