TV licence collection privatised and replaced with device licence fee in 5 years

markodaly

sydthebeat wrote: »

becuase part of the licence fee goes towards paying for the RTE concert orecstra......................

I agree that that is a waste of money.

_Kaiser_

Reading through comments above and most arguments in favour of this cite some version of "public service broadcasting is important" and "we need a fair and impartial broadcaster".

RTE certainly isn't the latter, and it's questionable as to whether it fits the former, or whether we even need public broadcasting given the multitude of domestic and foreign media networks we can access which fill the same function.

It's always amusing too how many people seem to be more than happy to hand over more of their income to a Government who's only real contribution has been to make Irish society worse and their ongoing attempts to privatise and sell off public services and infrastructure.

You might as well throw your cash in fire for as much good it'll do in terms of improved broadcasting.

Boggles

markodaly wrote: »

Why are we talking about Classical Music here? There are about 1001 ways to listen to Classical music without even owning a radio. Youtube has tens of thousands of hours worth of free content, as does Spotify just to name two examples. Both of which is legal.

Why stop at classical music, can't you get almost everything on youtube or spotify?

2 reasons to shut a radio station, they have one in Britain and Spotify.

Truly bizarre.

Loafing Oaf

markodaly wrote: »

Why are we talking about Classical Music here? There are about 1001 ways to listen to Classical music without even owning a radio. Youtube has tens of thousands of hours worth of free content, as does Spotify just to name two examples. Both of which is legal.

Well I brought up Lyric as an example of the kind of service that the private sector in Ireland would never supply. I agree that it's very far from an essential service but I think the principle is the same as for a whole range of the things RTE does.

CelticSeaShip

So where do we go from here? Should people start emailing their local politicians about this? A poster above offered an alternative for example having the rte player private and only allowed access with a pincode that is associated with your licence if you have payed. Maybe we can start emailing our politicians with our displeasure about such a move and perhaps to give an alternative.

Stephen15

Scrap the tv licence make RTE and the RTE Player a subscription based service for a nominal fee similar to what is the current tv licence.

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

jimmycrackcorm wrote:

Its strange how many people say they never watch RTE yet are the first also to comment on the outrage when they saw the Greyhounds or creche exposes.

Are they tge same people though? I highly doubt you could prove that.

Pa ElGrande

_blaaz wrote: »

The only reason rte content is sh1t is they are paying emselves too much....theres more than enough money going into it to make a proper service

I can't comment much on the quality of their current output since I don't consume it and I stopped consuming it a decade ago when I got rid of my TV at the same time so I would not have to pay the tax. Most of the content was poor then and I found I watched much less over time and with my own economic situation then I could not justify the expense of paying for something I no longer used.


The reason most of their content is sh1t (to quote you) is their business model is wrong, their resources have been spread too thin and far as I can see they have gone for filling up as much bandwidth (channels) as possible in order to capture eyeballs in an increasingly fragmented market for multimedia content. There is no way they can be all things to all people and they are going to have to move to a subscription based model where people can view their content at the time of their choosing like we can do with youtube today.


If you keep them propped up on the current business model they won't ever change as there is no incentive to do that when they can always fall back on the taxpayer. Remember that in order to pay taxes you have to work and save money, multimedia content has a much lower ranking over health, education and welfare spend, eventually once most of their current audience dies off there will be no political will to maintain RTE.

CelticSeaShip

Stephen15 wrote: »

Scrap the tv licence make RTE and the RTE Player a subscription based service for a nominal fee similar to what is the current tv licence.

Making it subscription based service for a fee similar to what is the current TV licence.

I don't think that would be very fair for people who pay the tv licence and then maybe they might want to catch up with something online on the player? Will they have to pay the equivalent of the license fee again just to have the service of watching online?

major bill

Not a chance people are going to pay this, Fine Gael really do like to dig their own graves.

markodaly

Boggles wrote: »

Why stop at classical music, can't you get almost everything on youtube or spotify?

2 reasons to shut a radio station, they have one in Britain and Spotify.

Truly bizarre.

Let's not pretend that Classic FM has its own infrastructure and dedicated studio here, it's piggybacking onto the RTE infrastructure, so closing it down won't save too much money, unless you shut down the Orchestra as well.

However, the point remains. Why should the taxpayer fund and pay for yet another outlet for Classical music that gives no discernible value or returns to said tax payer when there are countless other free choices out there.

Just to give a few people a job?

The whole idea of radio and TV broadcasting has to have a rethink because even though we are an Island and have an Island mentality, the world is not an Island and the internet has changed everything in terms of consuming content.

OneEightSeven

quokula wrote: »

A public service broadcaster is an important facility - look what happens somewhere like the US where the media is entirely profit driven and you end up with the likes of Fox News driving the country off a cliff.

