THEY are playing a new game at RTE. Off air. The idea is to match a prospective director general with a film title. (The Candidate does not qualify. It's too obvious.)

To date they have come up with Michael Collins for the hot favourite, Bob Collins, a laboured and not very clever reference, true enough. Then there is the much better Miller's Crossing, a reference to Liam Miller, head of television services.

But the best effort so far, is Mulholland Falls, a reference to Joe Mulholland, the director of news. Some people at RTE love that one, but they are no friends of Mulholland. He and assistant DG Bob Collins are seen as strong contenders for the job. There are, as yet, no clever movie titles to juxtapose with the other candidates.

The three men named make up what was referred to in an Irish Times report by John Cooney in 1990 as the triumvirate, the senior team at RTE. That was the year Mulholland was later moved sideways from controller of TV productions to responsibility for imported programmes.

It was seen as a victory for Collins, who was reported as having "consolidated his position as head of RTE television's programmes division". Another victor then was seen to be Miller, who was described as "the third member of then senior team, [who] has emerged as second in command".

It was concluded that "the reorganisation appears to have ended, for the time being at least, tensions within the triumvirate over structures and the use of resources". The report said the perception among senior broadcasters was that Collins the administrator had won over Mulholland the programme maker.

Within months Joe Mulholland was Appointed director of news at RTE, one of the most powerful positions at the station. It is why he is such a serious contender for the post of DG and why he still represents the greatest threat to Bob Collins's ambitions.

WHOEVER gets the position will have an enormous task. Senior sources have described morale at RTE as "fair to dismal" and the television outlook particularly as "dismal".

The station had become "a Eurovision intervention centre which relies on stocks to keep it going", say the sources. There did not seem to be "any focus on future strategy where the station was concerned." It was questioned why, like Telecom Eireann, RTE was not seeking a strategic partner abroad.

There was also criticism of "the whole generation thing" - that RTE was being overloaded with older personalities. Substantial redundancies are anticipated at the station as it becomes "a slimmed down production house."

Another senior source questioned the Government siphoning off profits down the years while giving RTE extra responsibilities such as Teilifis na Gaeilge and increasing its commitment to the independent sector. This source also felt things at RTE were looking "pretty rum for the years ahead".

The critics feel differently, however. Eddie Holt, Irish Times TV critic, believes the new director general must be a programmer, as content is paramount. It, rather than technological skill or slick management, is what he believes will save the station. He says RTE has been good at positioning itself vis a vis "the community here, whose thinking it helps create", and its innate advantage is its identification with things Irish.

Emmanuel Kehoe, TV critic with the Sunday Business Post, enthused about TnaG which, with its vibrancy, made RTE look like "it was auditioning for a part on the label of Olde Time Irish Marmalade". He contrasted the youth of TnaG with the familiar presenters on RTE, radio and TV.

"There is no sign of any new talent there," he said, nor does he think RTE is under serious threat from the satellites "any more than Irish newspapers are from British ones".

JOHN Horgan, senior lecturer in journalism at Dublin City University, believes there are good people at RTE, but that "creativity doesn't seem to be always at the top of the agenda". He is convinced things are improving and the new authority has made satisfactory changes.

He instances some of RTE's recent "mistakes" as a sign of improvement, referring in particular to the Lowry affair; however erroneous, it showed signs of a new, more courageous spirit. The new director general must be "someone who doesn't panic", someone "who has a distinctive idea of what RTE can offer" and who will not follow simply in the footsteps of competitors.

Harry Browne, Irish Times radcritic, thinks the new director general must divide "a smaller slice of the pie into the number of stations available". He believes that with digital technology, RTE should move into the area of increased specialisation, with stations devoted exclusively to particular styles of music and speech programming. He says RTE needs to be more "alert to new ideas" and worries there is "so little seepage [of talent] from the local stations" into it.

The Sunday Tribune TV critic, John S. Doyle, bays the new DG must make RTE "more outward looking" and "must have confidence in the station". RTE "should be confident in what it does well - things such as news, current affairs, children's programmes, documentaries". It might also take lessons from Channel 4 on image projection.

Declan Lynch, TV critic with the Sunday Independent, is convinced that if something "interesting" is done at RTE, "someone upstairs will go mad". So his advice to the new director general is as pithy as it is simple: "Do nothing, apart from turning up for the Eurovision every year, and then only fleetingly."

Interviews took place on Thursday and yesterday. A decision is expected before Christmas and the successful candidate will take over next April.