RTÉ report €13m defecit. Time to properly fund Public Service Broadcasting.

JohnnyFlash

RTÉ today reported a deficit of €13 million for 2018. We now live in an era of fake news, advertising masquerading as news, and clickbait designed to outrage consumers. I believe it's ever more important to have a publicly funded state broadcaster.


It's the done thing to criticise and berate RTÉ, especially in the cesspools of Facebook, Twitter, and The Journal. However I believe they do a very good job in difficult circumstances. Their current affairs, sports coverage, and documentaries are top class. They manage to balance the wants of the populace by providing stuff like The Voice and Ireland's Fittest Families, with more niche content like the wonderful Doc On One, live classical music from the NCH, Irish language content, Nationwide etc.

People complain about there being dross on RTÉ, but then don't want to pay the licence fee to fund additional content that meets their extremely high-brow tastes. This is having a serious impact on the independent sector who are being forced to produce ever cheaper and more salacious content instead of high-quality work. Yet you head onto the Sky channels and are met with hours of repeats, Dr Pimple Popper, and ads for online casinos.

I think a strong public service broadcaster is a sign of a strong democracy, and am in favour of deducting tax at source to fund it. What say the intellectuals of Boards?

Rubberchikken

i never watch tv. i pay the tv licence fee religiously every year.
i dont want to watch rte .ever.

from what i read its filled eith undertalented entitled overpaid and connected 'personalities' .

if they really want to solve their deficit then maybe they need to look closly at their pool of 'talent' and these peoples salaries.

super_furry

Any increased funding, which I believe should be made available through National Lottery funding, should also come with a salary cap across the board.

riffmongous

I agree with a good bit of that, but you have one pretty glaring omission there, care to comment on their salaries?

The deficit can be plugged by a voluntary reduction in RTÉ salaries. A more effective tack than advertising the TV licence day & night.

DrumSteve

I think the increase in tax would be slightly more palatable if tubs, Miriam and joe weren't paid the GDP of a small African nation.

Harry Palmr

I think people rail against the "fripperies" of RTE and the "Canteen culture" rather than what they do well for the budget they have. Shift the non core stuff away and concentrate on the kind of areas outlined above. Funding should be a levy on the electric bill or RPT (rents).

James Brown

They should cut funding. One channel in Irish, one in English. Only Irish/home produced content. Save money buying muck off ITV or the states.

odyssey06

It seems a little strange to fund an orchestra from a TV Licence Fee... sounds like that should be coming from a direct Arts budget.

As has been mentioned, look at salaries across the board and number of channels \ stations.

To take one small example, RTE sports coverage now has typically 3 pundits and 1 anchor covering live soccer games. There's at least 1 if not 2 too many there. In and of itself, that's not a lot of money. But that seems to be happening down the line.

Also, far too often RTE is the source of fake news and advertising masquerading as news.
I don't think more money to RTE is necessarily the solution to that issue.

Do they have enough focus on selling on programmes e.g. say Rory O'Connell's cooking shows?

satguy

RTE should be just one TV news channel and one radio station.

Let the other commercial TV channels fill the void, and buy the same rubbish from overseas that RTE dishes up to us.
A TV licence should be only €50 per year and the news channel should be BBC / SKY News quality and 24 hours. (every household pays)

For too long we have let RTE get away with hiring their sons & daughters even if they had no talent or experience.
Setting up their own production company's and having RTE buy rubbish for big bucks, this scam has gone on too long.

How we let their 3 highest paid stars get over a million between them is a joke. (on us)

Maybe it's time we fixed the mess that is RTE.

Elmo

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

RTÉ today reported a deficit of €13 million for 2018. We now live in an era of fake news, advertising masquerading as news, and clickbait designed to outrage consumers. I believe it's ever more important to have a publicly funded state broadcaster.


