Radharc Awards 2024 – Speakers

Guest of Honour for the Radharc Awards 2024 was Jeremy Godfrey, Executive Chairperson of Coimisiún na Meán.

JEREMY GODFREY KEYNOTE SPEECH
(Transcript)

The Radharc Awards 2024
24 October 2024

Introduction

“I can assure you that my only superpower is the 200 brilliant people who work for Coimisiún na Meán. I can show you my superpowers are definitely bad because I have to change my glasses to be able to read. Thank you, Peter. Thank you, Edna. Thank you, everyone else here. You both talked about the importance of documentary, and I think that’s where I would like to start. It’s really a great pleasure to be here because documentaries, as you said, they enable us to tell our stories. But they touch the audience, they move the audience, they educate the audience. In doing that, they contribute to making sure that we have a society of engaged, informed citizens who can work together to maintain and sustain the open, liberal, democratic, inclusive society that we want. For most of my life, the idea of societies being open and democratic in Western Europe was not an issue. I think the complacency that has come with the benefit of living for many decades like that, we now see that we have to fight and sustain that society. As I say, documentary documentaries, the media as a whole is important, and documentaries as a genre within the media contribute to that.”

Coimisiún na Meán

“I’ll say a little bit about Coimisiún na Meán. I think I used to say we were a baby. I think we’re now a troublesome toddler. We’re 18 months old. We’ve grown amazingly. We were 40 people when we took over the responsibilities of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland. We’re now nearly 200. Most public bodies have found it difficult to recruit. We found it really easy. People believe in our mission. People believe in what we’re doing. The most heartbreaking thing has been having some really brilliant people who we haven’t had room for at the moment. You talk about new responsibilities. That’s, of course, we’ve taken on a lot of new responsibilities in the area of online safety, in the area of video on demand. But I think, Peter, you talked about the lines blurring, and we very much see it this way. When I first went to the joint Oireachtas Committee, somebody asked me, well, Jeremy, what do you think your new responsibilities in online safety or old responsibilities in broadcasting, which is your priority? I said to him, Well, it’s like my children. They always ask me which one I love the best, and I tell them I love them equally.”

The Media Landscape

“But I don’t think I would give the same answer now. I think what I would say is I just don’t see that there is a distinction between the old responsibilities and the new responsibilities. The media landscape, we talk about the media landscape, it is blurred, it is changing. People’s eyeballs will sometimes be on a screen watching broadcast content. They’ll sometimes be on a small screen watching online content. Sometimes they’ll be passively consuming, sometimes they’ll be actively creating content. We see that media landscape as involving all sorts of content. It involves all sorts of content providers and producers, all sorts of channels, all sorts of users. I think of the landscape – it’s a landscape that is populated with lots of people in it. As Edna just said, our vision is that we are there to ensure a thriving, diverse, creative, safe, and trusted media landscape. That is because we think the media is such a critical underpinning to a healthy society.”

Strategy Preview

“I’m going to give you a preview of the strategy that we’ve been working on, which we will shortly be publishing in draft form for consultation. We’ve identified some outcome areas that are important to us. They are around children. So again, not just protecting children online, but making sure that there’s content available for them in the media landscape that contributes to their development and upholds their rights as the rights of the child. Democracy, making sure that we have a pluralistic civic discourse. I gather we may have an election soon. Making sure that the the integrity of the election process is protected and upheld so that people are able to make informed free choices.”

Issues

“There’s issues of exploitation, so making sure that consumer rights are upheld, but also other forms of exploitation, making sure that we tell the stories and reflect Irish culture and society; contributing to public safety. We’ve seen riots, we’re worried about terrorism. Again, that’s important and very important, last but definitely not least, is the promotion of equality, diversity, justice. Again, some of the themes you talked about, about the Radharc documentaries. As I looked at the exhibition at the back and over the last couple of nights at the entries to the Radharc Awards, I can see entries that contribute to all of them. Entries that make us think about the rights of children, entries that make us think about minority groups in society, entries that reflect the rich heritage of Irish culture.”

Media Consumption

“So, you can see how there’s a really good alignment in the richness, in the diversity of the documentaries and the things we think are important. Then we have a toolbox to try and help achieve those outcomes. One is we’re a regulator. We hold regulated entities to account, both broadcasters and online platforms. We look to play a leading role in Europe because, again, the media landscape crosses borders. We have a very important role because so many of the important players in the media landscape are based in Ireland, but not all of them. And Irish people, Irish consumers, Irish users consume media also from outside Ireland. Some of the platforms are also based out there. We have an important role empowering and supporting end users. I think we’re not as well known yet as we would like to be, but I think providing that support, giving people advice, making sure they know their rights, helping them exercise it, and also, very importantly, supporting media literacy. That’s also so that people can be informed, informed consumers of media, able to distinguish between good trusted sources of news and misinformation and disinformation. Of course, we have the funding schemes, which I’ll talk about a little bit, and then collaboration with all sorts of bodies, industry bodies, NGOs representing marginalized groups in society. Lots of collaboration will help us amplify what we do ourselves.”

