The future of RTE after Tubsgate.

RoTelly

The fact RTE was moved from the oversight of the C&AG and successive Govs refused to increase the licence fee led to RTE switching the model from largely licence fee funded to pursuing commercial funding as much as they could. This, in my opinion, led the powers that be in RTE to put the emphasis on 'talent' - that is those well known faces - and give in to the greed of their agents to pay them way over the odds for their 'talent'

@Sam Russell this is too simple an excuse IMO. Where the power at be under so much pressure? or where they just believing their own lies that "Talent" was the most important part of the equation for success? It looks to me they believed their own hype, that they also deserved the kind of wages and exit packages that they received, I don't believe they had any real want to improve the service that they had for the audience, their simple refrain towards the audience has always been "The audience just don't understand". You just have to look at 2FM to see how their arguments crumble.

icdg

RTE made out they had a retention problem as far as their talent is concerned. The reality is they hadn’t lost anyone major to the private sector in years. Pat Kenny was the last significant departure and he was over a decade ago. Other big departures (eg Ian Dempsey, Ray D’Arcy - who came back) happened decades ago now. Now RTE might say that provides their talent retention strategy is working but the reality is that there hasn’t been a major issue with it in recent times.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121847858#Comment_121847858

I do not see it as an excuse. It was RTE management loosing the run of themselves and believing their own hype.

What I am looking for is a new start - a new charter where the Irish people are seen as the target audience and are fully respected. That is not the case at the moment. The whole management is sees their role as looking after their own position and their own interests and personal future.

Those that create that future are not the 'talent' but the whole structure that makes things happen - from producers, camera operators, writers, actors - right down to the runners and go-fors.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121847865#Comment_121847865

Ray D'Arcy never really departed RTÉ. He was the Presenter of The Den until 1997 which was followed by presenter of 2PHAT, he only made headway after that when he went over to Today FM in 2000, by 2001 he was hosting You're A Star on RTÉ for a good few season, at least 5. And he was on and off RTÉ TV in various roles until he moved to Radio.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121848819#Comment_121848819

I don't think the last 2 decades would have been much different with so called proper funding.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121849569#Comment_121849569

I am not saying it would.

It was the pursuit of commercial revenue, caused by lack of enough funding to run the business, that began the rot. They need to reset the income stream, and to reset the viewer's and listener's experience and expectation. They have a significant body of creative talent and experience that needs to be harnessed instead of being paid off with generous redundancy payments.

We need a functioning RTE that is our national broadcaster - not a low rent TV channel showing imported low rent programmes that can be repeated and repeated and repeatezzzzzzzzzzz.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121849654#Comment_121849654

Well then RTÉ has never been up to the task.

I think this "commercial revenue, caused by lack of enough funding to run the business" is simple an excuse that doesn't cover how bad RTÉ have been as a public service broadcaster over the years. It's an excuse for Dee Forbes' time at RTÉ and many of her predecessors.

They had largely got a continuous income over the years, they knew how much they would get out of the license fee with the exception of a few years, yes the advertising fell flat but so to did RTÉ. Its been a decade more of inertial.

The money that they spend on cars for executives for example cannot be describe as running after anything, and there are plenty of other examples, of this kind of spend.

No one points how RTÉ2 is massively reliant on Sports but one of their strategies suggest moving sport to RTÉ ONE! No one is pointing out that even at a public service level RTÉ2 and 2FMs audience aren't at a significant level, and the removal of Irish programming from the 2nd channel along with 2FM dwindling audience should show they are not at the races from both a public service point of view or a commercial one and no public funding can defend that mismanagement.

RTÉ recently spent 70k on someone to administer a pension scheme, a person who'd retired, how does that chase any commercial revenue?

political analyst

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121847825#Comment_121847825

If RTÉ ever was under that oversight then why was it moved out of that oversight?

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121850108#Comment_121850108

I agree with you generally.

My point is that the refusal of an increase in the licence fee led to chasing commercial revenue that began the rot.

If RTE was chasing commercial revenue, then RTE had to behave loke a commercial broadcaster, rather than a state broadcaster.

That led to the batter accounts which were designed to hide income/expenditure from proper scrutiny. It also allowed 'talent' and executives to set massive levels of remuneration, whether justified or not. This was just one aspect of how rotten RTE has become.

Dee Forbes time as DG marks the nadir of RTE's existence. The fact that no-one knows where she is, nor why she cannot make any appearance at the Dail committees, except it has something to do with medical matters.

dublinman1990

It was reported in the media this evening that Terence O'Rourke will appointed RTÉ Chair by the Media Minister Catherine Martin later this morning. I didn't know much about his credentials however he has worked as managing partner of KPMG and on the board of the ESB in the past. Is he actually a good & prudent choice to try and steer RTÉ out of it's current financial woes with the Government and the licence fee payers at the moment?

