Dee Forbes banging the RTE TV licence drum again 60m uncollected fee *poll not working - pl ignore*

Elmo wrote: »

This is true but don't image that BBC going behind a paywall will increase RTÉ revenues significantly. I do think they have miss a trick by not adding BBC shows to the RTÉ player as the appear on the BBC, e.g. fairly sure Match of the Day would do better on the player than The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

It could definitely have a serious increase in audience numbers.

Like I said previous, the sub model is going to eat itself.

RTE have a great opportunity here going forward, the next DG appointment they make will be crucial.

Right now they should scrap the RTE player, primarily because it simply doesn't work.

Beta Ray Bill wrote: »

Dee Forbes is at it again over the TV licence fee.

Whinging the €60m wasn't collected and RTE cannot compete.

That's about 375,00 homes not paying the fee, so evasion is about 15%

The whole TV licence thing REALLY bugs me.
I don't watch RTE, not even for the Soccer/GAA. I might listen to the radio when I drive the car in the morning (which is once a blue moon)
I don't use the service, why the hell should I have to pay for it!

Obviously we cannot get rid of RTE as there are a great many people that do use the service.
That being said massive reforms are needed.
Firstly, do we really need RTE1 and RTE2? One channel would be enough.
Same with the radio stations, we only need one.
Do we REALLY need TG4?

The land they are on as well is ridiculous, some of the most valuable land in the country. They don't need to be there, they could be out in Athlone or somewhere an no one would know the difference.

And then there's the salaries of the bigshots
Ryan Tubridy - €500,000 per year is the biggest Joke of all
That salary puts him on a par with the likes of Claudia Winkleman, Alan Shearer, Fiona Bruce of the BBC.
He is nothing compared to them.
BBC can justify big salaries as it is broadcast around the world, and the content is generally quite good.
No one outside of Ireland know's who Tubb's is.

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/rte-director-general-calls-for-changes-in-tv-licence-fee-as-60m-uncollected-annually-840770.html

If RTE1/RTE2 vanished in the morning, I certainly would not miss it as never watch it, it really is dire viewing and always was,

jimmynokia wrote: »

Great to have friends aint it https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/court-approves-29m-debt-write-off-for-frank-mcnamara-and-theresa-lowe-39006024.html

What has that article or your post go to do with anything here. ??

jimmynokia wrote: »

MASSIVE CLUE THEY WORKED FOR RTE AND WILL PROBABLY BE ON THE LATE LATE NEXT WEEK OR SOON AFTER Read between the lines

Many years ago.

Idbatterim wrote: »

They will be on the late late on Saturday night with tubridy sharing the go fund me page rte have set up for them !

Sadly, that wouldn't even surprise me...

Then the following week, they could do something similar for Ronan Ryan and Pamela Flood, so others can continue to pay for their nice house in Clontarf.

garrettod wrote: »

That pie chart showing the poll results on this thread, speaks volumes...

If RTE was a virus we would all be dead by now

RabbleRouser2k wrote: »

'High Road, Low Road'...

A show where rich (well, richer than us) plonkers get a free holidayl...

And you pay for it. RTE only commissioned the show back in January, so it's a rush job filler ton of absolute F**king s**te.

Watch Twink, Des Bishop, Joanne McNally, two tw*ts from Fair city, and a whole host more get a free holiday that you can't afford... and if you don't pay the license fee, you'll get a fine, or go to prison.

RTE is poison.

Twink giving it the full "mother of sorrows" in the advert for it too. Poor Edel. The world is against her.

garrettod wrote: »

Dee Forbes regularly tells us that our national public service broadcaster needs help, and she's right, it needs help in:

* realising what a public service broadcaster is supposed to be

there is the problem, what a public service broadcaster is supposed to be is different for different people.
some want one thing and others want another thing from it.

garrettod wrote: »

* realising that public broadcasters are not supposed to pay out hundreds of thousands of euro to their staff / contractors

according to who?
both the public service broadcasters here and in the uk are unfortunately expected to be commercial, and thus be part of the broadcasting market in terms of talent, and in our case advertising.
so unfortunately some times it will mean paying high wages to staff members. not to mention broadcasters will be paid in terms of the amount of revenue they bring in.

garrettod wrote: »

* realising that a public service broadcaster isn't supposed to try and compete with commercial TV channels

* realising that we don't need to to spend a small fortune buying in programming so RTE can show reruns of TV shows that we have the option of watching on other channels. With Satellite TV and Cable TV, not to mention Internet TV services, almost every home in the country has the option of getting commercial TV channels now.

that is down to government rather then rte.
government, and i would expect some of the public, expect rte to be commercial as well as public service.
rte can do little in that regard unfortunately.
until that changes, they will have to do what they can to gain commercial revenue.

RabbleRouser2k wrote: »

'High Road, Low Road'...

A show where rich (well, richer than us) plonkers get a free holidayl...

And you pay for it. RTE only commissioned the show back in January, so it's a rush job filler ton of absolute F**king s**te.

Watch Twink, Des Bishop, Joanne McNally, two tw*ts from Fair city, and a whole host more get a free holiday that you can't afford... and if you don't pay the license fee, you'll get a fine, or go to prison.

RTE is poison.

i would agree it sounds absolutely s//t, but i would bet people are watching it, even if they may not admit to it.

Boggles wrote: »

Of course it is, RTE has a commercial remit.