Public Service Media

“I wanted maybe to talk now about public service media and public service content, which were, I think, two very important concepts, very well defined in the Future of Media Commission report. They suggested quite rightly that we start to talk about public service media rather than public service broadcasters, reflecting the fact that the content that those organizations produce, it’s as important in reaching audiences, particularly younger audiences, that the content is deployed through online channels as well as broadcasting. Then the other important concept was public service content, not just public service media organizations, because, of course, we need to recognize that it’s not just on the public service media organizations that you find public service content. You find it on commercial broadcasters, you find it online as well.”

BAI

“A couple of things about our role. I talk about RTE and TG4. The BAI has long had an oversight role and a role in recommending funding for them. That is a role that is going to be enhanced in line with the Future of Media Commission recommendations. We really look forward to working with the broadcasters to ensure that we have, if we come back to really, thriving public service media organizations, delivering the public service mandate that is necessary in this decade for the modern media landscape.”

Responsibilities

“But another tool we have is the programming commitments that we have with commercial broadcasters, TV, and radio broadcasters. Those programming commitments also ensure that there’s a degree of public service content on the commercial broadcasters. We have our regulatory responsibility around our codes and rules. For example, the codes and rules about news and current affairs ensure that, again, the broadcast news is a source of trusted information for audiences. Finally, of course, we have our funding schemes, another way of ensuring that there’s public service content available through many, many channels. The scope of those funding schemes will evolve to reflect the changing nature of the media landscape.”

Sound & Vision

“I’ll talk a little bit about Sound & Vision and about our journalism schemes. Sound & Vision has long been about supporting the production of content that reflects and shapes who we are as a society. We’ve now added to that support for news content, and we have our first two journalism schemes that have been launched, focusing on court reporting and local democracy. That, I think, partly reflects how the changes in the media landscape have meant that local newspapers, local reporting, has ceased to be as commercially viable as it used to be. But we also know from our research program in the Reuters News Report, that local news is really important to audiences in Ireland, particularly. Ireland is, across Europe, one of the countries where radio listenership is really high. So, those two schemes – we’ve had 130 applicants. We are in the process of evaluating those applications, and there will be, I think, more journalism schemes coming up next year and beyond, again, in line with the Future of Media Commission report.”

New Funding

“In terms of Sound & Vision, we’ve just had our biggest ever funding round, €10 million for 91 projects. That’s covered everything from animation, drama, documentary, entertainment, educational programming, broadcast on TV, broadcast on radio. We’re coming to the end of Sound & Vision 4, and next year we will have Sound & Vision 5. And in 2025, we’re expecting to have over €30 million to distribute, and we’re really excited to see the creative sector put that money to work. In terms of funding, we also fund sponsorship and we fund training schemes. We currently have our sponsorship round open, closes on the fourth of November. So anybody who wants to get in, I think there’s information available on our website, or please talk to Elizabeth or Annette and give you some more information about that.”

Networks and Organisations

“That will fund a range of media-related events and activities happening next year – including I think, the Radharc Awards were funded from that scheme. Then we also have a Sexual Learning and Development Program. That’s really funding training and development in the media sector. We fund industry networks, we fund representative organizations. This year, we’ve put just over half a million euros into 19 different networks such as commercial, community, media, industry groups, such as producers, animators, and journalists, and also advocacy organizations for gender equality, diversity, and inclusion, and support for the Irish language in the media. These have all been important things for us. Again, we’ll have another funding round which is due to open in early November, and we look forward to getting more applications.”

Conclusion

“I’m going to close now, I think, just to reiterate that we see the media landscape. We regulate it, we support it, we want it to be thriving, we want it to be creative, we want it to support a modern, open, democratic, inclusive society, and that, as Peter said, documentaries are absolutely part of that. Whether they’re documentaries that audiences see on the television, whether they’re documentaries that people listen to on the radio, whether they’re documentaries that they see online, whether they’re documentaries that take the form of a series of TikTok videos, it doesn’t matter what the form is. The important thing is that we have content that engages audiences, that provokes them, makes them think, gets them to understand the society we live in, and helps them be more engaged citizens. So thanks very much, everybody.”

PETER KELLY, CHAIR OF THE RADHARC TRUST
The Radharc Awards 2024 (edited remarks)

The Talbot Hotel, Stillorgan
24 October 2024

“I’m conscious, as an independent producer myself, that decisions about what gets made often reflect commissioning policies. It’s important that the public service media serves the public a balanced diet. Inform, educate, and entertain; that’s a very good ethos.

One of the features of Radharc was coverage of international and global affairs. We don’t have very many entries with that sort of a theme. But then again, stories of a refugee crisis don’t happen 10,000 kilometres away. They’re happening in our neighbourhoods. This year there’s a lot of history. A lot of stories about injustice, and justice delayed. There are still things we need to address and come to terms with as a society.

So thank you to the film-makers, for bringing these stories to our attention.”

Also speaking were Julian Vignoles, Chair of the Radharc Awards 2024 Jury, and Presenter Edna Layatuu.