The future of RTE after Tubsgate.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121436826#Comment_121436826

It already happened with the Licence Fee back in 2011.

The government of the day did 2 things.

1. They reduced TG4 Funding from the Exchequer
2. The difference in that cut was then taken away from RTÉ's share of the licence fee and given to TG4

This continued until 2018 when the decision was reversed.

Huge questions as to how legal it was, perhaps legislation was past.

The question is not about the Licence fee or Funding, this is a minor question and if solved would not have resulted in any changes in RTÉ, I'd imagine any real increase would have just resulted in more money being wasted.

Bad Governance and mismanagement of RTÉ are at the heart of the problems, anything else is how should I put it ... Existential!

LambshankRedemption

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121436981#Comment_121436981

Theres no need to increase general taxation. Just pay from it from the existing pot.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121437500#Comment_121437500

what happens if that pot doesn't exist or the government had to make cuts? Do you cut 200m from Health and keep paying out 200m to RTÉ?

TG4 are in that situation, current government and almost all future government will have no problem funding TG4 but what if they don't have the money as we saw in 2011, TG4 gets cut... which resulted in cuts to RTÉ.

IMO put a small fee across all forms of On-Demand and Telecommunications services, allow ComReg and CnaM dictated that fee on an annual basis.

This small % of your telecommunications/entertainment bill would then go to Public Service Broadcasting across the board.

You could set the amount at 300m to be raised, how much would you have to add to people's bills (3%? 4%)... of course then you have the cost of living crisis.

LambshankRedemption

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121437553#Comment_121437553

There is 23% VAT on every TV sold, on every sky or virgin bill which goes to the government coffers. Why can that not be used to fund the PSB?

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121437575#Comment_121437575

I agree, a portion of that 23% could be used. And from a business point of view you could only allow 20% of the VAT on telecom products to be returned to business in VAT returns.

I think the tax has to go across all telecoms and on-demand services.

People see no problem spending 160euro a month on bills across mobile, TV, on-demand, Broadband and so on.

That's about €29 in tax, €14 could be issued to Public Service Broadcasting.

decor58

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121437575#Comment_121437575

It's continual funding that is the issue. I worked in the tv trade many years ago, we could not keep up with demand for tv for Italia90, sales were through the floor for a couple of years after. Sky and Virgin are continually loosing tv customers, that's why they push bundles so much. What happens when that source of revenue drops or dries up. Its that same "government coffers" that funds housing, education, health, social welfare, transport, yes we have a tax surplus at the moment but look how much the figures have changed from last year.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121437943#Comment_121437943

Sky and Virgin will continue to be Broadband providers, and will provide on demand service through their Set top boxes / TV Sets.

I'd include mobile phone bills, on-demand services bills and others who provide some kind of telecommunications all of whom we pay a 23% VAT charge. 300m from that VAT would be a tiny fraction of what is raised.

RTE announces some detail about it’s €10 million planned cuts for 2024. One measure is that Fair City goes from 4 to 3 nights a week from January.

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2023/1130/1419432-rte-cuts-finances/

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121438502#Comment_121438502

I would seriously wonder about this cut. I doubt that cutting fair city by 25% is could to cut costs to Fair City by 25%.

In the new direction plan they state they will aim for 60 more hours of drama per year, but this cuts drama back by 52 hours, meaning their new direction is only give 8 hours of new drama per year.

I'd wonder if they have looked to see if Fair City could cut cost first before reducing to 3 episodes a week.

Surely this should have been outlined in the new direction.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121436944#Comment_121436944

Well yeah. Successive governments have refused to increase the licence fee (although more because this would be unpopular, rather than a specific beef with RTE it seems) add that to falling advertising income and, yes, plenty of mismanagement and it's no wonder RTE is heading for the rocks.

But increasing the licence fee and / or exchequer funding without reforming RTE is just rewarding failure.

Performative nonsense like shutting down digital radio, or the +1s, or taking a night off Fair City are really just rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.

RoTelly

Full press release here : -

https://about.rte.ie/2023/11/30/rte-confirms-range-of-measures-as-part-of-cost-controls-for-2024/

MOD EDIT: the rule is a link and a summary please. Not a copy and paste of three quarters of the press release. Thanks.

iseegirls

--- The transmission of Young Offenders will also be deferred until 2025.

How is there savings here? It'll be broadcast on BBC One anyway over the next few months.

icdg

Presumably similar to the infamous case of Amber, which was produced three years before it aired. Apparently RTE didn’t have to pay for it until it aired and kept postponing it. It got overseas airings in a number of countries before it aired on the broadcaster that commissioned it.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121438716#Comment_121438716

It have a feeling that only a financial accounting thing, I think RTÉ still spend the money in the year of production but the cost is only incurred in the year of broadcast. I think it is similar to Amber but in that case I think RTÉ were the main / if no the only financier.

