The story so far

AFTER 14 years on TV3 Alan Cantwell has announced he is leaving the station. Cantwell was a household name around the Banner county before coming to national prominence, having worked on Clare FM when the local station first hit the airwaves.

 

He arrived in Clare in 1989, just before the launch of the station and he remembers the time fondly. “I really enjoyed my time there. It was a sort of Dublin-boy-goes-to-the-country for the first time thing and I was overwhelmed by it.

“It was completely different, it was a different way of life for someone who’d never lived outside of Dublin. Then suddenly you’re gone to the West of Ireland. I remember someone said to me ‘come on, let’s go out to the Burren’ and I turned to them and said ‘What’s the Burren? That’s what you were dealing with, with me. But talk about a fast learning curve.”

At the time, Clare FM was a huge success, winning a massive number of listeners very quickly after going on the air.

“I think when the first JNLR came out it was delivering about 60% of the total available audience, which was absolutely huge. The reason it was doing that was because RTÉ radio had forgotten life existed outside of Montrose.”

He had two stints in Clare FM and after the second one, he became editor-in-chief of Independent Network News, before moving onto TV3. Cantwell, who is one of the station’s most recognisable faces and has been there since the very start, isn’t sure what the next move will be after leaving the station.

“To answer honestly, I don’t know. It’s certainly something I’ll have a look at in the latter part of January. I intend to take a couple of weeks off and have a look at what’s out there. I took the decision after procrastinating for a long time. In the first quarter of this year I decided I wouldn’t be in TV3 in 2013, I want to see what else is out there I may decide I want to leave the country, go to Australia, the US, the UK, it’s all up for grabs.”

These days it’s not easy to leave a job without having another one lined up but it’s something he’s wanted to do for some time.

“People think I’m crazy. Given the economic circumstances we find ourselves in, if you have a good solid job you keep it under all circumstances but it’s something I’ve procrastinated about for a long time and I discussed it with my wife and we both agreed there’s never really a good time to do something that you want to do and I just decided to do it because if I continued to procrastinate, I’d never do it and I may look back and say ‘I should have done it’.

“I’m 45 in June, I’ve kids, Charlotte’s 10, Harriet’s seven, and if we decide to leave the country, the kids are the right age and we’re the right age if we want to start again from scratch, if that’s the direction we want to take. It’s just an opportune time for us to have a look at what’s out there.”

He says he liked working in TV3 but feels moving on is the right thing for him.

“What I really enjoyed about TV3 is the degree of flexibility that you were afforded in terms of doing what you wanted to do. If you had an idea for a programme you went to the guys in programming, set your stall out and if they liked it they’d say go with it, we’ll give you the resources to do it. To be able to do that in an organisation is really great and I suppose that’s one of the reasons I stayed for so long, the degree of flexibility you were allowed.

“It [the decision to go] was nothing really to do with the organisation, it’s really a personal thing. I need to look at other things, I need to know what’s going on outside. There’s a possibility I might move from broadcasting altogether and go in a completely different direction. I’ll never know that until I go out and see what’s happening. It’s very easy to become insulated when you’re in a situation and a comfort zone.”

The TV3 news bulletins he has worked on for so long had to be distinctive, he feels, to find their own niche in the news market.

“Basically, the remit of what we do is here is the news and it’s given in a fast, colourful and relaxed manner. We don’t say we’re going to analyse each story for five minutes.”

TV3 executives have in the past expressed annoyance about the licence fee support received by their competitor but he’s reluctant to criticise the system.

“I think public service broadcasting has a place in broadcasting in Ireland, there’s no question about that. When public service broadcasting is done well it’s really good and RTÉ can do some fantastic stuff in terms of public service broadcasting and I’d have no problem paying a licence fee to get the sort of quality that in the main does come from RTÉ in terms of its public broadcasting remit.

“We do what we do, we choose to be a private operator, it’s different to RTÉ, we provide a different offering. What we do is successful, it puts bums on seats and if we don’t put bums on seats, we don’t get advertising and don’t survive. But I’ve no difficulty with public service broadcasting.”

However, he does feel that at certain times RTÉ abused its financial position. “I’ve no problem with public service broadcasting buying in shows from the US or the UK. When I have a difficulty, it’s with the level they are prepared to go to when paying with the product to ensure that competitors don’t get that product. Essentially that means using taxpayers money to squeeze out the competition to pay huge rates for programmes, which basically puts us out of the market.”

While serious cutbacks have been made at TV3, he feels its future is now secure.

“We’ve come through a few difficult years and we’re still here and we’ll still be here in the future. I think that’s testament to the individuals who are running the organisation. They made changes, difficult changes over the last 36 months, that have held us in good stead and will do so into the future,” he concluded.