THERE are now 138,000 good reasons why the long-standing tradition of ardfheiseanna being televised live on prime television on a Saturday night should be consigned to history.

138,000 is the pitifully small number of people that tuned in to watch Bertie Ahern's address to his party's ardfheis two weekends ago . . . viewing figures that can leave nobody in any doubt as to how the general public feels about being subjected to a half-hour political speech, devoid of anything newsworthy, right in the middle of their weekend.

The harsh reality is that most people couldn't care less what goes on at these carefully stage-managed party gettogethers. Increased affluence and consumerism, greater global influences and a general dumbing down of what passes for current affairs these days means that there is now less interest in domestic politics than ever before.

And, unlike the days when most people only had one TV channel, ardfheiseanna now have to compete with dozens of TV stations. In the main, those stations offer much greater glamour and excitement than the typical leader's address.

It wasn't always thus. Last Thursday morning, The Tubridy Show on RTE Radio played a famous excerpt from Fianna Fail's stormy ardfheis of 1971, when Paddy Hillary faced down supporters of Kevin Boland with the immortal line "Ye can have Boland, but you can't have Fianna Fail." To say the atmosphere was highly charged would be a major understatement. The clip showed how an ardfheis could inflame passions and enthral those watching.

But politics is simply not like that anymore. The great issues that really got people worked up . . .

the North, unemployment, emigration . . . have largely been solved. And with the fall of the Berlin Wall, ideology has pretty much disappeared as a defining point for political parties, who have almost exclusively moved to occupy the centre ground.

These are all positive developments, but it does mean that political debate has become more anodyne.

Nobody is saying that, for example, childcare isn't an important issue . . . it is . . . but it isn't something that's going to cause a near-fatal split in a major political party.

The whiff of sulphur is gone from politics and, therefore, from ardfheiseanna. In seven years writing on politics for this newspaper, I can't recall one memorable incident at a party conference, with the exception of the McCartney sisters attending the Sinn Fein ardfheis last year.

Based on the viewing figures, it is clear the TV audience are not expecting any dramatic developments either. That is not to say that party conferences should be scrapped. Party conferences may be better choreographed than a Bolshoi production of Swan Lake, but they still serve a purpose. They are an important rallying point for party members throughout the county, allowing them to get together in both formal and social sessions with their colleagues. But for everybody else, they are a veritable snorefest, and continuing to inflict them on viewers on a Saturday night increasingly resembles something that would have happened in the USSR.

There is an argument that there is so much light, fluffy, disposable dross on the television that a public service broadcaster should be able to accommodate a half-hour of political speeches a few times a year. But, if nobody is watching, what is the point? Who is being served by the current arrangement? The viewers are irritated that the station which most of them instinctively check out first when switching on the telly is effectively a 'nogo' area on a Saturday night; the politicians aren't being watched, and overall, the unfortunate notion that all politics is boring is accentuated.

The answer is not to try and inject some razzmatazz into party conferences.

God knows that was tried before. Fine Gael's toe-curling attempt in 1991 to jazz up the 'dated' ardfheis format should serve as a warning to those who believe it is possible to inject some showbiz and humour into proceedings.

The solution is not to scrap or change party conferences, but to move them from their Saturday-night slot. In Britain, the three main parties have their party conferences midweek and during normal working hours. Such a move is overdue here. Although not prime time TV, it may actually help increase the profile of ardfheiseanna. RTE, or even one of its rivals, would be in a position to offer much more extensive coverage than the current half-hour leader's speech and a couple of hours coverage on Saturday morning. There would be much greater scope for studio analysis of proceedings.

OK, many viewers will still prefer to watch Countdown or Judge Judy, but with competition generally less stiff at that time than on a Saturday, a higher share of the watching audience is pretty much guaranteed.

There is no doubt that it is a case of when, and not if, ardfheiseanna lose their Saturday-night billing. In years to come, we will look atReeling in the Years for the first decade of the new millennium and marvel at how we used to accept them being foisted upon us on our weekends.

That special one-day convention of Fine Gael's in 1991 used the slogan 'Fast forward with Fine Gael'. A decade-and-a-half later, people are still reaching for their remote controls when party conferences come on.

The sooner we are all put out of our collective misery the better.