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

mgn · 08-10-2020 06:32PM

elperello wrote: »

"My guess is they massively overpaid some artist connected in some way to an RTÉ staff member for said pieces of art... and somehow thought they had the next Mona Lisa on their wall..

etc. etc."

Very funny but completely untrue.

The paintings in question were the property of RTE for up to 50 years.

Louis le Brocquy, William Scott, Tony O'Malley and George Campbell were all accomplished artists.

The vagaries of the art market are not a reflection on the merit of the works.

Do you miss looking at the paintings, which one did the take out of your office.

Kivaro · 08-10-2020 06:35PM

mgn wrote: »

Do you miss looking at the paintings, which one did the take out of your office.

Brilliant.

elperello · 08-10-2020 07:25PM

mgn wrote: »

Do you miss looking at the paintings, which one did the take out of your office.

Kivaro wrote: »

Brilliant.

Truth matters

mgn · 08-10-2020 07:32PM

elperello wrote: »

Truth matters

Go on tell us so, which painting did the take on you or did the give you first refusal.

elperello · 08-10-2020 07:36PM

mgn wrote: »

Go on tell us so, which painting did the take on you or did the give you first refusal.

The speculative post regarding the art works was based on a complete misapprehension.

I put the record straight.

Live with it.

08-10-2020 07:41PM

What on earth is a radio and tv station collecting “works of art” all about anyway? Could they just try to be a good broadcaster?

Please?

elperello · 08-10-2020 07:56PM

Deleted User wrote: »

What on earth is a radio and tv station collecting “works of art” all about anyway? Could they just try to be a good broadcaster?

Please?

Art in publicly owned buildings is hardly an unknown concept.

Many state owned buildings have art works on display in both public and non-public areas.

Whether this is a good thing or not is certainly worth a debate but it is a wider issue and not just pertaining to RTE.

Of course all state and semi state enterprises should try to be good at their core businesses.

The idea that having works of art in their buildings would inhibit them in that is a bit strange.

Elmo · 08-10-2020 08:57PM

elperello wrote: »

The idea that having works of art in their buildings would inhibit them in that is a bit strange.

So too is the idea of selling such art work to plug a whole in your finances, while ignoring other issues at the company. RTÉ hoped on high prices for these works in much the same way as the hope selling the RTÉ Guide would help.

elperello · 08-10-2020 09:18PM

Elmo wrote: »

So too is the idea of selling such art work to plug a whole in your finances, while ignoring other issues at the company. RTÉ hoped on high prices for these works in much the same way as the hope selling the RTÉ Guide would help.

I have said before on this and other threads that selling assets, cutting salaries and reducing services are not the solution.

Piecemeal initiatives will not deliver the change that is needed.

What we need to do is decide (1) what we want from a Public Broadcasting Service,(2) how much that will cost and (3) how to raise the funding.

Elmo · 08-10-2020 10:07PM

elperello wrote: »

What we need to do is decide (1) what we want from a Public Broadcasting Service,(2) how much that will cost and (3) how to raise the funding.

1. One that will reform
2. It’s getting plenty they must prove they require more, see 1. Above
3. Changing how it is funded will not help 1 & 2 above.

AndrewJRenko · 08-10-2020 10:14PM

Elmo wrote: »

Btw Franc (don't look him up) earned 25,000 for John Delaney's 50th b-day party!

How much do you think the kickback was?

elperello · 08-10-2020 10:48PM

Elmo wrote: »

1. One that will reform
2. It’s getting plenty they must prove they require more, see 1. Above
3. Changing how it is funded will not help 1 & 2 above.

That's the sort of thing.

Thanks for the input.

What's needed now is to find out what everyone else thinks, arrive at a consensus
and then implement it.

Elmo · 09-10-2020 02:06AM

elperello wrote: »

That's the sort of thing.

Thanks for the input.

What's needed now is to find out what everyone else thinks, arrive at a consensus
and then implement it.

Good luck with that seen it all before, only 3 years a go did a joint committee reach a consensus as to what was required, it’s a very nice door stop, much like all of the others before them.

How about your input. Do you agree that RTÉ needs to reform first before changing the license fee or increasing it?

Are they doing enough with what they get?

What kind of public service broadcaster do you want?

Kivaro · 09-10-2020 06:33AM

elperello wrote: »

I have said before on this and other threads that selling assets, cutting salaries and reducing services are not the solution.

Bullshoite. Isn't that how they talk at RTE?
There should be salary cuts across most levels at the RTE quango, but especially focused on their millionaires Tubridy et al.
There should also be job cuts, duplication removal, and a comprehensive service reduction in order for them to align with their primary purpose, which is to be the national broadcaster of this country.
This is how RTE will get their financial situation under control and become a self-sustainable entity.