And that's fundamentally wrong. It's been developed into the so called remit of RTE over time, to help justify and pay for some of the stuff that RTE has been doing or wanting to do, but that doesn't make it right.

A public service broadcaster isn't created to try and compete with Sky, BT Sports, ITV, FM104 etc etc etc.

If we go back to a post just above, the point is raised about what a public service broadcaster is supposed to be. Maybe that's where the entire county and RTE need to start (again).

Have a read of this, as a starting point :

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_broadcasting

The population has access to commercial TV through satellite, cable service and internet, so there's no need to pay for and rebroadcast the likes of Eastenders, or American TV shows.

Likewise, the population has access to commercial radio stations, so no need for Radio 2FM etc.

Anyone who wants commercial TV or Radio can get it commercially, no reason for the state and all of its population to have to pay for it by force.

Likewise, there is no reason for the state and population to have to see their funds used to pay €300k - €500k pa to various TV and radio show presenters, when there are very capable people available who can replace these "celebs" for €100k pa or maybe even less. Be realistic for a moment here and tell me, how many of the Top10 (never mind Top 50) earners at RTE would get a job doing the same thing, on the same money, elsewhere in Ireland or the UK? Very few, if any, would travel much further, but feel free to challenge if you wish.

We don't live in a country with no alternatives for TV and Radio entertainment, where the State has to provide TV and Radio entertainment, so get past that and ask what do we actually need from a state owned public service broadcaster?.

For me one TV station and two Radio Stations, is more than enough. Everything else can be sourced by commercial means, so no need for the State to have to provide it, or compel us all to pay for it.

garrettod wrote: »

And that's fundamentally wrong. It's been developed into the so called remit of RTE over time, to help justify and pay for some of the stuff that RTE has been doing or wanting to do, but that doesn't make it right.

A public service broadcaster isn't created to try and compete with Sky, BT Sports, ITV, FM104 etc etc etc.

If we go back to a post just above, the point is raised about what a public service broadcaster is supposed to be. Maybe that's where the entire county and RTE need to start (again).

Have a read of this, as a starting point :

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_broadcasting

The population has access to commercial TV through satellite, cable service and internet, so there's no need to pay for and rebroadcast the likes of Eastenders, or American TV shows.

Likewise, the population has access to commercial radio stations, so no need for Radio 2FM etc.

Anyone who wants commercial TV or Radio can get it commercially, no reason for the state and all of its population to have to pay for it by force.

Likewise, there is no reason for the state and population to have to see their funds used to pay €300k - €500k pa to various TV and radio show presenters, when there are very capable people available who can replace these "celebs" for €100k pa or maybe even less. Be realistic for a moment here and tell me, how many of the Top10 (never mind Top 50) earners at RTE would get a job doing the same thing, on the same money, elsewhere in Ireland or the UK? Very few, if any, would travel much further, but feel free to challenge if you wish.

We don't live in a country with no alternatives for TV and Radio entertainment, where the State has to provide TV and Radio entertainment, so get past that and ask what do we actually need from a state owned public service broadcaster?.

For me one TV station and two Radio Stations, is more than enough. Everything else can be sourced by commercial means, so no need for the State to have to provide it, or compel us all to pay for it.

the only stuff that could be sourced commercially are.
the entertainment fluff on rte tv.
the pop music on 2fm.
everything else for the most part could not be sourced commercially.

end of the road wrote: »

there is the problem, what a public service broadcaster is supposed to be is different for different people.
some want one thing and others want another thing from it.

i would agree it sounds absolutely s//t, but i would bet people are watching it, even if they may not admit to it.

I imagine it's so cheap for them to make, they don't care. They repeat those shows in the very early hours of the morning, or the very 'late' hours of the morning as cheap filler. Like they did with The Salon.
Plus it's cheap filler while Corrie or Emmerdale is on the other side.
RTe won't gamble against the soaps. They know they'd lose.

It's why they had crap about the Driving test. Not anything informative about a Driving test... nope.
Just people taking a driving test.

When they gonna get Kathryn Thomas to do a program about paint drying? People worried they won't have the wall painted in time for the Angelus?

Elmo wrote: »

The problem with RTÉ is that they don't do enough of the cheaper type of programming, and their big programming looks cheap with the rare exception. (I know this seems like an oxymoron)

I think most will praise RTÉ for the Redress programme and the Big Life Fix.

But they fail to produce a simple quiz show, they've pretty much given up on RTÉ2 content, while their online player exclusive content is unwatchable.

While you might argue that RTÉ is supposed to be for everyone with lots of different content they largely only provide a service for sports and current affairs, outside of this they are very limited.

While Radio has most of their attention.

From what I can see RTÉ reduced RTÉ2 spend by 30m (TV being expensive to produce) while keeping 2FM spend at 12m by giving it 5m from the licence fee, sure 2FM should have see some cuts.

To me, all I see is the cheap programs...at least, cheap to produce, cheaper to repeat. Nothing that can go on the RTE player, besides the mandatory 'catch up' thing. Much of their programming now is 'Nostalgia' based... cheap as chips to produce, too.

On the other hand, they have shows up there now that cost a good chunk of change, yet are decades old.
But the player is so broken, it's farcical.

Elmo wrote: »

How does RTÉ justify this?

RTE's Dee Forbes can justify anything...

including her own very hefty remuneration package (previously reported at €338,000) :rolleyes: