Ratings And RTE

Sir, - My, my, how touchy RTE get when they are in receipt of minor criticisms from one of their own

Sir, - My, my, how touchy RTE get when they are in receipt of minor criticisms from one of their own. I refer to the long, rambling reply from Mr Farrell Corcoran, Chairman of the RTE Authority (September 23rd), to some reasonable chastising comments from Mr Muiris Mac Conghail.

When Mr Corcoran next gets an urge to put pen to paper he might arrange for an RTE response to a request issued some years ago by Dublin City Council for the appointment of a regional correspondent to deal with issues in the Dublin area.

The one truism in Mr Corcoran's letter was the statement that "there is no room for complacency in RTE". However, like it or not, Mr Corcoran, our supposed public service broadcasting station is just full of that.

I believe in the need for a public service broadcasting network. Unfortunately I have long ceased to believe that RTE shares that objective. Until the authority over which Mr Corcoran presides addresses that fundamental fact, Mr Corcoran might be better off taking one of those media study courses of which he writes so approvingly. - Yours, etc.,

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Cllr Dermot Lacey, Beech Hill Drive, Donnybrook, Dublin 4.