It's the done thing to criticise and berate RTÉ, especially in the cesspools of Facebook, Twitter, and The Journal. However I believe they do a very good job in difficult circumstances. Their current affairs, sports coverage, and documentaries are top class. They manage to balance the wants of the populace by providing stuff like The Voice and Ireland's Fittest Families, with more niche content like the wonderful Doc On One, live classical music from the NCH, Irish language content, Nationwide etc.

People complain about there being dross on RTÉ, but then don't want to pay the licence fee to fund additional content that meets their extremely high-brow tastes. This is having a serious impact on the independent sector who are being forced to produce ever cheaper and more salacious content instead of high-quality work. Yet you head onto the Sky channels and are met with hours of repeats, Dr Pimple Popper, and ads for online casinos.

I think a strong public service broadcaster is a sign of a strong democracy, and am in favour of deducting tax at source to fund it. What say the intellectuals of Boards?

RTÉ are all over the place its not just the loss but how they spent their money

for example 2fm received 4.6m in public funding, an average of 5.7m from 2011 to 2017, prior to that it receive no public funding.
it spent 24.7m on imported programming, 2nd high amount in 16 years, last year they spend 25.5 million an increase of 3m.
4.3m on corp HQ something again not giving public money until 2011.

The above amounts to over 30million.

So yes PBS needs funding but not they way RTÉ spend their funding.

They are a disgrace.

gerrybbadd

Its an absolute joke.

I watch RTE once a year. For the Toy Show with the kids. The rest of the time, it's Netflix & Youtube. And i still shell up €160 a year for a TV licence.

I despise the fact that their presenters are paid so much. I despise the fact that, unlike the UK, they run advertisements. I despise the fact that unlike the UK, you cannot opt out of paying the licence if you do not consume the content.

I have no value from the RTE.

The bottom line is, they should run their Independant Contractor presenters, and take on new staff. There would be a massive amount of insanely talented people that would and could do the job for a fraction of what they are paying their current presenters

voluntary

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

RTÉ today reported a deficit of €13 million for 2018. We now live in an era of fake news, advertising masquerading as news, and clickbait designed to outrage consumers. I believe it's ever more important to have a publicly funded state broadcaster.

Publicly funded state broadcasters are the most prone to be abused / spreading propaganda and fake news/improved reality image etc.

JeffKenna

Salary cap is needed.

Elmo

gerrybbadd wrote: »

I despise the fact that their presenters are paid so much. I despise the fact that, unlike the UK, they run advertisements. I despise the fact that unlike the UK, you cannot opt out of paying the licence if you do not consume the content.

I don't think this is true, as far as I know in England you have to pay the licence fee regardless of if you have a TV or not, unlike here were if you do not have a device that receive a TV signal you can avoid the fee.

odyssey06

Elmo wrote: »

I don't think this is true, as far as I know in England you have to pay the licence fee regardless of if you have a TV or not, unlike here were if you do not have a device that receive a TV signal you can avoid the fee.

There are exemptions in UK:
https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/telling-us-you-dont-need-a-tv-licence

GarIT

They need to make an effort to show more Irish sports. Cut out the highlights of the Premier League and start showing LOI matches.

Show every time an Irish national team in any sport competes in anything.

All content should be required to be primarily made in Ireland.

Cut down on all the tacky "entertainment" and reality TV. RTE should be an information service and a service for promoting Irish arts and media not primarily for entertaining people.

Cap the number of chat shows to 1. We barely have enough talent for one and the rest all seem to be "interview the canteen".

Keep full time presenters on civil service pay scales. i.e. capped at around 113k for the few absolute top people and capped at either 44k, 66k or 88k depending on qualifications and experience for everyone else.

Cienciano

It's unfair on the thousands of people who never watch and have absolutely zero interest in RTE. It needs to be subscription based, if you want it, you pay for it.

salmocab

Too many stations, too much pay on at best okay broadcasters, too much bought in foreign content.
If the whole organization was streamlined it could do the public a service.
Why fund radio stations like 2fm that are just in competition with the likes of today fm and countless local stations? I see no public service in that.

