If you haven't heard - RTE is filming their Saturday evening football highlights show in front of a live audience on April 30. This is pure loco. Try to imagine it from the perspective of a hypothetical audience member - you trek out to Montrose, (hopefully) have a pre-highlights libation, maybe even ask Kenny Cunningham a question or two before packing into an RTE studio to watch highlights of football matches that you already know the result of - and have possibly already seen if you're a committed supporter - interspersed with some analysis and a bit of banter. If you're lucky you get your face on the telly and maybe even complain about how shit your team is on national television. Given the existential crisis of the nation, is this really a justifiable investment of three hours?
It doesn't help that it's a pretty piss poor day of football - Chelsea v Spurs and five crap matches. I welcome RTE's Sport's efforts to pump some life into what's a pretty staid TV concept, but are 50 awkward blokes going to transform a show best watched on mute into The Killing? It's a highlights show, ffs. Throw a live audience in on a Champions League taping with Giles and Dunphy and you've got TV gold. No offense to Darragh Maloney or Kenny Cunningham, but with a gun to my head, I'd rather sit in on Tubridy Tonight.
