Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
IN AN ERA of doom and gloom, audiences are looking for levity on their social media feeds.
In stark contrast to other television channel’s coverage of Brexit or Covid-19, TG4 has taken another approach for their social media presence: have the craic.
The Twitter account for TG4 has gained over 11,000 followers this year, a 20% growth compared to this time last year.
The account is currently on 54,000 followers.
According to Deirdre Ní Choistín, communications manager with TG4, “we quickly realised that TG4 needed to provide a space online that was a Covid-free zone as much as we could.”
“The audience were getting their news and updates about Covid elsewhere and we were not looking to amplify that, but wanted to provide good quality content that took people’s minds off Covid when they were engaging with us online,” she explained.
“We did that through music, campaigns such as #2kónmbaile and through our use of humour on Twitter.”
The account primarily tweets in Irish, but through usage of gifs or memes, the social media strategy has become a hit.
Nuair a deireann daoine TG Four 😬 pic.twitter.com/cvd661T7XN
— TG4TV (@TG4TV) November 30, 2020
“It’s great for us to see the enjoyment people who haven’t spoken Irish since leaving school get from our Twitter account,” Ní Choistín added.
There is a team of up to six people involved in tweeting from the account.
“The tone is consistent because there is freedom within the team to have fun but stay true to TG4,” Ní Choistín said.
Discussing the work that goes into running the account, Ní Choistín said “The team works together to come up with the best ways to have fun on the platforms and to market programmes on TG4 to stand out from the noise and to make people laugh or think as we are doing it.”
“I think TG4 stand out from the crowd because we know who our audience is and what they like from us.”
“Audience is key to everything we do in TG4 from on-air scheduling to our player to social media,” she added.
“The TG4 Intern” has become somewhat of a cult figure among Irish Twitter users who like to guess at the identity of the people behind the account. Ní Choistín said that they are “doing a great job of making us all laugh.”
Time’s Person of the Year is the intern that runs the TG4 twitter account https://t.co/zYsLbr4ep4
— Mystic Megg (@megg_brady) December 12, 2020
Ní Choistín noted her favourite part of working on the TG4 Twitter account is working with this mysterious, elusive intern.
Twitter can be a febrile place at the best of times, but the account gets very little negative feedback, she notes, “especially this year”.
“When we do, it’s usually when there’s a problem with something in our schedule rather than the Twitter account. People are happy to get a bit of light relief from Covid-related stories.”
Ireland’s online community is burgeoning, with the Ireland sub-Reddit boasting 335,000 members and Ireland Simpsons Fans on Facebook recently passing 150,000 members.
When asked about the Irish grá for internet communities, Ní Choistín offered an interesting theory:
”The Irish people have adapted to online content very quickly. From watching live TV shows and the Irish Twitter commenting as though they are friends in a sitting room, creates a great sense of community.”
“Irish people are very quick-witted and the Irish take on life is really quite special. From our long history of storytelling, Irish humour gets us through the darkest of days.”
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Would people prefer the opposite or is complaining a default position?
They’re unhappy about the possibility that a return to better times could result in their favourite political party losing out. Mixture of Sinn Fein supporters, socialists and vague I-saw-V-for-Vendetta-and-it-was-a-pretty-cool-movie revolutionaries.
No, we won’t complain……but just point out this payment was due close to an election.
Or that the NTMA are working on reducing debt through better use of bonds…. Which is their job.
Crack open the champagne. Bonuses and pension top ups all round.
You’re a walking stereotype. Could have thrown in a rant about the bankers and the EU while you were at it.
Where I come from a train runs on tracks ! A walking train .. is that why your face is so full of pain , walking a train can’t be easy !
smile dude smile – let the sunshine bounce !
Just in time for election bullshit promises in 2016 what a bunch of corrupt cohorts we have running our country. BOC
We want these pushed out, let inflation deal with them, while we have a chance to do business at record low rates.
If Joe Higgins, Pearse Doherty etc were in charge then this is the exact same thing they would do.
Do business with whom Sean ; the foreigners have us cleaned out …. and we don’t tax home-based or foreign companies enough to the detriment of the workers pay …. there is no money left for seed capital and even if there was who is going to chance starting up again ….
Ireland is in famine survival mode …. spend nothing , do nothing and wait for it all to pass … and who would blame anyone after what happened …
I think B. Cowen and co. were sold a turkey B.T.W. but they should have fired it back ; with interest !