Report on the news and events that affect the people of Ireland. Do not pontificate or dictate what Dee Forbes and the board of RTE want us to hear.
And it would be nice if RTE stopped talking down to us.

NIMAN · 09-10-2020 06:36AM

Here's a question someone may be able to answer.

At the end of each show, you hear a list of behind-the-scenes folk read out.
The person on sound, the BCO, the editor(s), etc.

Wondering is there a separate team for each show?

Maysa07 · 09-10-2020 07:04AM

Kivaro wrote: »

Bullshoite. Isn't that how they talk at RTE?
There should be salary cuts across most levels at the RTE quango, but especially focused on their millionaires Tubridy et al.
There should also be job cuts, duplication removal, and a comprehensive service reduction in order for them to align with their primary purpose, which is to be the national broadcaster of this country.
This is how RTE will get their financial situation under control and become a self-sustainable entity.

Report on the news and events that affect the people of Ireland. Do not pontificate or dictate what Dee Forbes and the board of RTE want us to hear.
And it would be nice if RTE stopped talking down to us.

I agree, I would like to see more focus on the 300 + Managers on 6 figure salaries. The organisation is very top heavy. I think there's 1 manager for every 5 staff . I will try dig out the figures later.

09-10-2020 07:10AM

Kivaro wrote: »

Bullshoite. Isn't that how they talk at RTE?
There should be salary cuts across most levels at the RTE quango, but especially focused on their millionaires Tubridy et al.
There should also be job cuts, duplication removal, and a comprehensive service reduction in order for them to align with their primary purpose, which is to be the national broadcaster of this country.
This is how RTE will get their financial situation under control and become a self-sustainable entity.

Report on the news and events that affect the people of Ireland. Do not pontificate or dictate what Dee Forbes and the board of RTE want us to hear.
And it would be nice if RTE stopped talking down to us.

You only have to look around you to see what most employers are having to do. Cut costs, downsize, consolidate, changing work practices and on and on, all because they have to face the reality of the situation we are all in.

Except for RTÉ. They quite clearly think they have some immunity from the economic consequences of this pandemic. Any Board worth its salt would be insisting the executive and management team take action. And I don’t mean getting the begging bowl out and heading off to Government.

Gervais08 · 09-10-2020 07:11AM

Sorry if this has been addressed but I always wonder about this - in the UK the argument for ending the license fee is to allow the BBC to show adverts.

How can we have a license fee AND adverts ?? Is that just not greed ???

Elmo · 09-10-2020 08:38AM

Gervais08 wrote: »

Sorry if this has been addressed but I always wonder about this - in the UK the argument for ending the license fee is to allow the BBC to show adverts.

How can we have a license fee AND adverts ?? Is that just not greed ???

None of the commercial broadcasters want the BBC to show ads. The ad market is the ad market if the BBC start showing ads (particularly on TV) the ad revenue for ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and the rest would drop significantly.

In Ireland if RTÉ were to stop airing advertising, it would have the opposite effect but because the BAI and the Government F'ed on Digital TV and because nearly 60% of the audience watch English TV the effect would of RTÉ not selling advertising would see Sky, Channel4, UKTV, Discovery etc adding more TV stations to grab that 25%+ of advertising revenue from the Irish market, Virgin Media would see no major increase in revenue.

Radio in both contries might be different, as UK radio is dominated by the BBC, ads might put the commerical radio stations on a level footing.

While in Ireland the national and local radio stations are ready enough to grab much of RTÉ's advertising if it were to let it go.

In Canada only CBC TV airs advertising. AFAIK.

elperello · 09-10-2020 02:28PM

Elmo wrote: »

Good luck with that seen it all before, only 3 years a go did a joint committee reach a consensus as to what was required, it’s a very nice door stop, much like all of the others before them.

How about your input. Do you agree that RTÉ needs to reform first before changing the license fee or increasing it?

Are they doing enough with what they get?

What kind of public service broadcaster do you want?

Past failures should not inhibit us from starting a process which can deliver the type of Public Broadcasting Service I believe we need.

I would not bother with piecemeal reform of RTE until we have a clearer picture of what we want in the longer term. To use an analogy from construction, you don't start building until you get the foundation in.
In the interim I would provide whatever extra funding is required subject to agreed targets.

My preference is to remove the licence fee altogether and fund the PBS from direct taxation. This would avoid evasion and collection/enforcement costs.

I would like to see a PBS free at the point of use like radio is today.
It would provide news, current affairs and light entertainment. I think coverage of sport is important along with cultural and community matters.

These are just my ideas but obviously the final shape of the PBS will require input from all sectors of society. As long as the process is open and inclusive I will be happy to live with the result.

mgn · 09-10-2020 02:54PM

elperello wrote: »

Past failures should not inhibit us from starting a process which can deliver the type of Public Broadcasting Service I believe we need.