Jupiter Mulligan

voluntary wrote: »

Publicly funded state broadcasters are the most prone to be abused / spreading propaganda and fake news/improved reality image etc.

I share your dislike of RTE's slavish broadcasting of Irish political party AGMs - including the live transmission of the leaders' speeches.

For that crime alone, someone in RTE needs his or her balls cut off with a blunt secateurs.

voluntary

In a time of war or something like that we may wish to have a broadcasting service. If there's an apocalypse coming, then there may be a point of keeping such a service running. That would be a bare minimum service. Maybe costing each resident 5 euros and not 160 per year.
An emargency service only.

GarIT

Cienciano wrote: »

It's unfair on the thousands of people who never watch and have absolutely zero interest in RTE. It needs to be subscription based, if you want it, you pay for it.

I'm of two minds on this, totally agree in its current state, maybe not if it was fit for purpose.

fritzelly

RTE is a bloated company that thinks the people are a cash cow and the government will never let them fail.
Minimum 4 people to do a 30 min news slot is ridiculous, same with their other similar programs like Prime Time.
Joe Duffy paid a fortune to listen to people for 75 mins, then all the other staff around him doing the actual work - a monkey could do his job. D'arcy annoys the hell out of me - how he has a prime afternoon slot is beyond me.

So no they don't need more money, they need someone who understands basic economics and doesn't spend more than they have.

odyssey06

I'd be interested in seeing the cost benefit analysis on developing their own Player software, rather than say, a royalty fee to BBC or partnering with some other content providers. Maybe they have looked into it, but for a relatively small market, it must be expensive to develop an enterprise level app just for RTE.

voluntary

Jupiter Mulligan wrote: »

I share your dislike of RTE's slavish broadcasting of Irish political party AGMs - including the live transmission of the leaders' speeches.

For that crime alone, someone in RTE needs his or her balls cut off with a blunt secateurs.

Wasn't refering specifically to the RTE. I think Irish media are quite objective and not the worse. Public media in general are very prone to be abused by rulling parties, that's just the way it is. For governments, public media are just election wining tools.

SEPT 23 1989

sell off the rest of the land in Donnybrook,clear the debt and move the lot to a studio warehouse in West Dublin

we can't be expected to fund these peoples lifestyles anymore

ToddyDoody

How about tender the national public broadcasting service contract out to a private company?

Elmo

GarIT wrote: »

They need to make an effort to show more Irish sports. Cut out the highlights of the Premier League and start showing LOI matches.

I think that is also an issue for all media not just RTÉ

Show every time an Irish national team in any sport competes in anything.

This would be very difficult to do, and some amount of audience has to come into this decision. Should Cricket been shown over Basketball, Handball just because we have this post-colonial issue with Cricket?

All content should be required to be primarily made in Ireland.

Agree, but even if they are buying in some imported programming a quick cut from the 25m going to imported programming could be got by reducing it to 10m. The shows are not as valuable, due to the rise of accessibility of such shows.

Cut down on all the tacky "entertainment" and reality TV. RTE should be an information service and a service for promoting Irish arts and media not primarily for entertaining people.

I'd agree and disagree. It's kind of how I feel able Quiz shows, RTÉ produce none, and why not? but they at least produce something like DWTS and Ireland's Fittess Family, they aren't my type of show but at least they are made here in Ireland.

Cap the number of chat shows to 1. We barely have enough talent for one and the rest all seem to be "interview the canteen".

It's also about imagination, RTÉ's chat shows lack any kind of difference TLLS and TRDS are the same show just on different nights, sad story, saddier story and even more depressing story arrrhhhhggg, even Tommy Terinan seem's to be slow going down that road.

Keep full time presenters on civil service pay scales. i.e. capped at around 113k for the few absolute top people and capped at either 44k, 66k or 88k depending on qualifications and experience for everyone else.

Yeah, presenters fees are a problem, RTÉ cut fees only because of the death of Jerry Ryan and Pat Kenny's move. Below top 8 earners excluding Pat Kenny and Jerry Ryan, and the least paid from when the left.