Short term gain, long term pain
Doesn’t extra interest over a longer term mean this is costing us money?
Basically using credit card to pay mortgage;
unless we got low enough rate on new loans comparative to preexisting loans to make this a gain but hard to imagine that big a difference
Yes, the new loan is cheaper than the one it replaces.
The 2016 repayment schedule was €10.1bn @ 4.6%
So its been reduced to just over €8 bn at the 4.6% now
The adjustment will save about €87 million over 2015/16.
1bn of the reduction was a buy-back at a lower rate.
The other billion was a 2 for one swap to be redeemed in 2023.
€8bn is still a large obligation for 2016 though, hopefully the NTMA aren’t finished.
Not at all.
The loan rates on new loans are record lows, what we want to see is the NTMA doing this repeatedly.
THIS IS GOOD NEWS no matter who is in Govt. or what they desire.
Is everyone insane? So the country’s problems can be solved by forever asking for extensions to loans? Um… what happens when we run out of creditors who will accept our requests to extend the loans?
I’ll tell you what – the country either goes bankrupt or else enormous austerity is forced on the country to repay the loans immediately. And this would be real horrendous Great Depression level austerity.
The whole argument that we can extend into the future and save money because of inflation is ridiculous. Inflation is pretty much zero percent, and we are paying almost 5%.
I despair. The country has no hope if the people who will pay off the debt (the younger generation of TheJournal readers) are all happy to go along with this madness of extend and pretend.
Seanie,
€8bn in 2016. Where do you think that’s coming from?
It would have grown to €8.6b by 2016 when interest payments are taken into account. But that doesn’t matter to the idiot young generation who think this is all a laugh, and that the problem will go away somehow.
Meanwhile this generation will wake up when it’s too late: when they find that there is zero money left over to pay them a state pension.
Ask yourself a question: if you knew you couldn’t rely on the government for a pension then wouldn’t you do everything you could to try to stop the older generations from spending your pension assets just so that they can keep their standard of living for another few years?
How bad do your own retirement prospects have to be before you wake up?
What is your solution John?
@Paul.
The debt is rolled over.
John.
This is good but I’m still in no doubt that the only thing that will save the Euro and the wider European economy is debt write offs.
Debt write offs for states, people, companies will have to happen if Europe is not to be left behind completely.
@ Sean
That’s fine – but what happens if the creditors don’t agree to a debt write-off? The answer can be seen in the disaster that is Argentina.
The solution is to stop the madness asap and agree a write-off, or else threaten to declare bankruptcy. At least this way we might have some assets left over. But the current crop of politicians are under orders from the electorate to keep borrowing more and more, until eventually every single asset and utility in the country is handed over.
The debt write off will happen in an agreed way or in a collapse.
Though I agree with your analysis above.
Countries will however always have to borrow, they is good business and it makes sense, obviously we need to be restrained and return to reasonable levels.
The problem with waiting is that we are effectively including the future productivity of the country in any debt write-off deal. If we do it now then we hand over the assets owned by the state. If we wait then we will also need to hand over all future wealth and productivity gains.
So your saying…. Refuse to repay any foreign debt…. As if that is consequence free?
Sure why tax at all when you can just borrow & refuse to pay it back.
No, I’m not saying to refuse to repay. If the creditors don’t agree a write-down then I’m saying to declare bankruptcy and hand over the assets owed. We’ve already lost ownership if those assets anyway, it’s just that we are pretending that we still own them.
By continuing to borrow more we are pledging any new assets the country creates and earns.
John.
This is good but I’m still in no doubt that the only thing that will save the Euro and the wider European economy is debt write offs.
Debt write offs for states, people, companies will have to happen if Europe is not to be left behind completely.
I agree seanie ; sorry I was in a terrible mood earlier ….
do you think if we slipped in a couple of zeroes onto the “2″ above anyone would notice …. sneaky little legal move ….write the lot off in one go !
At what rate did they buy them back at? Replacing them with bonds that fall due at a later date still means you have to pay them. And you may save due to inflation but I’d guess there guaranteed against that happening.so they’ll just be lumped in with the next load of bonds, and then what? Do the same thing again.
Thanks for the article Jack but is there any chance you could expand it a bit in language I can understand and I am being serious here.
have your say