Duration:                             Series of 50 minutes. Two to Six parts.

Budget Range:                   €90,000 - €120,000 (in exceptional circumstances, budgets can be negotiated)

Broadcast:                          Sunday 21.30

Channel                               RTÉ One

Season:                                January 2024 onwards

Open Date:                        08^th March 2023

Documentaries & Series Sunday Nights

Sunday nights have the biggest available TV audience of the week but competition from big Drama on other channels is often fierce. The very best factual series will be rewarded by a large, loyal audience. This is the home of big returnable formats; Room to Improve, Great House Revival and short, highly entertaining factual series; Dr Eva’s Great Escape and Brendan Grace’s Thanks for the Memories.

We are keen to develop more returnable series that keep the joy in Sunday nights.  We are currently well served when it comes to property but are keen to develop lightly formatted returnable series that are welcomed by viewers and become part of their seasonal habits.

Emotional Engagement

Sunday is a time for stories, characters, and entertainment. Room to Improve delivers big audiences because of the quality of its story telling as well as the popularity of key talent. Great House Revival similarly tells big stories over a protracted timeframe guaranteeing a pay-off.

Although DIY SOS and Raised by the Village play earlier in the evening, they have all the ingredients for a Sunday night: strong talent, great storytelling, laughter, and tears. Can you develop other loosely formatted factual series with big dramatic arcs or are there formats that work elsewhere that you think might be adopted for an Irish audience?

Entertainment

The blend of Factual and Entertainment that have delivered well on Sunday Nights. Brendan Grace: Thanks for the Memories (although it ended up playing on Mondays) and Dr Eva’s Great Escape are good examples of programmes that combine talent and entertainment and The Way We Were brought a host of big names to an archive based social history project.

Over the past couple of years there has been a huge appetite for nostalgia and for simpler times, this has probably passed, and we are now looking to celebrate life and relationships in a whole new way.

Travel may be on the cards again but is there a new and immersive approach that delivers the need for entertainment, talent, and human interaction on Sundays?

Most of all we need strong formats and exceptional stories that celebrate universal human values and bring the audience on an emotional journey. We are always looking for the next returnable brand that can become an established part of viewing habits.

We ask, in the first instance, that producers submit ideas into the e-commissioning system Login | RTE (rtegroup.ie) under the programme category "Factual Documentaries & Series, RTÉ One Sundays 21:30 2023"

All ideas are accepted and considered on a rolling commissioning basis. The next group of slots we will be filling are in from T1 2024. Ideas to fill these slots should be fully developed by late April for decisions in early May 2023

Ideally, we would prefer to receive programme proposals that correspond with the above advertised brief(s).  However, if you have an idea that does not fit within these briefs and you think it might be of interest to us, please submit your proposal to the General Call-out.

Duration:                50 Mins One Off and Series of two or three parts

Budget Range:       €90,000 - €130,000 Per Hour (in exceptional circumstances, budgets can be negotiated)

Broadcast:              Mondays 21.30

Channel                  RTÉ One

Season:                   January 2024 onwards

Open Date:            08th March 2023

We need to continue to surprise audiences with a variety of high- quality documentaries.  We want one-off and short series and need a real mix of light and shade.  Crucially the documentaries must appeal to a large broad audience.  A clear and distinctive vision from the director of the storytelling, vision and approach is key.   Our preference is for contemporary stories but lessons from recent history have given us some of most powerful and impactful programmes in 21and 22.

We want:

• Present tense stories that can be made into returnable series with real-life drama and characters, particularly those under-represented on our screens.
• Precinct based series particularly from institutions and organisations that play a central role in our life but whose workings remain a mystery. The BBCs series Parole observes the inner workings of Britain’s Parole boards. It’s a great example of the kind of access that sheds a crucial light on the complexities of the criminal justice system.
• Recent history through a modern lens. What in our recent history has impacted lived experience. What stories in the past, viewed now, need to be re-assessed?  Why tell this story now?
• If you are proposing a biographical piece, consider Marian and Charlie Bird: Loud and Clear which both brought a distinctive director’s vision to what can be a tired genre.
• If you are proposing a single film – what makes it distinctive, multi-layered and compelling. How will story telling illuminate the subject and what will make it appeal to a large, broad audience.
• Does your idea shed new light on the real diversity of lived experience in Ireland?
• How can we get our finger firmly on the pulse of contemporary Ireland? We are looking for a strand that lifts the lid on the individuals, companies and organisations that form the fabric of contemporary life.
• Crime does pay when it comes to documentaries but while our focus has generally been on violent crime – fraud, identity theft and white-collar crime and many elements of the criminal justice system have not been fully explored. Here again any offering must be distinctive The Case I Can’t Forget is immediately recognisable what other approaches make these real-life dramas stand out from the myriad of offerings on other channels and streamers.
• We are still open to anniversary pieces and profiles but consider their timeliness and how the subject relates and shed light on the lives of our audiences now.