2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003
1 495 495 495 495 495 753 723 520 520 570 470 455 436 439 361
2 450 450 400 417 304 437 492 474 513 533 378 368 328 279 229
3 390 390 390 295 295 306 378 384 389 409 367 347 268 251 177
4 301 301 295 290 293 300 307 332 291 328 291 242 218 217 176
5 301 299 299 281 241 214 229 248 269 302 289 229 205 190 166
6 300 216 202 196 197 210 220 209 226 287 286 221 205 189 150
7 299 309 209 179 191 209 209 208 214 220 233 205 202 177 149
8 250 186 201 174 182 197 203 208 214 219 216 194 185 168 147
2786 2646 2491 2327 2198 2626 2761 2583 2636 2868 2530 2261 2047 1910 1555

Elmo

Jupiter Mulligan wrote: »

I share your dislike of RTE's slavish broadcasting of Irish political party AGMs - including the live transmission of the leaders' speeches.

For that crime alone, someone in RTE needs his or her balls cut off with a blunt secateurs.

They have to, nothing to do with weather RTÉ could axe them or not. My issue is the lack of sign language.

Beechwoodspark

Get rid of all their stupid silly garbage entertainment shows.

Slash the budget harshly on 2fm

Concentrate on news and current affairs and let other operators do entertainment.

Elmo

Beechwoodspark wrote: »

Get rid of all their stupid silly garbage entertainment shows.

Slash the budget harshly on 2fm

Concentrate on news and current affairs and let other operators do entertainment.

Which other operators Virgin Media?

Ursus Horribilis

Close 2FM. The reason for having a youth radio station no longer exists. It was needed in 1979 and for the next decade or so. Until the new legal radio stations started broadcasting.

2FM offers nothing different to the many commercial stations that are out there now. Not to mention online radio stations, YouTube, podcasts and streaming music services. All 2FM is now is a better paid version of iRadio.

JohnnyFlash

Cienciano wrote: »

It's unfair on the thousands of people who never watch and have absolutely zero interest in RTE. It needs to be subscription based, if you want it, you pay for it.

What about the people who don't have access to the internet, or a choice of channels? The elderly for example. Should they be denied access to current affairs, sport, and entertainment that they currently get access to via RTÉ, just because others decide they don't want to pay for it?


The salary thing is yet another populist mouthpiece that doesn't stand up to even 5 minutes of scrutiny. People like Sean O'Rourke, Marian, Tubridy bring in multiples in what they are paid through advertising. They contribute positively to the bottom line. The fact of the matter is that public service broadcasting - documentaries, election and referendum coverage, Irish language content, in-depth Prime Time Investigates sort of material will never make money. But it needs to be paid for.



So what's it to be? Pay less than 200 quid per household for that, or leave it up to a subscription or entirely advertiser funded model? And if that's the preferred method, then how do you account for vested interests being able to influence public discourse by simply paying to broadcast what they want the peons to hear?


People should appreciate RTÉ, and pay for the service. Through deduction from source.

tayto lover

Close all of RTÉ.
Useless and full of completely overpaid people.

fritzelly

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

What about the people who don't have access to the internet, or a choice of channels? The elderly for example. Should they be denied access to current affairs, sport, and entertainment that they currently get access to via RTÉ, just because others decide they don't want to pay for it?

The salary thing is yet another populist mouthpiece that doesn't stand up to even 5 minutes of scrutiny. People like Sean O'Rourke, Marian, Tubridy bring in multiples in what they are paid through advertising. They contribute positively to the bottom line. The fact of the matter is that public service broadcasting - documentaries, election and referendum coverage, Irish language content, in-depth Prime Time Investigates sort of material will never make money. But it needs to be paid for.

RTE's core viewership is a dying breed - 20 years time they are likely to have lost most of their viewers as people have far better choices out there that they can decide to pay for.

