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

I cannot see this being dealt with before the local and European elections. It's so radioactive it may not be touched before the next GE - simply left for SF to deal with.

That said, I have a feeling it will be announced post locals and before an autumn GE, for first collections in the new year. I also think they will open up access to the fund to print media too.

Reform may well turn into a disaster for independent news media, as outlets become dependent on State funding. We've seen how one local authority attempted to turn the screw on a local radio station already.

Really print media is dead, constant decline in purchases/readership - it's a fools game trying to keep on supporting it, along with a paperless society their days are numbered and then add in if you are being supported by a licence fee can you justify charging an online subscription for access (even tho online subscriptions for papers (in Ireland at least) is tiny.

And before anyone says we need freedom of press to survive - every journalistic company in Ireland and every country has their own agenda and leaning. This is what people say RTE is - free from any particular leaning, but they are far from that. Even their investigative journalism has been on the back of other researchers in the past few years - Prime Time investigates used to be a hard hitting story no one had heard of, now it's like this was in the news a year ago! I've seen better high quality investigative journalism by youtubers over the past few years uncovering stories and details that no one even knew about. I like anything to do with space exploration and there is a few channels on YT that produce excellent productions, from their research, production and finished product...then you look at RTE giving us the atrocious Climate 2050, Fair City, Room to Improve - absolute dross bottom of the barrel productions

My youtube subscriptions are fairly cultured, they would be certainly wide ranging and entertaining to most people like a PSB company should be

Most of the young people I know don't watch terrestrial TV anymore. RTE is for a declining audience..

They seemed quite keen on getting it rolled out because Cablelink at the same time had demonstrated cable broadband. The BBS scene predated much of the Internet in Ireland and Barry Flanagan was starting Galway Online (which became Ireland Online) back then. There was only a few BBSes at the time and we SysOps often knew each other or at least cooperated with the FidoNet e-mail and newsgroups distribution. The mail hour (when BBSes were handling mail) was during off peak hours after midnight. The timing took advantage of the cheaper per unit rates and non-local rates. It used to be a flat rate for an "unlimited" local call but it was changed to a variable cost unit which was cheaper between 18:00 to 08:00 and also at weekends. In between this and broadband, the ISPs emerged and one of them started offering flat rate access with no subscription fee. It was a success for a while. TE's ISP launched after IOL and some of the others.. One of the "might have beens " was what would have happened if RTE managed to launch its Digital Terrestrial TV with its own built-in Internet access. Unfortunately, the roll-out of Digital Terrestrial TV never happened. Any Conditional Access system used for the subscription management would probably have been hacked. But Ireland was a very small market and most of it was concentrated in the cities and they were Cablelink networks. Sky had much of the market outside the cities.

There definitely needs to be a Public Service Broadcaster and RTE is trying to do it and commercial broadcasting at the same time. It isn't working out well. The problem for any technological solution is that most politicians are not technologists and this often goes doubly so for those dealing with communications. They sometimes rely upon the wibbling of "technology journalists" and they often have no expertise in Technology or the business of Technology. And Broadcast is one field that involves one Hell of a lot of technology of which the average "technology journalist" would be unaware. This, and the size of the market, is why broadcasting in Ireland is often very far behind the curve in some areas of development. (Ireland never had a chance to develop a TV market because of pig-ignorant gombeen politicians. The local radio industry was nearly destroyed by the licencing legislation. ) RTE's problems aren't only commercial. They are political too. It is not possible to fix one without fixing the other.Some kind of break-up with 2RN being protected is probably the only viable solution at this stage. The problem is that it might be beyond the abilities of the politicians to get it done.

Regards...jmcc

@Emblematic

If RTÉ were producing programming that people wanted they wouldn't have to try to sell the product to advertisers. Are we going down the road of pure PSBing? no comedy (not that RTÉ do much of that anyway), no drama, no music, no entertainment, no sport, just pure news current affairs with some children's TV thrown in?

I am not sure if €25,000 of car allowances has anything to do with the excesses in the commercial arm of RTÉ. RTÉ executives have been on the pigs back, do you think they will let go of that 25k should RTÉ be fully funded via the tax payer?

Yeah in theory no government wants to be 'narrowing the tax base' but you have to set that €150m against the over €100 billion the government takes in in taxes every year. Even double it to cover RTE's commercial revenues and it's still peanuts. Then think of the 'political peace' You would buy IMO by moving to a direct exchequer funding system. Consider TG4: does anybody give a toss about their corporate governance, or what their 'top talent' is paid. To me exhequer funding of broadcasting is close to a no-brainer for the political classes but Micheal Martin seems to have set his heart against it for some reason. If he is determined enough he probably has enough clout to block it but not to force through his own favoured system. So we could be lloking at the can being kicked down the road again...

While we may not care about TG4, Screen Ireland, ETC governance perhaps we should.

Broadband would be messy as multiple people \ packages in same house. I don't think that is in scope of the household benefits package also.

Electricity seems easier, also the household benefits package would provide a way to offset it, given that I assume the government won't want to risk uproar on that front.

1. Can someone do a welfare check on Dee Forbes.
2. Direct Gov funding will only piss off the public in future because we will have no control. At least the license fee as it exists bings attention when it’s withheld.. The over pay scandals and shenanigans that go on in the background will be hidden ala the children’s hospital over runs.
3. Who signed the Cheques for payment for the musical? Let’s start there.

I would suggest we're down the road of splitting the two with non-psb going to what I would propose as a fully private sector company. This private company can do what it wants on the same footing as Virgin Media.

The public service side would be fully state owned and funded and would be responsible for public service content creation. It would not provide content directly to the public but would make it available to broadcasters and other platforms on an equal footing for an agreed price depending on what the thing is, but would be relatively cheap for broadcasters. I would imagine it would mainly be a commissioning body and relatively small in size. It might co-fund productions that would otherwise not be commercially viable.

I would see most of these executives would move to the commercial arm, but now would have shareholders to answer to rather than the State. Some might still earn a lot but they would have to earn it. It could produce or buy whatever it wanted, subject to regulations, but would sink or swim on its ability to satisfy shareholders and the viewing public.

That would mean forcing people who don't have a TV to pay for a TV licence.

RTÉ don't produce enough cheap reality crap to justify only spending 2% of their budget on Independent drama commissions. Most of which are co-productions and have little or nothing to do with RTÉ.

Ah it was all becuase of the financial constraints that Dee and Breda didn't do their work.

I can't imagine Breda who told us that she was very fastidious in the oireachtas committee on other people wages would have allowed such a thing to happen but according to Kevin Bakhurst Defender of Galaxy RTÉ says: -

I wonder if Ms O'Keeffe was still on the Executive board when it was signed of on, so she had no hand act or part in this redundancy, it was all RTÉ's fault, she just happened to be CFO at the time of the agreement!

What a load of **** nonsense.

Surely this is the final straw, this whole saga has now got to be investigated properly, fraud squad need to be called in as its public monies and the stench of dodgyness is overwhelming. If it’s a small number of cases, this should be a quick turnaround (but this is Ireland so don’t hold your breath). Forbes & O’Keefe must be compelled at this stage (need Jennings in aswell). They cannot continue to hide behind sick notes/I’ve nothing more to say BS anymore.

Yes it would.

Many now get their 'TV' through other means and the licence is supposed to be for 'public broadcasting' not just TV.