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

If they broaden it out to other public service providers they could probably get away with calling it a public service broadcasting tax. Can't be many that don't consume some sort of Irish TV or Radio.

Then only "the many" should pay, but apparently they aren't that many, otherwise the RTE would have a massive inflow of license fee revenue.....

I am also not forcing anybody to pay contribution to the catholic church, as Ireland is historically catholic. Yes, you may practice other religions, but still you'd have to pay contributions for the catholic church.

It's partially also that democratic values are at stake here. People don't want to see that and RTE and politics will certainly make sure, that other opinions aren't that much out in the open.

I don't think that in the UK they would be able to force a household fee for the BBC down people's throat nor is there a public discourse about it.

And BBC radio is for free, no license required, - currently that's the same in Ireland, albeit with a lesser choice.

Part of their cost cutting, you know because they had no money.

At the same time they've kept 252 LW alive for a very high cost. DAB / DAB+ is only a fraction of that, plus all of the new cars in the EU do have digital radio already.

Also, at the same time, the RTE paid below average presenters above average salaries. This is sadly not a problem exclusively to the RTE, other public sector broadcasters have similar issues in these regards.

But now forcing a household charge down one's throat regardless if they have a TV or not is an idiocy.

Will RTÉ even make it past the next general election?

I'd only partially agree.

A public sector broadcaster is not a retirement fund, not a public health service, a police, a military or an educational system. Any kind of solidarity doesn't exist here.

The matter would maybe be different if the RTE would only focus on Irish culture, or Gaeltacht, general culture, educational programming and ( hopefully unbiased) news.

Movies, other forms of entertainment shows should never be something for a public sector broadcaster if the funding is forced down somebody's throat via some kind of household charge.

Also, remember the BBC doesn't have any advertising revenue, no commercials on TV or radio. The RTE does have commercials.

I think the RTE should simply come to terms with the new reality and downsize a bit as well, like anybody else who's in financial difficulty.

Instead the RTE will go begging to politics, to get a law in RTE's favour to get the household charge and continue as before. Same scandals, same overpaid presenters, same biased news.

BBC own BBC Studios which in turn owns UKTV (GOLD, DAVE, ALIBI, YESTERDAY, EDEN and W, and the UKTV Player) which carry advertising and selling programming. BBC has a massive commercial arm largely derived from its public service arm.

Catherine wants the household charge, she'll have no issue pushing it, maybe she want's exchequer funding.

Either way they are not abolishing the licence fee, they are clamping down on non-payments and changing the way you pay the charge/tax/fee. Or they are paying for it via the Exchequre, you still pay.

I really dislike the idea of another household charge, even if it replacing the TV licence. As per previous commentators, the best solution is to downsize RTÉ, and pay it a grant from the public purse. I've been looking up figures for the other TV broadcasters, and it really highlights how bloated RTÉ, with its 1,800 to 1,900 staff, really is. Teilifís na Gaeilge, which runs TG4, had 121 employees in 2022. Virgin Media Television had 250 employees in 2015, and apparently 260 staff in 2020 (this second figure would be from a less well-known website, so I'd be less sure of it), which was more than sufficient to run 4 television channels.

If RTÉ want to keep their current number of staff, they should be trying to produce more commercially viable entertainment that could be licenced out to Netflix, etc., or radically cut the size of the organisation to something more manageable. Why wouldn't an RTÉ of between 500 and 1,000 staff, on a total budget of €150 to €200m (government funding & advertising combined) be more than sufficient to meet our public service requirements? TG4 produces plenty of cultural related programming for a fraction of the price RTÉ does, and of at least comparable quality. Even if RTÉ had to reduce their output of Irish programming, so what? Most if it has a small to very small audience anyway, with the main people losing out being the various RTÉ insiders and friends currently feeding from the trough, all subsidised by the general Irish population/taxpayers.

Indeed. However, RTÉ don't even come close to similar sized countries when it comes to content or services provided. And if they can compare themselves to BBC when talking about repeats we can compare them to the BBC. I have been long enough here to end defending RTÉ against people comparing them to the BBC.

They should have closed LW down more than 10 years ago and focused on a decent DAB+ coverage all across Ireland. LW radios are very rare these days, even buying new ones is a bit hard. RTE Radio 1 also wasn't historically ever on LW, the LW transmitter came into play because of Atlantic 252, commercially between the CLT and RTE.

Hard to say as we don't have the insight. I'd say, it was probably part of the problem. However the cost of LW must have been a concern otherwise they would have continued.

DAB is roughly only one tenth of the cost of FM, plus RTE would have had the opportunity to transmit all of the programmes, like RTE Gold, Radio 2XM etc...

LW was probably the worst in terms of cost and listenership or return of investment. On top of that, the RTE never historically transmitted Radio 1 on LW, - it only happened after Atlantic 252 and TeamTalk stopped. So RTE Radio 1 never had to rely on LW, no ageing listeners with old radios and nostalgia as well. The Irish expats in the UK relied already on other means than LW.

The RTE's strategy was in a very dumb way twice wrong:

• They've spent the cost of Radio 1 transmissions on LW for nearly 20 years, which has low to very low listenership.
• They've missed building a DAB+ network to transmit their other programmes like Gold or 2XM to attract further listeners.

And they've lost both, their LW transmission plus a decent DAB+ network, and have another problem, their finances.

One can hardly say the word "smart" in this case.

I can't imagine a broadcasting charge being brought in before the general election.

If RTÉ make a decision on LW or on DAB, that is their decision to make. Depending on your view point it is either a good or bad decision. I would offer that RTÉ didn't really make a decision on either, showing their lack of leadership skills.

I do think that if RTÉ had retained LW and DAB, and they had not had the bad governance that they currently have, it would just be a normal managerial decision.

I am not saying their decisions on DAB and LW were bad, they could easily be, and they may well be more clear signs of bad management in RTÉ over the last few years.

For example in 2021 there were able to move the NSO to the NCH, this would have saved they €8m in 2021 but the move was postponed to 2022, even though preparation for the move had started in 2018.

There are plenty more day-to-day issues that they were unable to grapple with.