I would not bother with piecemeal reform of RTE until we have a clearer picture of what we want in the longer term. To use an analogy from construction, you don't start building until you get the foundation in.
In the interim I would provide whatever extra funding is required subject to agreed targets.

My preference is to remove the licence fee altogether and fund the PBS from direct taxation. This would avoid evasion and collection/enforcement costs.

I would like to see a PBS free at the point of use like radio is today.
It would provide news, current affairs and light entertainment. I think coverage of sport is important along with cultural and community matters.

These are just my ideas but obviously the final shape of the PBS will require input from all sectors of society. As long as the process is open and inclusive I will be happy to live with the result.

The first thing you do on a building site is to clear the site first, that's the first thing that should be done with RTE, clear it out and bring in fresh talent.

Was Dee standing over you when you wrote this.

elperello · 09-10-2020 02:57PM

mgn wrote: »

The first thing you do on a building site is to clear the site first, that's the first thing that should be done with RTE, clear it out and bring in fresh talent.

Was Dee standing over you when you wrote this.

Very funny

09-10-2020 05:55PM

Only essential travel outside the county. Why is Catriona in Derry on the 6.1 news?

Elmo · 09-10-2020 09:25PM

elperello wrote: »

Past failures should not inhibit us from starting a process which can deliver the type of Public Broadcasting Service I believe we need.

Okay, so lets for a moment forget RTÉ's past and look at what it has. I will give you that.

I would not bother with piecemeal reform of RTE until we have a clearer picture of what we want in the longer term. To use an analogy from construction, you don't start building until you get the foundation in.
In the interim I would provide whatever extra funding is required subject to agreed targets.

So lets hear the picture. Not just in terms of platform, because that will change, but in terms of content? So what are the agree targets? And what happens if the targets are not met?

My preference is to remove the licence fee altogether and fund the PBS from direct taxation. This would avoid evasion and collection/enforcement costs.

Okay, but is the money got from the uptake in the licence fee the extra required or are you giving more. I agree with the licence fee regardless of how it is collected, but does the method of collection of the licence fee really make much of a difference to RTÉ? I do not think it does. In terms of how it is run.

I would like to see a PBS free at the point of use like radio is today.
It would provide news, current affairs and light entertainment. I think coverage of sport is important along with cultural and community matters.

How do you mean? Irish TV services are freely available like Radio services.

Okay so there's some content.

To my mind RTÉ do a good job in terms of news and current affairs (I am not saying it isn't bias but they provide a service). What do you think in terms of news content (not what is said on the news) what would you like, arts news? something like Radio1's Arena? International News? Sports News? And in terms of light entertainment how much or what kind of content is required. I mean I would say RTÉ do a relatively good job in sport, culture and the fall down in community, as they do in comedy, satire, children's (what are those targets?)

These are just my ideas but obviously the final shape of the PBS will require input from all sectors of society. As long as the process is open and inclusive I will be happy to live with the result.

So where are we starting from? Will it be inclusive? The make up of the Future of Media is largely academics with one sports guy and a member of the council of state, how is that inclusive?

J_M_G · 09-10-2020 10:16PM

Irish broadcasting and RTE reform should be very simple.

The only programming should be news bulletins, current affairs and discussion type shows, shows about Irish culture, regional affairs and history and Irish sport.

That's it.

No dramas, no soaps, no movies, no foreign sport, no low brow content like reality tv.

No ads either. Downsize it by 50-75% and fund it via general taxation. Scrap the license fee and all associated collection costs.

News bulletins every 2 hours at 7am, 9am, 11am, 1pm, 3pm, 5pm, 7pm and 9pm.
Nice and simple, focused exclusively on national news with international if it's something major and important.

Current affairs shows on politics, culture and social issues of the day. These should be 1-2 hour longform discussion shows. Simple and cheap to produce. Imagine Joe Rogan style conversations and debates. Just a bunch of people sitting around a table talking. Obviously the current manner RTE do things like this is awful and biased toward a liberal agenda and the whole thing needs completely overhauling, but the general idea behind current affairs discussion is timeless.

Irish sport. Self explanatory. GAA, LoI, etc. Nothing fancy. Just show the games and have the odd behind the scenes sport stuff. Easy.

Irish culture and history shows a la Nationwide. Simple regional reporting made by a crew of a half dozen people on interesting things around our nation.

That's literally it. No joke you could probably do all that for about 5% of the current RTE budget.

That's what a national broadcaster should be about. I bet if RTE did that, because it would cost f**k all to produce, most people would be totally fine with it being funded from general taxation. It would be a rounding error in the national budget if done right.

