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EXCLUSIVE! RTÉ’s Stephen Byrne and Bláthnaid Treacy on children’s programming axe

The pair worked on TwoTube for four years together

Former TwoTube hosts Stephen Byrne and Bláthnaid Treacy have opened up about RTÉ axing children’s programming, and admitted they’re sad to see it go.

The pair spoke to Goss.ie at the Audi Dublin International Film Festival launch about the show they had worked on together for four years.

“We left about six months ago. We shot something which was a kind of goodbye to the last four and a half years to TwoTube,” Stephen said.

VIP Style Awards 2016

Goodbye: Stephen and Bláthnaid worked together on TwoTube | VIPIRELAND.COM

Stephen started working with RTE in 2008 and landed his presenting job on TwoTube, originally TTV, in 2010.

“It was nine years I was in that department, so a long time. I’m only 26 – that’s a third of my life,” he told Goss.ie.

“I felt it was the right time as well for myself. It’s awful in the sense that a lot of people did have to move on and lost jobs.

“But personally, on the TwoTube side of it, I was ready to go and I’m excited for everything that’s in the work now.”

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End of an era: The presenters worked on TwoTube for four years | VIPIRELAND.COM

Bláthnaid, who started working on the show in 2010 with Stephen, also admitted that they were happy to move on but she’s devastated for her friends and colleagues who had jobs in children’s programming.

“It was a show we had done for four years together so we were ready to move on from it but absolutely devastated for our friends and colleagues to lose jobs,” she revealed.

“It’s never easy and it was only a few weeks before Christmas. It’s a tough industry to get in to – jobs aren’t just there willy-nilly, you can’t just get a job really easily after.

“It’s a real shame that a show like TwoTube isn’t coming back for new presenters.”

Stephen added, “We were saying that we would love for someone to take it over.”

Blathnaid Treacy & Stephen Byrne

Devastated: Both RTE stars are sad to see in-house children’s programming leave the station  | ANTHONY WOODS

Bláthnaid highly praised TwoTube as a platform for those starting out in the industry to learn skills such as interviewing.

“It’s such an amazing platform to bring in new talent into RTE and then to develop them and nurture them, give them this one platform where you get to interview – you kind of get to try absolutely everything,” she explained.

“It’s a real learning curve, it’s like doing a degree or a masters. You’re presenting and researching, you do everything. You get to know how the industry works.

“It’s a real shame there’s not two more people taking our positions. I would have loved to have seen that. I’m not sure what’s going to happen to children’s programming, they haven’t filled us in.

“All I know is that it’s going to go out to the independent sector. Hopefully they are able to make programmes to the same standard that were made in house.”

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