And what is stopping someone else on a fraction of their wages doing the same job and still bringing in all that advertising revenue - its not the presenters pulling in those advertisers it's prime time slots on radio and television.

Back over to you Joe or is it Ray?

lotmc

RTE is a failed business model. They operate a very high cost, inefficient, operation (prime Dublin 4 land, on-site restaurant, on-site creche, huge surface car park that bizarrely was refused permission recently for being too big, fat salaries to underworked workers, etc etc). Yet all they can do is claim that they are doing a super job and demand increased funding from people who never use their services.
Look at the competition - Virgin (TV3) operating from an industrial unit in Ballymount (and no creche / restaurant on-site!); TG4 operating from an industrial building in Galway.

Their plan seems to be to trade recklessly, by continuing to "burn" their funds (state funds) whilst not attending to their trading problems, and pretend that the only thing that is wrong is that they dont get enough public funds.

There is a misplaced superiority complex in RTE that needs a very swift correction.

jelutong

GarIT wrote: »

They need to make an effort to show more Irish sports. Cut out the highlights of the Premier League and start showing LOI matches.

Show every time an Irish national team in any sport competes in anything.

All content should be required to be primarily made in Ireland.

Cut down on all the tacky "entertainment" and reality TV. RTE should be an information service and a service for promoting Irish arts and media not primarily for entertaining people.

Cap the number of chat shows to 1. We barely have enough talent for one and the rest all seem to be "interview the canteen".

Keep full time presenters on civil service pay scales. i.e. capped at around 113k for the few absolute top people and capped at either 44k, 66k or 88k depending on qualifications and experience for everyone else.

RTE don't show Premier League highlights.

Elmo

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

The salary thing is yet another populist mouthpiece that doesn't stand up to even 5 minutes of scrutiny. People like Sean O'Rourke, Marian, Tubridy bring in multiples in what they are paid through advertising. They contribute positively to the bottom line. The fact of the matter is that public service broadcasting - documentaries, election and referendum coverage, Irish language content, in-depth Prime Time Investigates sort of material will never make money. But it needs to be paid for.

Drama and Chilren's content like many you forgot them as do RTÉ.

I have looked at the presenters fees and have come to the conclusion that they are not worth the money that they get.

Take D'Arcy as a prime example. 450,000 in 2016 and 400,000 in 2015. Reason for the increase because he did twice as much TV as he did the previous year, so he gets 100,000 for TV and 350,000 for Radio! unlikely they could breakdown that way.

While Moya Doherty pointed out in the Oireachtas that sponsorship had already paid for him (via his radio show sponsorship), she failed to reflect on the risk, He lost viewers from the Saturday Night show, and TV advertising is worth far more than Radio advertising so it is likely that that 500,000 in sponsorship he got for the radio show was wiped out by the losses in TV audience.

I am not a huge fan of bring up the wages of their talent but they aren't worth it, you put anyone in on TLLS you expect an audience, and even TLLS's audience is massively down.

Odyssey 2005

JeffKenna wrote: »

Salary cap is needed.

They're contracted in. Cut the contract.

vriesmays

Republic of Ireland was in the world darts final last month, did RTÉ screen it live. Now they're screening the women's football world cup and Ireland ain't in it.

Beechwoodspark

lotmc wrote: »

RTE is a failed business model. They operate a very high cost, inefficient, operation (prime Dublin 4 land, on-site restaurant, on-site creche, huge surface car park that bizarrely was refused permission recently for being too big, fat salaries to underworked workers, etc etc). Yet all they can do is claim that they are doing a super job and demand increased funding from people who never use their services.
Look at the competition - Virgin (TV3) operating from an industrial unit in Ballymount (and no creche / restaurant on-site!); TG4 operating from an industrial building in Galway.

Their plan seems to be to trade recklessly, by continuing to "burn" their funds (state funds) whilst not attending to their trading problems, and pretend that the only thing that is wrong is that they dont get enough public funds.

There is a misplaced superiority complex in RTE that needs a very swift correction.

