TV licence soon required for PCs, laptops, and tablets?

27-03-2017 02:07PM

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Then its a property tax, and would be simpler and more efficient to collect as that.

filbert the fox · 27-03-2017 02:09PM

murpho999 wrote: »

No,they don't won't to double the licence fee, the DG was misquoted.

Either way a licence fee on tablets over a certain size is totally unenforceable.

They need to come up with a new way of collecting this revenue.

Never mind that that fee on devices is unenforceable - the One in Five who currently break the law for non possession of a licence - what's being done about them?

Permabear · 27-03-2017 02:10PM

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JDxtra · 27-03-2017 02:39PM

Shut down all TV and radio stations except RTE 1 and RTE Radio 1. Get rid of Fair City. Have all news, current affairs and sport on the remaining TV and radio channel. Charge €75/year.

Zillah · 27-03-2017 02:45PM

We should definitely have and pay for a public news broadcasting service. We want and need journalism free from economic pressures to avoid undue influence or the need for lowest common denominator click-farming.

So cancel everything RTE do other than the news service, slash the license fee to about 20%, and have a very well run well funded news service. Personally I'm not sure how it is even legal to have a state funded competitor poisoning the market for private broadcasters like TV3.

Did you know Ryan Tubridy gets paid half a million euro every year? Makes me physically sick.

I did some math:
If you sent someone door to door, spending five minutes at each house, and convinced every single homeowner to dig into their pockets and hand over 160 euro cash, and did this non-stop for an eight hour shift every day, to gather enough to cover Tubridy's salary it would take you thirty two days without a day off to do it.

filbert the fox · 27-03-2017 02:52PM

Zillah wrote: »

We should definitely have and pay for a public news broadcasting service. We want and need journalism free from economic pressures to avoid undue influence or the need for lowest common denominator click-farming.

So cancel everything RTE do other than the news service, slash the license fee to about 20%, and have a very well run well funded news service. Personally I'm not sure how it is even legal to have a state funded competitor poisoning the market for private broadcasters like TV3.

Did you know Ryan Tubridy gets paid half a million euro every year? Makes me physically sick.

I did some math:
If you sent someone door to door, spending five minutes at each house, and convinced every single homeowner to dig into their pockets and hand over 160 euro cash, and did this non-stop for an eight hour shift every day, to gather enough to cover Tubridy's salary it would take you thirty two days without a day off to do it.

leave the poor fella alone - sure he's workin' all the hours providence can give....sure there's not a pick on him - doesn't even have time to eat.

.....and sure doesn't the Revenue get 52% back....

_Kaiser_ · 27-03-2017 02:58PM

Zillah wrote: »

We should definitely have and pay for a public news broadcasting service. We want and need journalism free from economic pressures to avoid undue influence or the need for lowest common denominator click-farming.

Agreed but that's not RTE I'm afraid.

Permabear · 27-03-2017 03:19PM

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Bob24 · 27-03-2017 03:23PM

Zillah wrote: »

We want and need journalism free from economic pressures to avoid undue influence or the need for lowest common denominator click-farming.

Freeing them for financial pressure is one possible mean to achieve it, but I think the end goal is much broader: we should expect a national broadcaster to be as unbiased as possible in its reporting, and to represent the various ways of thinking in Irish society.

The problem is that because RTE is free from financial pressure and has guaranteed income, there is noting forcing it to deliver that end goal. And as with every organisation since there is nothing pushing it otherwise it tends towards only one give bias and ideology and that strong core of editorial staff who all broadly have the same political opinions is both unrepresentative of society as a whole and preventing any change as it will make it very hard for someone who things differently to be accepted.

This problem is not unique to RTE and exists with public broadcasters in a number of other countries.

Bob24 · 27-03-2017 03:32PM

Permabear wrote: »

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I am not saying it is working (and there are other reasons why RTE is biased), but I think one purpose of having a TV licence ring-fenced to fund broadcasting rather than using general taxation is meant to be a way to insulate the likes of RTE from political pressure (i.e. it makes it more difficult for the government to quietly change the money allocated to RTE in the budget each years as a way to pressure them into being complaisant).

