Diarmuid Gavin, Eddie Hobbs and Sonya Lennon have been identified as the kind of stars RTÉ wants to see more of as the national station battens down the hatches for its most difficult year yet.

According to the 2010 commissioning brief from RTÉ TV's lifestyle department, which was issued to independent producers last week, the three should be at the forefront of what it called "fire in your belly telly".

"When Diarmuid Gavin fronted Pony Kids, he took a subject he was passionate about and that passion worked on TV," the document says. "Are there other vehicles for Diarmuid Gavin? What about Eddie Hobbs, Sonya Lennon, Dermot Bannon? Some of our existing talent could take on authored documentaries or campaigns."

Steve Carson, the recently appointed director of programmes for RTÉ television, said: "It's important to give producers a clear indication of what works for our viewers – so we outlined a few presenters who have broadly the right attributes.

"In general, what we're looking for in presenters is authenticity, passion, empathy; people with a bit of hinterland. Someone like Diarmuid Gavin didn't come out of school just wanting to be a TV presenter. He's a proven world-class talent in one field – garden design – so when he presents something like Pony Kids or Blood of the Irish, he starts with some credibility, and then his passion for the subject comes through."

The document explains that RTÉ wants more "fire in your belly telly" campaigning programmes and less "magazine programmes, cookery programmes and, worst of all, copycat programmes".

"Whatever the subject, we need a new and distinctively Irish take on them," the brief says, before going on to warn: "Irish viewers are media literate. They have access to a lot of TV: 88% of homes are multi-channel. They can twig derivative and phoney formats."

According to Carson, "What we are saying is that if we are doing Dragon's Den, we are doing Dragon's Den. We're not going to call it something else or pretend it's another programme as has possibly happened in the past. We're not going to turn our backs on formats. They fuel the international television market. What we say with all our programmes, though, is how do we make them distinctively Irish?

"For instance, talent shows are as old as television itself, but something like the All Ireland Talent Show taps into a tribalism and a sense of community that I think is much stronger in Ireland than elsewhere."

Ireland's rising unemployed will also feature in next year's schedule with RTÉ looking for a format or a campaign for the "new unemployed" and the issues they face.

"Unemployment could reach 20% in 2010", says the document. "We would welcome an original fact ent format [factual entertainment format] or a TV event with unemployment at its core, but not as its headline.

"We don't want observational documentaries – we already have a number of recession-related 'obdocs' in production. But we'd love an original Irish format which tackles this growing phenomenon."

Conceding that viewers attitudes to lifestyle, leisure and consumerism have changed dramatically in recent times, the brief goes on to say: "Unemployment is up, spending is down. Helping others and self-improvement have outlasted greed and self-indulgence. Family and community values are the new black.

"And staying in is the new going out. We need proposals from you which reflect, challenge and illuminate this new reality. [RTÉ] lifestyle should in some way make a difference to the lives of the people watching.

"Future lifestyle television programmes should provide our audiences with brand new solutions to their brand new problems, shouldn't be afraid to confront issues relating to our day-to-day lives, through more campaigning TV, should also help our audiences forget their problems for a while. Your programme ideas should either solve problems, confront problems or provide escape from problems."

Anxious to offer some escapism to the nation's battered psyche, RTÉ had some advice for independent producers when considering programming for Sunday night TV: "A big part of public service broadcasting is to inform plus entertain. We want to make sure on Sunday nights our programming doesn't remind people they have to get up for school or work in the morning."

According to Carson: "We want to put things on air that offer people useful information or – equally as important – just help them forget about things for half an hour after a bad day at work or, increasingly, not being in work at all."