Sir, - I refer to Frank McNally's article about the radio advertising which so irritates him (The Irish Times, December 20th). It is gratifying to know that I am not alone in having these views. I think that many of the radio ads constitute an insult to the average listener's intelligence. The ads are generally performed by a limited number of voice-over artists. I am heartily sick of what I consider to be their smug, erudite tones. To my ear they talk at us in clipped pretentious accents which the general pubic would never use.
Who else thinks that these actors too often have to perform pathetic little domestic scenes to publicise some product or other? I've heard the same actor's voice used to advertise as many as three rival products. A current example of this is a gentleman telling us that our Ford dealer is feeling flaithualach, while in the next ads break he is to be heard extolling the virtues of Nissan. What good is that for either advertiser?
I am just as irritated as Frank McNally is by "Old Mr Brennan" and the cackling woman on the Centra ad, but what gets my goat even more is the croaky male Americanised voice advertising "Chaympion Spoartz" as he pronounces it. I've also heard him "sing" about Night Owls in Ranelagh. He has the supreme power of inciting me to launch my boot into the radio!
We are constantly being talked down to through radio ads executed in American, Mid-Atlantic and English accents. Surely this implies that Irish accents are inferior?
Farmers get the worst deal of all, as certain "actors" try to disguise their Abbey School of Acting-type voices to sound rural as they enact fictitious and unlikely inter-farmer conversations about dosing, drenching, mange mites, warbles, mastitis etc. I have never heard a farmer who sounded remotely like these guys.
We've all heard from advertising/media pundits about how shrewd, discriminating and sophisticated we, the Irish consumers are. To me such comments are cynically patronising in themselves. Is not the result of this cynicism the deplorable advertising belched out at us over the air? - Yours, etc.,
Sandyford Road, Dublin 16.