SEPT 23 1989 · 27-03-2017 03:33PM

So every business small and big in the country with an internet connection will now have to pay this tax

Permabear · 27-03-2017 03:36PM

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pilly · 27-03-2017 03:37PM

SEPT 23 1989 wrote:

So every business small and big in the country with an internet connection will now have to pay this tax

Yeah I wonder how that's going to work?

Skatedude · 27-03-2017 03:50PM

So what would the legality of forcing a charge on a minor? how would it be legal if a child in the house owns a laptop or pc? they are under age, yet still required to pay the fee?

Or the same issue where schools in ireland have gone digital and replaced books with tablets and laptops, those families are now been penalized because of what school their children go to, again surely there would be a valid legal argument there?

Permabear · 27-03-2017 03:57PM

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ScumLord · 27-03-2017 04:01PM

I just don't see how this is workable. I use my PC at home to do work, this means they're going to tax my means of work. What next are they going to start putting a tax on holding a hammer, or putting a pen behind your ear?

This highlights our public servants can't think about solutions other than raising tax to make up for their inefficiency.

RTE is a dinosaur, as it is it's a dead duck and they're using money to keep it afloat. It needs a radical overhaul, it's been trying to fight with the big boys for the last decade and it's been losing. Now it's been given a new format and instead of embracing it, it's trying to pull it's saviour under with it.

nosilver · 27-03-2017 04:04PM

Why do people believe the utter sh1te published by the sensationalist and hysterical indo?

Utterly amazing how many people think that if its in the indo it must be true.

nosilver · 27-03-2017 04:07PM

Zillah wrote: »

We should definitely have and pay for a public news broadcasting service. We want and need journalism free from economic pressures to avoid undue influence or the need for lowest common denominator click-farming.

So cancel everything RTE do other than the news service, slash the license fee to about 20%, and have a very well run well funded news service. Personally I'm not sure how it is even legal to have a state funded competitor poisoning the market for private broadcasters like TV3.

Did you know Ryan Tubridy gets paid half a million euro every year? Makes me physically sick.

I did some math:
If you sent someone door to door, spending five minutes at each house, and convinced every single homeowner to dig into their pockets and hand over 160 euro cash, and did this non-stop for an eight hour shift every day, to gather enough to cover Tubridy's salary it would take you thirty two days without a day off to do it.

You know that the late late show is rte's most profitable programme and makes several million in net profit.

Live gaa / horse racing / soccer are the highest net losers for rte.

Talk shows are cheap to produce. Live sports is expensive to produce.

The Talking Bread · 27-03-2017 04:18PM

Maura and Daithi trying a bit of a pro RTE spin PR segment on their show right now! Must feel awkward for them!

OldMrBrennan83 · 27-03-2017 04:20PM

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BoatMad · 27-03-2017 04:24PM

nosilver wrote: »

Why do people believe the utter sh1te published by the sensationalist and hysterical indo?

Utterly amazing how many people think that if its in the indo it must be true.

it is a current scheme being consider by Denis Naughton , its being bounced around for several years and abandoned several times as unworkable

will it see the light of day with the present Gov, I doubt it

27-03-2017 08:47PM

The problem is that there isn't any proper objective independent journalism anymore, not in RTE or anywhere else.

Most news items are based on Press Releases drafted by people with vested interests and given to the media. If the release is drafted correctly you can be sure that it will feature in the news the following day, complete with the spin provided by the organisation that drafted it.

It's not worth paying for this.

Firefox11 · 27-03-2017 08:51PM

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Watching Netflix hunched over a laptop sounds like great fun.

vkid · 27-03-2017 08:54PM

Deleted User wrote:

The problem is that there isn't any proper objective independent journalism anymore, not Rte or anywhere else,
Most news items are based on Press Releases drafted by people with vested interests and given to the media. If the release is drafted correctly you can be sure that it will feature in the news the following day, complete with the spin provided by the organisation that drafted it.

100% agree. What's particularly sad is rte are one of the worst for spin.