I wonder if RTÉ have asked the BBC to do the same, because I wouldn't have thought that RTÉ spend much on The Young Offenders its mainly a BBC commission and financed by them.

Much of this is very little, RTÉ are basically telling us that cost in RTÉ go up during the summer months, something that successive boards / leadership teams have failed to address.

icdg

It’s a particularly tough summer next year for them because there’s European and council elections, then Euro 24, then the Olympics.

dublinman1990

Which Saturday night chat show is being cut in 2024?

I have a feeling that it could be Angela Scanlon's Ask Me Anything.

The Tommy Tiernan Show would probably be safe next year unless both are there for the chop.

AJB39

The Tommy Tiernan Show will return in January. I think this effectively means the cancellation of Angela Scanlon’s Ask Me Anything. I didn’t air in the Autumn and it now won’t air in the Spring either. A shame because while I’m almost certainly in the minority, I did enjoy it.

saabsaab

Cutting back programming and +1s means a loss in advertising too. Are they trying to make it harder?

iseegirls

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121438855#Comment_121438855

Could they go to Virgin Media and see if they could split the Euro's? Or does the benefits of advertising and sponsorship outweigh that idea.

z80CPU

Yes, the benefit of advertising and sponsorship and business politics outweighs such idea.

As an aside remember virgin didn't screen a football match because it hadn't paid the license fee to screen the match according to sky.

Rubberchikken

I know.i could probably look it up somewhere but I'm inclined to laziness and also working but howuch is the full total of salaries/wages monthly or even yearly in rte does anyone know.

I don't think there's much to save cutting a few hours off fair city.

Rte is overstaffed imo. Too many of the same types all holding on for dear life knowing full well that's there's nothing cushier and better paid elsewhere.

AJB39

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121439915#Comment_121439915

They wouldn’t be making the cut to Fair City if it wasn’t going to save money. Also 400 jobs or 1/5 of the workforce of RTÉ is going to go in the next few years. That’s a lot of people.

LambshankRedemption

I don't watch it myself but reducing Fair City by one episode a week makes zero sense to me. It'll have to be replaced by something for airtime? What will they replace it with? Most likely a re-run of killinaskully, of Room to Improve, which no-one will watch, so its a loss in advertising for them. By reducing one episode of FC a week, are all the actors getting a 25% reduction? Unlikely.

I used to enjoy watching the 6-1 news on plus one, because I was never home in time to watch it at 6pm. I'm sure I wasn't the only one. I'd say most people will switch over to Sky News instead, so more advertising gone.

RoTelly

Who knew that the Euros were on and then the Olympics. Honestly you'd wonder why the sports department decided to get those sports the other day.

I wonder if RTÉ could talk to the organisers of the Euros and the Olympics to maybe organise them every 4 years or every 2 years, not this really random way of every maybe 3 or 10, or I think once they had them back to back, I mean a more regular 4 years might be better no? Oh yeah, this is not unusual.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121440128#Comment_121440128

RTÉ are cutting 2 months out of Fair City's filming. This cut during the summer months, you would think that you would cut it in Nov or Dec or Jan to avoid bad weather but RTÉ have choose July and August. There is a huge question to summer months in RTÉ.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121440128#Comment_121440128

They've already cut DAB which didn't save much, they plan to cut the digital radio channels off Saorview which will save next to nothing, and cut the +1s which might actually mean a net loss

The FC actors are all staff now are they not - do they get the same salary regardless of number of episodes (after all, not everyone is in every episode anyway)

Hotblack Desiato

I used to enjoy watching the 6-1 news on plus one, because I was never home in time to watch it at 6pm. I'm sure I wasn't the only one. I'd say most people will switch over to Sky News instead, so more advertising gone.

Yeah. You'd think they'd make it easy to catch up with the most recent news bulletin on the RTE Player. They don't even have it as a category in the app on my TV. (Issues of the player not working aside, you have to find the thing you want to watch first...)

Kerry_2008

I presume the saving on Fair City is that by recording 4 episodes weekly and only broadcasting 3 that they have to employ the actors for less time. Apart from the actors categorized as staff ( Tony Thornley) etc the rest are only on 6 week contracts at a time and do Panto's etc. So by only broadcasting 3 episodes they can reduce the amount of time they might need certain cast members over the course of the entire year. For example if some actor was needed for 24 weeks to record 24 episodes that means rte will get 4 months of airtime out of that actor as opposed to 3. So as time goes on on an annual basis they will need less actors on a year on year basis.