Very true. A huge amount of their output is rubbish.

Beechwoodspark

Elmo wrote: »

Which other operators Virgin Media?

Couldn’t give a riddlers once it’s not out of joe Publics pocket

James Brown

Ursus Horribilis wrote: »

Close 2FM. The reason for having a youth radio station no longer exists. It was needed in 1979 and for the next decade or so. Until the new legal radio stations started broadcasting.

2FM offers nothing different to the many commercial stations that are out there now. Not to mention online radio stations, YouTube, podcasts and streaming music services. All 2FM is now is a better paid version of iRadio.

I found that funny with Gerry Ryan like a grumpy old man who might say 'flatulence' from time to time, which in itself was not funny.

Harry Palmr

jelutong wrote: »

RTE don't show Premier League highlights.

and they do show LOI matches! I think the poster is rather out of touch.

How Soon Is Now

Rte are a joke. There is sweet **** all on for most people. There was a time when they had plenty of entertaining shows most nights and at least they put effort into there kids television as well. I mean jesus id watch the den now if it was still on ha.

It's also a disgrace that they don't properly cover the gaa anymore it's our national sport ffs we should be showcasing it!

I'm sure the women's world cup didn't cost them an awful lot but it's a bit of a joke to be showing every single game of a tournament most won't watch!
Yet hurling and football games where being played in our own country and no one could see them unless they where at the game!

Kivaro

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

.....

However I believe they do a very good job in difficult circumstances.

I would say that the majority of people in Ireland would disagree with you for various reasons.
I believe RTE management exhibit the same arrogance as our current government, with grandiose views of themselves.
Their management, presenters, and staff are vastly overpaid.

However, they would have a good deal more support from the worker on the street if they did not exhibit an overwhelming liberal bias in their news reporting and current affairs programs. They never ask the hard questions on topics like Travellers, failed asylum seekers, free forever home entitlements, non-EU migration, anti-social activity by social welfare recipients etc. etc. All of these topics are presented in a biased and partial manner; with only one view being presented by the State broadcaster.

Just saw Dee Forbes on the Six One news blaming the lack of government action as the cause of their financial problems. She is so detached from reality that she cannot see the real cause of their issues.

I would prefer if RTE were disbanded and replaced with a more pragmatic organisation with realistic broadcasting services. Then I would pay the €20 yearly subscription fee to fund that new organisation.

super_furry

How Soon Is Now wrote: »

It's also a disgrace that they don't properly cover the gaa anymore it's our national sport ffs we should be showcasing it!
!

What? Every weekend it's pretty much wall to wall GAA. There'd be even more if the GAA hadn't sold half the games to an English private subscription channel.

Baron Kurtz

How Soon Is Now wrote: »

Rte are a joke. There is sweet **** all on for most people. There was a time when they had plenty of entertaining shows most nights and at least they put effort into there kids television as well. I mean jesus id watch the den now if it was still on ha.

It's also a disgrace that they don't properly cover the gaa anymore it's our national sport ffs we should be showcasing it!

I'm sure the women's world cup didn't cost them an awful lot but it's a bit of a joke to be showing every single game of a tournament most won't watch!
Yet hurling and football games where being played in our own country and no one could see them unless they where at the game!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbu88CKkEzI

GarIT

super_furry wrote: »

What? Every weekend it's pretty much wall to wall GAA. There'd be even more if the GAA hadn't sold half the games to an English private subscription channel.

I think we actually need an RTE sport channel. They could even show non mainstream stuff without commentary during the unpopular hours for virtually free content and to give Irish sports a platform for growth. RTE 2 could probably be mostly cut out if we stopped buying foreign content.

GarIT

We don't need more than one English and one Irish national radio station. Keep music and entertainment for private radio stations.

The Irish radio station needs to be more nationally focused too. I listed to it once and ended up hearing all the local news for Galway and which small road in the middle of nowhere had traffic.

Atoms for Peace

Pay the useless shower the same as their colleagues in Virgin media and tg4.