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121850660#Comment_121850660

It didn't begin the rot because the rot was already there. RTÉ from 1993 up until 2011 had seen an increase in the Licence Fee, indeed after that successive government help remove certain aspects away from RTÉ or they gave extra funding to RTÉ (NSO to NCH, and €10m a year for 5 years since 2020).

None of their spend seems to chase anything from what I can see, other then putting themselves in the money.

I agree government should have increase the licence fee from 2011, even if it was just 25c in one year or 50c in another, at least the licence fee payer would have seen some increase, until they actually had to increase it significantly.

Sam Russell

RTE has had phases of rot and then improvements to reduce the rot - depending on the DG at the time.

We are coming up to the centenary of the 2RN radio station beginning broadcasting and it is more than 60 years of RTE. In the early days, RTE were always starved of funds, so when money was more plentiful - well, the good times had arrived - or so they had - at least for the 'talent' and executives.

The same occurred with the banks. The bankers justified their eye watering bonuses by how much profit the banks made under their leadership. Then they drove the Irish economy into bankruptcy. Now they want their post bailout bonuses back - above the current €500,000 limit.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121853359#Comment_121853359

You won't convince me, what all of this has convince me of is that even during the good times RTÉ was badly run. If you take from 1998 up to 2006, I look a that period as a one of some success but then I realize that it could have been much more. The same goes for the early years of the 1960s.

I'd actually say that RTÉ were only really on top of things between 1988 at 1994, coming out of one of the worst recessions of the 70s and 80s and going into the craziness of the celtic tiger. RTÉ might not have been the best at that time but it was doing its best (with a low licence fee and massive political pressure) , I don't believe it ever did its best before or after.

And just because you reach 100 years or 70 years means little when you did so little.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121851466#Comment_121851466

The current plan to solve the problems at RTE, as far as I understand it is as follows:

1. Make 50% of the current staff redundant with suitably generous pay offs.
2. Reduce the 5 TV channels by closing the RTE 1+1 and RTE 2+1 channels
3. They have got rid of RTE long wave and RTE DAB channels.
4. They have got rid of the RTE digital channels.
5. Suppress the pay of the 'talent'. This can be achieved by reducing their hours.
6. They have sold off a large chunk of the Montrose site - so that is gone, and the current bail out from the Gov was more than they got for that.

Now how much will that save them this year? Or next year? How much better will the programme output be with all that staff gone?

Hotblack Desiato

As I've posted before, those cuts are visible but largely symbolic, the radio services on Saorview have no ads but cost buttons to run, the +1 TV channels should be profitable as they increase ad income a little while costing basically nothing. Carving out bits of Montrose is pointless as the money is being frittered away and they can't keep on doing that without moving to a new site entirely at vast expense.

The real waste has always been behind the scenes, the Secret RTE Producer twitter account from a few years back told of lots of production staff on high wages doing next to nothing, has that changed?

Sam Russell

RTE need to get back to basics.

Make programmes the Irish viewers/listeners want to watch/listen to. In fact, programmes that are so good, they do not want to miss.

Produce news programmes that inform everyone all the issues that matter to them - Irish national stories, local issues, and international stories.

Of course, they could sell off their site, make half the staff redundant, and end up saving some money, and buy in cheap USA rubbish low rent programmes that no-one watches. For what?

Mickey Mike

@Sam Russell yes of course as PBS should be.

Hotblack Desiato

RTE has always had lots of cheap American filler though, even more so in their "heyday" of the 1970s than now. Until RTE2 came along, practically nothing made in Britain was broadcast.

RTE2 should be turned into an ARTE-type channel with the best of (non-UK, everyone who wants to can see that already) programming from across Europe. Turning RTE into a pure PSB, no ads no sponsorship, would free it from the desire to chase ratings with reality TV crap. Leave that to VMTV.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121874270#Comment_121874270

This could be due to the ablity to source those programmes in the 1960s, I took a look back at some of the RTÉ guide from 1969 - 1978 and other than Match of the Day, Lifestyle programming and Soaps RTÉ aired many British Film and TV serials, but they are not as plentiful as US series, RTÉ tended to stay away from UK soaps and studio programming, similarly to that from the US (though they did air Payton Place).

I often wonder why RTÉ2 didn't take Brookside and EastEnders in the 80s as it had been broadcasting Coro Street and as RTÉ ONE was beginning to show Emmerdale, along with the Australian soaps.

Though with so few hours of TV why in the early 70s they didn't just push UK programming to late nights and daytime TV.

RoTelly

Also I don't think you can get away from UK and US filler TBH. Look at TG4, it schedules numerous imports and I don't expect it to have a 24 hour Irish language service.

And also why didn't TV3 take Top of the Pops when it started airing instead opting for the Pepsi Chart Show!