I'm no fan of Fox News, but how they drive the country off of a cliff? America has 3 big cable news stations and two of them are left-leaning, but Fox News somehow drove America off of a cliff? What a daft thing to say.

Pa ElGrande

sydthebeat wrote: »

becuase part of the licence fee goes towards paying for the RTE concert orchestra......................

The orchestra can be hived off to the Department of arts heritage and the Gaeltacht. It is only an accident that RTE ended up with the orchestra as they wanted to emulate the BBC model from the 1930s when they used the orchestra for live performances.

Pa ElGrande

major bill wrote: »

Not a chance people are going to pay this, Fine Gael really do like to dig their own graves.

They are well aware of that which is why they proposed the changes for 5 years time when a new government is in charge and has to deal with the fall out.

markodaly

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

Well I brought up Lyric as an example of the kind of service that the private sector in Ireland would never supply. I agree that it's very far from an essential service but I think the principle is the same as for a whole range of the things RTE does.

Lyric FM on the whole probably costs **** all in reality, but I think the issue is with the duplication of a service that already exists in reality for most people.

We are drowning in content and there are millions of different stations or programs one can watch or listen to at any given time.

riclad

If you have a sky subscription or pay for cable tv, you will be on a list,
you will get a visit from some one asking to see your tv license .
Whether you watch rte is irrelevant, rte makes many drama,s , talk shows ,
news current affairs show .
After the crash, in 2008 many presenters salarys were cut by 20- 30 per cent.
I dont think they make much money from the radio stations or making
arts programs and radio drama.s .
rte has very few programs it can sell abroad to other tv stations .
If we want to have a public service tv and radio service it has to be paid for .
I Find it hard to believe someone who says i never watch rte if they
are a sports fan ,
unless you have sky sports if you watch gaa or rugby
and certain sporting events ,the world cup ,etc
your best choice is rte tv.
There are a lot of american comedys and drama,s on rte tv that can be seen on itv,
or bbc ,c4 .
There are many parts of the country where fast broadband is not avaidable ,
so as far as tv go,s your only choice is over the air tv using saorview or Sky TV from satellite .

is_that_so

Pa ElGrande wrote: »

They are well aware of that which is why they proposed the changes for 5 years time when a new government is in charge and has to deal with the fall out.

It actually came from a Joint Oireachtas Dail Committee and a very long report. Link to it on this page.

https://www.thejournal.ie/tv-licence-fee-3720854-Nov2017/

You'll also notice too from that story that other parties are not against the idea. On the face of it it doesn't matter who's in power.

Boggles

markodaly wrote: »

Let's not pretend that Classic FM has its own infrastructure and dedicated studio here,

It has, in Limerick City.

markodaly wrote: »

However, the point remains. Why should the taxpayer fund and pay for yet another outlet for Classical music that gives no discernible value or returns to said tax payer when there are countless other free choices out there.

I don't like classical music, so personally don't care if it shut down or not.

But I think there has to be a better reason than it can be got from somewhere else, you could scale that up to 80% of what's on radio or Telly for that matter..

thenightman

Drastically cut RTE's public service remit to news, current affairs and sport on TV and radio. Cap salaries at 150k, see how many broadcasters will be knocking down Joe Duffy or Mir-e-yums door to offer them more. If RTE still want to produce light entertainment shows or dirge like Fair City, or pay for foreign imports ,they can do it out of their commercial pocket like TV3 have to.

Zillah

I notice RTE's article on the topic makes no mention of the controversy over the fee and the exorbitant salaries paid to their 'talent'. Not a very encouraging level of objectivity on display.

OneEightSeven

_blaaz wrote: »

All at lower corporate tax rate...hence the near blind devotion to keeping irelands corp tax low from rte



Remember that this evening when you look at payslip...your paying high tax and tv fees to keep them in wages which most heads of state worldwide dont earn

Not all of them, 7 of them are being paid through companies:



Individual - Status - Rank - Fees earned €

• Tuttle Productions Ltd (For the services of Ryan Tubridy) - Contractor - 1 - 495,000
• What Next Productions Ltd (For the services of Ray Darcy) - Contractor - 2 - 450,000
• Cladaghgreen Ltd (For the services of Joe Duffy) - Contractor - 3 - 389,988
• Sean O'Rourke - Employee - 4 - 308,964
• Montrose Services Ltd (For the services of Marian Finucane) - Contractor - 5 - 300,617
• Baby Blue Productions Ltd (For the services of Miriam O'Callaghan) - Contractor - 6 - 299,000
• Derrough Media Ltd (For the services of Claire Byrne) - Contractor - 7 - 216,000
• Bryan Dobson - Employee - 8 - 198,146
• Bergauf Ltd (For the services of George Hamilton) - Contractor - 9 - 186,195
• Mary Wilson - Employee - 10 - 185,679

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo

RTE should get a certain amount for producing News and Current Affairs and maybe a kids channel.

