RTE did record a lot of stuff on tape, which was at the time prohibitively expensive, and was as a matter of course, recorded over, in order to cut costs.

Sad, but nothing unusual, as even the BBC did likewise, consigning much of their earlier stuff to the dustbin of history. Even now, many BBC releases, such as Dad’s Army, are partly comprised of home recordings made by viewers.

What stood to RTE was that they were more reliant on film, and as such that tended to survive.

As a matter of fact, RTE have an excellent repository, as borne out by much of Brendan Balfe’s work, down through the years. It’s a fairly safe bet that he will have a hand in this project. I have to give them credit for this, as a history buff myself, I’ll find it interesting.

Haven’t they wiped most of the stuff before 1980? No Late Late archive to speak of and hardly any home produced programming from 60s has survived.

Wonder if they’ll have that Prime Time Investigates show up?

Seriously though, I can’t imagine an organisation as overpaid and inept as RTE having the amount of organisation and talent it takes to organise a serious archive.

Yep.

Would they show the famous prime time interview c. 1997 of the fine gael leadership candidates. specifically enda kenny babbling waffle when he was asked about his economic policies. The look on his face was like a kid doing the leaving cert just realising he had studied the wrong paper. And that will explain why I could NEVER vote for FG

Don’t we see enough of Gay Byrne? Young people leaving by the thousand and he has so many income streams it is immoral. Just because his greed got him into trouble financially RTE and The government bail him out. Just like the developers he gets helped out by the taxpayer all because he gambled. He is a greedy guts with a smirk on his face because he can get away with this appalling behaviour. I bet he goes to mass on Sunday’s as well as he is typical of our politicians,developers,and bankers – all smug immoral cheats. I think Gay would let his kids emigrate instead of giving one of them just one of his jobs. RTE equal opportunities employer my xxxx

Haven’t they wiped a huge amount of stuff? No Late Late archive to speak of and little or no home produced programming from 60s has survived.