Monday 9:30pm is one of RTÉ’s most important slots and the programmes that play here are channel defining.  With the right subject and the right treatment, they can shape the national conversation.  The three-part story of Sean Quinn’s life and legacy Quinn Country epitomised this with powerful storytelling, strong journalism and visual flair.   Others like Marian and Let the Rest of the World Go By proved satisfying and provocative.  While The Killing of Father Niall Molloy, The Tragedy at Tuskar Rock, Marie Cassidy’s Casebook and the in-house series Crimes and Confessions looked at recent historical subjects through a contemporary lens.  Documentaries like Charlie Bird: Loud and Clear and Tackling the All-Blacks were beautifully crafted and fitted the slot’s ambitions.   In-house docs like Secrets from the Showroom, Secrets from The Middle Isle and The Dart: No Ordinary Day prove that well-crafted and brilliantly cast documentaries based on everyday life can really deliver big audiences.  They also, crucially, brought us people and places that are under-represented on RTÉ channels.

Documentaries and Series that play in this slot must stand out from the crowd, be authoritative, distinctive, and blue-chip. This is our highest-impact slot and programmes that play here should have top-notch production values and be appointment to view.    As well as driving audiences to live these stories must be so compelling that they have the potential to engage a huge catch-up audience on Player.

We ask, in the first instance, that producers submit ideas into the e-commissioning system  Login | RTE (rtegroup.ie) under the programme category "Factual Documentaries & Series, RTÉ One Monday 21:30 2023"

All ideas are accepted and considered on a rolling commissioning basis. The next group of slots we will be filling are in from T1 2024. Ideas to fill these slots should be fully developed by late April for decisions in early May 2023

Ideally, we would prefer to receive programme proposals that correspond with the above advertised brief(s).  However, if you have an idea that doesn't fit within these briefs and you think it might be of interest to us, please submit your proposal to the General Call-out.

Duration:                             50 Mins Series of three to eight parts

Budget Range:                   €90,000 - €120,000 (in exceptional circumstances, budgets can be negotiated)

Broadcast:                          Wednesdays 21.30

Channel                              RTÉ One

Season:                              January 2024 and beyond.

Open Date:                        08th March 2023

Meaty factual formats and observational series.  We are looking for series of between 3 and 8 episodes and are open to developing series through pilots or limited runs.

This slot has been occupied by Build Your Own, My Bungalow Bliss, Operation Transformation and The Case I Can’t Forget.   We have established new series, but others are coming to the end of their natural cycle, and we need to continue to build our stable of returnable, lightly formatted series.

Series in this slot bridge the gap between documentaries and popular factual.  They are genuine hybrids tapping into the pre-occupations and concerns of our cash-strapped post-covid viewers but offering formatted storytelling that delivers an emotional impact.

In general, our emphasis in this slot is on returnable series.   While property isn’t a priority many of our series on Sunday and Wednesdays are very long running so we are open to developing new formats across all traditional lifestyle subjects for the coming years.  It takes time to develop new shows so we may commission a limited run to begin with.

Having been entertained and engaged on Sundays and Mondays, audiences are ready to be informed on Wednesdays with more traditional lifestyle subjects. But finding returnable series that are worthy of post-watershed attention and where individual programmes have the meat to sustain over 50 minutes is no easy task. All submissions must demonstrate that potential subjects have the kind of depth and layers needed to keep the audience’s attention for this duration.

As with Mondays, we are open to observational series and programmes that give us access to new precincts in society. And, as with Mondays, access isn’t enough without storytelling and vision. As attention spans contract, holding viewers with light formatting and brilliant production values, becomes more important. And, while our preference is for original formats, we are open to looking at formats and series that can be tailored to reflect an Irish audience and its stories.

As another recession bites, we need to be particularly mindful of audience views and changing tastes. Tone really matters.

