On Monday at 9pm, when RTÉ transmits We Need to Talk About Ireland, a "creative celebration" filmed in front of a live audience at Dublin's Mansion House, it will do so not as a traditional broadcast on one of its main channels, but as a digital exclusive on the RTÉ Player.
The public service media group says the St Patrick’s night programme, aimed primarily at the overseas audience, signifies a “major departure” for the RTÉ Player. This is because it is the first programme to be created in its own right for the service, which was originally set up as a way for domestic viewers to catch-up on RTÉ One and RTÉ Two shows.
Although "behind the scenes" content from "the Red Room" at the 2013 Rose of Tralee festival, as well as footage from Glaoch – The President's Call and Dublin's New Year's Eve concert, has previously been made available solely via the RTÉ Player, We Need to Talk About Ireland is the first Player content that is not related to a broadcast programme.
Aoife Byrne, director of content for RTÉ Digital, worked with Sarah Ryder, the executive producer of RTÉ Arts, to commission the programme from independent arts collective The Trailblazery, and Byrne is now preparing a strategy document for what will be the next phase of RTÉ's plans for the Player.
“This is a one-off for the moment, as I wanted to commission a fresh piece of content for St Patrick’s Day,” says Byrne. However, RTÉ Digital’s mission is “to be where the audience is” and, increasingly, that audience is online.
The RTÉ Player app has been downloaded more than 1 million times, with almost a quarter of those downloads made by people based outside of Ireland. About 12-15 per cent of Player streams are from overseas viewers.
“We wanted to do something on the Player to speak directly to that diaspora audience,” Byrne says. “It is something cultural, but with a digital twist.”
The event will also be streamed on the website of its international partner, the Washington Post . Partnering with WashingtonPost.com will ensure the programme "reaches the maximum number of people", she adds.
The 90-minute show, which "explores what it means to be Irish in 2014", will be available across all iterations of the Player, meaning the domestic audience will be able to access it on their television sets through UPC's on-demand menu or the Player app on Samsung smart TVs, as well as via RTÉ.ie and iOS or Android devices. It is not currently available on the Sky platform.
The event features "TED-style talks" interspersed with music, comedy, poetry, film and a "choral spectacle", with participants including Amnesty International Ireland director Colm O'Gorman, Irish Pictorial Weekly comedian Eleanor Tiernan and journalist Justine McCarthy.
RTÉ’s future content strategy for its on-demand service is likely to reflect its popularity with younger audiences.
