There is nothing like a dose of nostalgia to get us all excited — see the success of Reeling In The Years. Or All-Ireland Gold? Those treats though were only available because of the farsightedness of those who started an archive back in the day.
Now TG4 wants to increase public access to the station’s digital archive as it celebrate 25 years on air. As a custodian of Irish language Linguistic Assets broadcasting legacy, the TG4 archive contains a valuable and varied repository of material. The development of the digital archive will continue in 2022, work that has been ongoing since the end of 2011. When complete, TG4’s Irish Language Digital Archive will be one of the most extensive and significant bodies of Irish language audio-visual material in the world.
To this end, Máire Aoibhinn Ní Ógáin has been appointed as the station’s first archivist. Máire Aoibhinn has expertise in TG4’s programme content in her role as TG4 Schedule Manager for over twenty years. She has previously pioneered archive developments and schemes with the support of the BAI and will build on that experience and advance technological and curated developments in the digital archive. She will start her new role as TG4 Archivist on February 1st, 2022.
Speaking to the Advertiser this week, Máire Aoibhinn Ní Ógáin gave us a glimpse of the importance of the archives.
Important record
“It is a privilege for me to take on this new role as TG4’s Archivist. The TG4 Archive is an important record of Irish history and a source of information that reflects the broadcasting heritage of TG4 and the development of Irish language broadcasting.
“There is a need to ensure access to the wealth of history, information, music and entertainment contained in the archive for our audiences. This material needs to be curated and preserved so that it is available to study and to enjoy. My goal would be to find new ways to use the archive as a historical and creative resource, to foster national and international partners and promote the importance of television archives in general.
“I look forward to taking on the new role with the same challenge and enthusiasm I have shown in my twenty five years of service to TG4 as Schedule Manager.”
TG4 has always been a key player in confirming the importance of archives, because of the use of them in the quarter-century of TG4 programming have proven very popular?
“I suppose ‘an té nach bhfuil láidir ní foláir dó a bheith glic’, we have had to be clever due to lack of finances over the years. We have managed to fill a nearly 18-hour schedule with funding for a lot less hours. This ‘loaves and fishes’ approach to scheduling combines newly commissioned content, with carefully selected repeats of both TG4 and RTÉ content and clever acquisitions of old American dramas and films. Perhaps TG4 could claim to be the inventors of Nostalgia TV? Súil Eile Arís & Arís Eile
Máire Aoibhinn is immensely proud of the station’s output and has been from the beginning.
“We have always valued our content. We have had some archiving activity on a ongoing basis despite the lack of resources. In more recent years we have benefited greatly from the BAI Archiving Scheme, collaborations with Irish Traditional Music Archive, RTÉ, NUIG and internal passion projects.
“As a result of these collaborations, we currently have three online archives available to the public Cartlann Gradaim Ceoil, Cartlann Nuacht TG4 agus Cartlann Sean Nóis accessible through the TG4 website. Marketing of the archive content is also shared via our social media platforms, using the ‘nostalgia marketing’ approach, music from the archive is available on You Tube Channels & news content using the #anláseo (#onthisday ) on MOLSCÉAL platforms.
Appetite for recent history
Does she believe there is a Reeling In The Years interest in recent history that forms part of a new audience?
“There is an obvious appetite for such content, and this is reflected by all tv linear channels in Ireland having a history clip show TG4’s Siar sna 60aidí, Siar sna 70aidí, Siar sna 80aidí, Siar sna 90aidí, RTÉ’s Reeling in the Years and Virgin Media’s Don’t Look Back in Anger series.
“Irish people are interested in history and love a good yarn told well. We like the ‘trigger’ of those memories and where we were at the time big news events happened.
“I think we engage with each other by finding common ground, be it through, music, a sense of place, shared experiences and of course sport.
“This couldn’t have been more evident than during the earliest days of the Covid 19 pandemic. When all live Sport was cancelled, I delved into our archive, brushed a bit of dust off a few All-Ireland Golds. The audience reaction was amazing. I took great personal pleasure to see that they were being commented on live by sports pundits, in real time on social media platforms. It was as if they were being played live on that day. Archive content being treated as must see live tv event. Strange times indeed!”
Technology has changed the face of archiving. No longer mountains of tape, but mountains of servers. How is all the content stored and how is it categorised?
“Since November 2011 all new content is delivered to TG4 in file-based formats and therefore digitised on upload and automatically available to the archive. All digitised content is in AVC Intra 100 and stored on LTO tapes in a robotic archive. Original tapes on Beta Sp and Digi-beta are stored across three separate locations and are being digitised; about half yet to be digitised. The original tapes are barcoded and shipped to a external company and the digitised files are delivered back to TG4 on hard drives ready for upload.
“From the outset TG4 has used integrated workflows and IT systems – all broadcasted content was registered in a channel management system. This means that some level of computerized metadata exists for programmes. A dataset of this information is sent to our cataloguing software Vizrt. A copy of the media is also sent from our Digital Asset Management system. The content is then catalogued. The categorisation is done based on genre; each genre has its own subset of data fields. The detail required is based on the level of cataloguing associated with that genre.
Educational role
With the archive being more widely available — Does Máire Aoibhinn see a role for it in our schools and colleges?
“Absolutely! TG4 archive chronicles Irish life for the last 25 years, the possibilities as an educational resource are limitless. We have already done some work here and will continue to do so.
“TG4 has partnered with NUIG in all our BAI funded Archive projects. That archived content is being used as a resource within the university. TG4 Foghlaim another project done in conjunction with the Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge, Ollscoil na hÉireann, Gaillimh is online resource using TG4 Archive content as an education tool for post primary students.
“I have a particular interested in Media Literacy, digital citizenship, and accessibility, and will be looking to see how these can be integrated within the archive.
At a time when politicians and populists try to rewrite history, does Máire Aoibhinn feel that TG4 and the BAI has a responsibility to uphold a record of what happened and when?
“Hasn’t history been rewritten since the beginning of time? Don’t we all view the past with our own contemporary sensibilities? The importance of content becomes relevant and irrelevant with time, perhaps its importance is to the user rather than the custodian. This is becoming more evident with the availability of content across multiple platforms, people are no longer passive consumers but rather active prosumers. The record has been democratised.
‘The importance of preserving a contemporary record of what is occurring around us is vital, the role of the BAI as regulator and funder, TG4 and other all media outlets as creators is to ensure that we are honest, ethical, and fair. TG4 has the additional responsibility of keeping the record in the language, ensuring it the language is ever evolving and developing. The role of the archive is to add context when needed.
Alan Esslemont, Director General of TG4 has wecomed Máire Aoibhinn’s appointment.
“As we celebrate 25 years on air, TG4 has made a significant decision to appoint a lead of our valuable archive to ensure that TG4’s content is findable and available to the public. A lot of work has been done to date in digitising and cataloging the archive with the support of the BAI, ITMA and Europus and we look forward to building on this work in 2022.
“Máire Aoibhinn has expertise of TG4’s programming content over the past quarter of a century. This new role is a big challenge and there is no doubt that Máire Aoibhinn along with other members of our talented team at TG4 will excel in this new role,” he concluded.
We agree — so much regional and national history has been recorded by TG4 over the course of the last 25 years. It’s future is in safe hands.
