RTÉ Factual | Commissioning Call for Sunday & Monday Night Slots

RTÉ Factual is looking for ideas for a small number of Sunday night and Monday night slots in the Autumn of 2018.

Monday Nights

The Monday night 9:30pm slot is RTÉ’s highest profile and most important slot. It’s where RTÉ aims to tell the story of Ireland. Great storytelling and high-end production values are at the heart of everything that has succeeded in this slot. Ideas that work here will have a universal appeal, a creative, popular treatment and also have something to say about Ireland in 2018.

Budget range: €120,000 - €130,000 per hour (Maximum) for RTÉ One

RTÉ is open to ideas for one-offs and short series (up to two parts) in the following areas:

• Films with heart – what has resonated incredibly well with RTÉ's audience in recent years have been documentaries that have revealed something about human experience – both to the audience and to the documentary’s subjects themselves. Docs like Golden: Our Fifty Years of Marriage; Too Old For The Road; Older Than Ireland; We Won the Lotto. RTÉ would be interested in more ideas with layered human interest at their core. These are directors’ docs that need a filmic treatment – where the storytelling and production values are as sometimes as important as the subject. They need to be well cast and will need a strong, but invisible hand in the production.  
• National treasures – docs like Micko; Giles; This is Christy; and Fairytale of New York have played very strongly with our audience and have also had an added element of punch through. Featuring the story of someone who is universally loved is one thing, doing that story justice is another. Each of these documentaries succeeded in this. RTÉ would be interested in more documentary ideas where the appeal of the subject is apparent, but where they also have a compelling vision for the doc.  
• Finding the story in current events – docs like My Homeless Family; The Crossing; We Need to Talk About Dad; Ireland’s Property Crisis; The Undocumented have all managed to take an ‘issue’ and find the story in it, turning what could have been current affairs light into high-end documentary. RTÉ would be interested in other doc ideas that can also do this – by adopting either a human-centred approach or an innovative storytelling approach. We’re not looking for authored reports at this moment, unless the author has a deep and personal connection with the subject matter.   
• Popular consumer stories – docs like Sugar Crash; and One Day: How Ireland Eats have shown that there is an enormous appetite for docs that take a consumer feature and give it an intelligent and popular treatment. RTÉ would be open any ideas in this area.  
•  Cracking yarns – some stories just need to be told. You know them. RTÉ will know them when we see them.

Preference will be given to ideas that are deliverable on time and on budget and which have a clear appeal for a younger (under 45) audience.

Submit your ideas into the eCommissioning system under the programme category 'Factual – Monday Autumn 2018'

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Sunday Nights

Budget range: €80,000 - €100,000 per hour (Maximum) for RTÉ One

Ideally the Sunday 9:30pm slot will give the audience an opportunity to escape. The best performers here in recent years have been Room To Improve and Dermot Bannon’s New York Homes. RTÉ is looking for ideas that are lighter factual on scale, formats with a documentary sensibility. Ambitious and innovative ideas in traditional lifestyle areas such as housing, travel, and expert-driven makeovers would work well in this slot. Popular, lightly formatted factual series would also work. They’d also be interested in immersive recent social history ideas that play to the audience’s appetite to re-experience 80s and 90s Ireland. Think Reeling In The Years with heart. They would also be open to vehicles for strong and proven on-air talent.

Submit your ideas into the eCommissioning system under the programme category 'Factual – Sunday Autumn 2018'