Grayson · 27-03-2017 09:14PM

Firefox11 wrote: »

Watching Netflix hunched over a laptop sounds like great fun.

A hell of a lot of people who play computer games have large computer monitors. they generally have a far higher quality than most TV sets. It's not unusual to see those monitors also being quite large.

BoatMad · 27-03-2017 09:18PM

Grayson wrote: »

A hell of a lot of people who play computer games have large computer monitors. they generally have a far higher quality than most TV sets. It's not unusual to see those monitors also being quite large.

then the household will need a license . :P:P:P

q2ice · 27-03-2017 09:30PM

nosilver wrote: »

You know that the late late show is rte's most profitable programme and makes several million in net profit.

Live gaa / horse racing / soccer are the highest net losers for rte.

Talk shows are cheap to produce. Live sports is expensive to produce.

It might sound cynical but the reason why The Late Late Show is so profitable is due to the large viewership which in turn leads to RTE being able to charge more for the ads being shown while it is being aired (and at a lesser extend during the replay).
One of the other reasons being that a lot of the content on it now is paid for advertising. Mentioned it on another post but I would love to know how much they were paid to include DNA testing segment. They got "celebrities" to appear and trace their potential heritage based on their DNA.
Not a single disclaimer to point out that it was paid for advertising nor the ethical nor privacy concerns over supplying your DNA to a private company which will keep your data on record for a small fee.

nosilver · 27-03-2017 09:47PM

q2ice wrote: »

It might sound cynical but the reason why The Late Late Show is so profitable is due to the large viewership which in turn leads to RTE being able to charge more for the ads being shown while it is being aired (and at a lesser extend during the replay).
One of the other reasons being that a lot of the content on it now is paid for advertising. Mentioned it on another post but I would love to know how much they were paid to include DNA testing segment. They got "celebrities" to appear and trace their potential heritage based on their DNA.
Not a single disclaimer to point out that it was paid for advertising nor the ethical nor privacy concerns over supplying your DNA to a private company which will keep your data on record for a small fee.

Yes, its more profitable because it has a large audience - 40% of available audience at the time of broadcast (graham norton gets 18%) - and can charge more for advertising. One of the reasons for the audience is the presenter.

I think if paid promotion is on, it states it in the credits. I do know that audience prize has no cost associated with it, but you have to provide a product value of €100 for 220 audience members.

The Talking Bread · 27-03-2017 10:06PM

The loss of the 6 Nations, whilst I am not a huge rugby fan, and especially with Royyyyall as head of sporting affairs must have really hurt the hearts of RTE and may be one of the reasons for these suggestions of upping their fees.

Along with the Rugby World Cup, Heineken Cup matches, some big GAA games, Tuesday night Champ League coverage, some big horse racing festivals coverage, losing a lot of pro boxing bouts with Irish contestants they had a good few years back, the station is evergrowingly losing one of it's prime attractions, it's sporting coverage as they can't afford to bid for them.

Billy86 · 27-03-2017 10:39PM

Firefox11 wrote: »

Watching Netflix hunched over a laptop sounds like great fun.

You're aware you can also use a laptop while lying down, right?

Also, you can grab one of these on Amazon for €200-300 (often as much as half of that on sale) and play at high quality up to 100 inches without a TV licence applying. They range from about the size of a large smartphone to the size of one of the smaller, more modern DVD players and you need to mount anything to the wall of give up a pile of space for a table to put your TV on.

A 60+ inch TV at barely half the size is going to set you back at least 2-3 times that, and then if/when the licence cost doubles you're looking at €1,000 bare minimum for the first year (e.g. when you but the telly) and €320 thereafter just for the standard channels without any choice in the matter

A 100 inch projector with a subscription for Netflix and Sky Sports 1 + 2 Prime would be about €400-450 year one and €165 thereafter (or more like €13-14/mo since you can unsubscribe and/or switch to other services as and when you wish).

"Flicking between a dozen or so terrestrial channels on a box half the size and twice the price sounds like great fun".

TV licence soon required for PCs, laptops, and tablets?

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