All their other content should be self funded.

There's too much crap 'entertainment' put out by them to justify a licence fee.

The money the top 'talent' is on is obscene. It's a bloated mess.

Limpy

What's democratic about forcing people to pay to watch your views.

If like many people you don't like how left leaning RTE is. You have to just suck it up and PAY?

Was the question answered that if it's a private company what do they do with the people who don't pay?

MOH

NIMAN wrote: »

Its not only Rte this could be directed at.

Take a look at the BBC, ITV, Sky etc on freesat. There is loads of dross and repeats on there too. And 80% of programming on Netflix is rubbish too.

It's a worldwide issue, unfair to pick on Rte on their own.

When you have 24/7 TV to fill and hundreds of channels, most of its going to be cheap muck.

WTF? ITV is commercially funded. As are Sky and Netflix. BBC is your only example that's paid for by a licence fee, and that doesn't consist of 10%+ advertising.

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

As I said earlier, I struggle to see why this should be a game changer. If the current licence fee system hasn't generated those sort of protests, I don't expect the new one will.

Because I don't pay a TV license now, since I got rid of my TV years ago.
I did admittedly make a couple of attempts over the years to use RTE Player, but never successfully. Among the more amusing failures was the day I ended up idly trying to watch the 2016 Easter centenary parade on RTE player, giving up, and ultimately ended up watching live coverage on Youtube from Russia Today in perfect HD. Great work RTE.
Under the new system, I would have to pay, even though I consume exactly the same amount (zero) content that I do now.

riclad wrote: »

I Find it hard to believe someone who says i never watch rte if they
are a sports fan ,
unless you have sky sports if you watch gaa or rugby
and certain sporting events ,the world cup ,etc
your best choice is rte tv.

You must find a lot of things hard to believe.
For a start, most of the rugby is on TV3 now. The one thing which RTE actually used to be good at.
If there's a GAA or football match I want to watch, I'll pop out to the pub. Which has the twin benefits of both having a good atmosphere, and being noisy enough that I can't hear the inane commentary from George Hamilton. Or the Trump-like rantings of Eamon Dunphy at half time. It's a win-win.
The notion that RTE is for some reason automatically the best choice is ridiculous.

I'm constantly amused during such occasions at the ads which always seem to prominently feature RTEs latest utter dreck of a reality TV programme. One of my favourites was The Hotel, which I gather was basically largely free publicity for some hotel (in Donegal?) in exchange for staging some scenes for the cameras. I only remember it for the memorable soundbite: "It's like a cruise ship - on land!!"

There's also the fact that RTE have never been able to manage basic things TV broadcaster have to do, like scheduling programs properly.

So no, I have totally legally not paid a TV license for over 5 years, have not consumed any RTE content at home, and have not suffered in the least for it.

whisky_galore

Pa ElGrande wrote: »

Why not? Classical music is not part of mainstream Irish culture and never has been, nor is it likely to be, so it is bizarre that RTE would expend their limited resources promoting a foreign culture that could alternately be broadcast for a commercial fee from another provider (classic FM) via 2RNs transmission network. The only distinction being the presenter would have a non-Irish accent because the musical content is the same.

Someone should have told Sean Ó Riada classical music was "foreign" muck.

Boggles

MOH wrote: »

So no, I have totally legally not paid a TV license for over 5 years,

Well, not "totally".

https://www.boards.ie/ttfthread/2057572819/1#post99064471

ChikiChiki

Just when you thought FG could not get any more unlikeable...

Stephen15

CelticSeaShip wrote: »

Making it subscription based service for a fee similar to what is the current TV licence.

I don't think that would be very fair for people who pay the tv licence and then maybe they might want to catch up with something online on the player? Will they have to pay the equivalent of the license fee again just to have the service of watching online?

No it would be all one sign up sign up for one get the other

markodaly

Boggles wrote: »

It has, in Limerick City.

This is owned by RTE, do they not use it for anything else. Well, if they do not, you have just made the case easier for it to close.

I don't like classical music, so personally don't care if it shut down or not.

But I think there has to be a better reason than it can be got from somewhere else, you could scale that up to 80% of what's on radio or Telly for that matter..

Which is the point. If one can access pretty much the same content for free, why does the taxpayer have to fund a station that provides near-identical content?
It makes zero sense. If they were doing something unique or of actual public interest then fair enough, buts its a niche station for a niche market. The tax payer should never be funding a station like this.

Indeed the question should be, why should we keep funding it?

Loafing Oaf

CelticSeaShip wrote: »

So where do we go from here? Should people start emailing their local politicians about this? .

At best this would get the government to drop these plans and revert to the status quo. If you're looking to get the whole concept of a broadcasting licence abolished, I reckon a mass campaign of civil disobedience, with thousands of people prepared to do time rather than pay, is the only way.