But we all know it will never happen because it would require a total obliteration of the RTE gravy train and wink wink nudge nudge inner circle of overpaid presenters and management and bureaucracy and nepotism.

appledrop · 09-10-2020 10:23PM

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Only essential travel outside the county. Why is Catriona in Derry on the 6.1 news?

I've made a complaint about this to rte, I await a response.

fritzelly · 09-10-2020 10:27PM

appledrop wrote: »

I've made a complaint about this to rte, I await a response.

Good luck with that

Brock Turnpike · 10-10-2020 11:29AM

J_M_G wrote: »

Irish broadcasting and RTE reform should be very simple.

The only programming should be news bulletins, current affairs and discussion type shows, shows about Irish culture, regional affairs and history and Irish sport.

That's it.

No dramas, no soaps, no movies, no foreign sport, no low brow content like reality tv.

No ads either. Downsize it by 50-75% and fund it via general taxation. Scrap the license fee and all associated collection costs.

News bulletins every 2 hours at 7am, 9am, 11am, 1pm, 3pm, 5pm, 7pm and 9pm.
Nice and simple, focused exclusively on national news with international if it's something major and important.

Current affairs shows on politics, culture and social issues of the day. These should be 1-2 hour longform discussion shows. Simple and cheap to produce. Imagine Joe Rogan style conversations and debates. Just a bunch of people sitting around a table talking. Obviously the current manner RTE do things like this is awful and biased toward a liberal agenda and the whole thing needs completely overhauling, but the general idea behind current affairs discussion is timeless.

Irish sport. Self explanatory. GAA, LoI, etc. Nothing fancy. Just show the games and have the odd behind the scenes sport stuff. Easy.

Irish culture and history shows a la Nationwide. Simple regional reporting made by a crew of a half dozen people on interesting things around our nation.

That's literally it. No joke you could probably do all that for about 5% of the current RTE budget.

That's what a national broadcaster should be about. I bet if RTE did that, because it would cost f**k all to produce, most people would be totally fine with it being funded from general taxation. It would be a rounding error in the national budget if done right.

But we all know it will never happen because it would require a total obliteration of the RTE gravy train and wink wink nudge nudge inner circle of overpaid presenters and management and bureaucracy and nepotism.

An extremely parochial view of things there. Why should it only focus on national news? Why should it only focus on national sports?

elperello · 10-10-2020 11:49AM

Elmo wrote: »

Okay, so lets for a moment forget RTÉ's past and look at what it has. I will give you that.

So lets hear the picture. Not just in terms of platform, because that will change, but in terms of content? So what are the agree targets? And what happens if the targets are not met?

As I said earlier I wouldn't make an big changes until we have agreed where we are going. This should be a relatively short transition phase so keeping to set targets will not be too much of a challenge.

Okay, but is the money got from the uptake in the licence fee the extra required or are you giving more. I agree with the licence fee regardless of how it is collected, but does the method of collection of the licence fee really make much of a difference to RTÉ? I do not think it does. In terms of how it is run.

The licence fee only raises €189m. As you say the amount given should not affect the running of the stations.

How do you mean? Irish TV services are freely available like Radio services.

Sorry I wasn't clear enough there. By free I mean free of licence.

Okay so there's some content.

To my mind RTÉ do a good job in terms of news and current affairs (I am not saying it isn't bias but they provide a service). What do you think in terms of news content (not what is said on the news) what would you like, arts news? something like Radio1's Arena? International News? Sports News? And in terms of light entertainment how much or what kind of content is required. I mean I would say RTÉ do a relatively good job in sport, culture and the fall down in community, as they do in comedy, satire, children's (what are those targets?)

News and current affairs are a strong point. I wouldn't dismiss light entertainment. The mix of programming is important to keep viewers/ listeners engaged. I forgot about children's content which should be part of the mix.

So where are we starting from? Will it be inclusive? The make up of the Future of Media is largely academics with one sports guy and a member of the council of state, how is that inclusive?

I had hoped for more engagement with the public which may not be possible with Covid 19 restrictions. I expect they will make some effort to invite submissions.

At the end of the day I don't expect the result to be tailor made to what I want but hope it will serve the public.

ButtersSuki · 10-10-2020 12:11PM

Brock Turnpike wrote: »

An extremely parochial view of things there. Why should it only focus on national news? Why should it only focus on national sports?

If RTE cover too much international events and stories their top contracted talent come under more pressure from the likes of NBC, CNN, the BBC etc to succumb to the enormous sums of money those foreign broadcasters would gladly shuffle towards Joe Duffy, Ryan Tubridy, and Ray D’Arcy.....and then RTE would have to pay them even more outrageous fees to keep them at home. :rolleyes:

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

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