We ask, in the first instance, that producers submit ideas into the e-commissioning system Login | RTE (rtegroup.ie) under the programme category "Factual Documentaries & Series, RTÉ One Wednesdays 21:30 2023"

All ideas are accepted and considered on a rolling commissioning basis. The next group of slots we will be filling are in from T1 2024. Ideas to fill these slots should be fully developed by late April for decisions in early May 2023

Ideally, we would prefer to receive programme proposals that correspond with the above advertised brief(s).  However, if you have an idea that does not fit within these briefs and you think it might be of interest to us, please submit your proposal to the General Call-out.

History of the Fund

In November 2016, RTÉ entered into a formal co-production agreement with Arte GE.I.E., the Strasbourg branch of Franco-German public service broadcaster Arte. Both partners pledged to contribute funding annually to a central co-production fund and to work together to develop and co-fund standout documentary projects, bringing more Irish-made content to European audiences.

Since then, Arte G.E.I.E. and RTÉ have invested in a wide range of projects from every content genre, supporting a wide range of Irish production companies. Examples include Brexit: Stuck in the Middle (Motive), Young Plato (Soilsiú Films), Ireland’s Wild Islands (Crossing the Line Films), 100 Years of Ulysses (Create One), Ireland’s Dirty Laundry (New Decade), Shooting the Darkness (Broadstone Films), The Killing of Thomas Niedermeyer (Blueprint Films) and The Hunger (Create One/Tyrone Productions).

All of these documentaries have played on both RTÉ and Arte to critical and audience acclaim, and the relationship between Arte commissioning editors and Irish production companies continues to develop, with many new opportunities resulting for Irish creative talent.

The contract was renewed in late 2021, and a number of new projects are currently in development for support from the fund.

Practical Information

The fund is a rolling one, with projects being developed and funded on an ongoing basis. Arte G.E.I.E. and RTÉ also work together to support projects with other broadcasters and funding bodies such as the BAI, Screen Ireland, NI Screen and Creative Europe. We also work together to introduce production companies and professionals from across France and Germany to Irish production talent to work on projects together that are of mutual interest.

Arte will, in general, invest between €30K and €80K per project/TV hour, depending on what stage they get involved in a project and what slot the project is intended for.

Most documentaries for Arte are 52 minutes, with no commercial breaks. We work into specific slots with Arte commissioning editors; while most slots are TV hours, there are some (limited) opportunities for feature-length slots also. The fund is aimed primarily at standout single docs, but we have also begun to look at multiple-part doc series, particularly in areas like natural history. Drama projects are also welcomed.

Because Arte documentaries are broadcast in several territories, voiceover-led projects which can be revoiced in several languages prior to TX/on-demand are preferable;

presenter-led docs or series do not, in general, work for Arte, except in very rare cases where the presenter is a global icon - eg Angelica Huston on Joyce by Blueprint Films.

This also limits somewhat – though as the example of Brexit: Stuck in the Middle illustrates, doesn’t prevent - our capacity to make more reactive docs together, as companies must deliver the finished project to Arte 6-8 weeks in advance of TX on Arte for translation, subtitling and revoicing in French and German, as well as Polish, Spanish and Italian for their on-demand services in those languages. This cost is carried by Arte and should not be included in your budgets.

Rights:

The minimum territory/archive rights clearances requirement for any Arte co-pro is to clear for France and Germany. Preferable is to clear rights for all French- and German-speaking territories in Europe: France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria. Ideally, if you can clear for all of Europe or world-wide, that is the gold-star option. So please remember to account for multiple-territory archive clearances in your budget.

Arte, like RTÉ, also have a blanket music agreement which covers the use of commercial music in the French- and German-speaking territories into which they broadcast.

How To Apply

If companies are interested in availing of the fund, they should pitch, in the first instance, to the relevant RTÉ genre head or executive producer in the normal way and via RTÉ e-commissioning, indicating if they think that the idea might be suitable for co-production with Arte. The RTÉ genre head or executive producer will then work with RTÉ’s representative to Arte, Sarah Ryder, to triage the best ideas for the fund and prepare to pitch to the relevant Arte commissioning executives.

We welcome ideas from all genres: Factual, Specialist Factual, Science, History, Current Affairs/Geopolitics/Society, Arts, Music. Particularly of interest are strong Irish stories of international interest (both ancient and contemporary history, arts and society/current affairs-style docs) and ambitious factual, specialist factual and arts documentaries which will appeal not only to the domestic Irish audience, but to audiences across Europe who are interested in Irish and European affairs.

For more information on Arte G.E.I.E.: ARTE GEIE | ARTE

For further information on the fund, Sarah Ryder manages the RTÉ/Arte G.E.I.E. co-production initiative for RTÉ and will be happy to answer any questions. Sarah.Ryder@rte.ie.