Maverick

AFTER THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF RTE TV IT IS TIME TO READ -

"Maverick - a dissident view of broadcasting"

PÓL Ó GALLCHÓIR' s review: http://photopol.blogspot.ie/2017/05/maverick.html

WHAT THEY SAID ABOUT 'MAVERICK'

"Its that rare and welcome thing, a lifting of the veil that covers the decision-making process in institutions of State"Hugh Linehan, The Irish Times

"That too many children are turning into couch potatoes fixated on brand names is indisputable, so his concern cannot be dismissed"

Patricia Deevy, Sunday Independent

"Éacht atá déanta aige sa mhéid is go bhfuil sé taréis cultúr na rúndachta a bhaineann leis an eagraíocht sin a bhriseadh ina smidirní"

Uinsionn Mac Dubhghaill, Foinse

'"We are not so much homo sapiens as Homer Simpsons. We are an American underclass'. We take our brief from their soaperatic inanities, model our chat shows on their philistine rhetoric, and dance to the beat of their dysfunctional drum".

Books Ireland

"Mr. Quinn's book deals at length with the author's long battle with RTE over the commercialisation of 'the company', as it now tends to be called. He quotes the current Chairman: "RTE must become more commercial". This ignoble statement points to the imminent demise of the company.

Parents may read Mr. Quinn's book for its close study of the high commercial content of children's programming, which not only prompts children to make greedier demands, especially after the outrageous Toy Show but delivers them up as adults already carrying the bacillus of consumerism.

Mr Quinn's detailed acoount of RTE's pursuit of Anthony Coughlan into the Supreme Court is something every citizen should read. The author was in the boardroom and has the documentation; so his word on the matter can presumably be taken. If his account of a public service broadcaster bending before political pressure be true, it can not be called less than a scandal".

Tom O'Dea, Irish Independent

"One of his central arguments is that RTE was politicised from its inception. 'RTEis at the behest of government in political matters. It has been true since the foundation of 2RN in 1926. Sean Lemass said in 1966 that RTE was an instrument of public policy. The Ray Burke era went way beyond previous interference. But he was'nt the only one. In 1995/96 Jim Mitchell commissioned a study from DKC which tore strips off RTE and changed the way it operated. Two words sum up what Quinn believes resulted from that: 'dumb' and 'down'"

Harry McGee, Sunday Tribune

"A Maverick, for those who have not at some stage included Westerns in their literary diet, is an unbranded calf and by derivation refers to someone who is non-conformist. Many of those at the receiving end of Bob Quinn's judgements of them may feel that the word is inadequate to describe someone who shook the dovecotes and ruffled feathers as vigorously as he did.

The maverick in pursuit of his or her beliefs is vital to the process and this book is a valuable element therein¦.the existence of mavericks implies that many members of the herd are branded".

Pascal McDaid, Connaught Tribune

"One of the anonymous readers that publishers send their books out to, left a note: 'I wish I had this book when I studied communication". Praise indeed for a book that joins the ranks of McQuail and McLuhan"

Michele Viney Galway Advertiser

"- a commendable attempt to curtail advertising during children's television

programmes - "

William Fey, Sunday Times

"RTE largely comes across as Big Brother in this worrisome tome, with Quinn as a reconstructed Orwell trying to batter down its doors with the voice of reason. Gaybo (Gay Byrne) is its user-friendly ubermeister, his right-wing orientations tolerated, nay endorsed by the powers-that-were because of his huge pulling power vis-a-vis advertising revenue: the life-blood of the station. Which left Quinn's repeated bleatings about more humanitarian concerns fall on rather stony ground"

Aubrey Malone, The Irish Catholic

Bob Quinn's portrait is an energetic and amusing one of the chaos prevailing in broadcasting. Coming, as it does, after forty years of television, one might politely ask: 'Why no debate?'

Bruce Arnold, Irish Independent

Related Articles by Bob Quinn on the State of Irish National Television and the Irish Film Industry:

If Pigs Could Fly (pdf) - July 2003

Degeneration Gap (pdf) - July 2004