RTE and the Licence FEE

HugoBradyBrown · 12-11-2011 11:14PM

Johro wrote: »

I have a freeview box. It receives all the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and film channels and a lot more besides, but no Irish TV channels. Not a one.
It feels somewhat idiotic to have to pay a licence fee to RTE, but I do it because I have to. Reluctantly.

Paying some attention to British TV output this past week, I see that it is full of memorialism for wars past, and of more active celebration of Britain's contemporary adventurism in other peoples' countries. If we did not have RTE, how could we evade this jingoism? On the BBC it has been extending into the very cookery programmes, with Union Jacks festooning aprons and fridges in shot, and with endless mindless chauvinistic jubilation about British sausages and British rhubarb and British cheese and British asparagus.

By consuming their product undiluted, we can delude ourselves that we are becoming more international or more cosmopolitan, when we are simply adopting another, albeit friendly, country's parochialism. At least RTE serves up our own form of parochialism to us, our own home-grown stars, our own comedy, our own stories.

Hobbes · 12-11-2011 11:16PM

Havent watched rte in years, yet still forced to pay the license. I'd say do away with it.

HugoBradyBrown · 12-11-2011 11:19PM

Hobbes wrote: »

Havent watched rte in years, yet still forced to pay the license. I'd say do away with it.

You see, we all view RTE television, at least during an election count, or during a Presidential inauguration, or when 'monster rain' is forecast, or when we have rights to a major sports event. Nobody, not even in the Black Valley in Kerry, ever really 'doesn't watch' RTE, in my experience.

MugMugs · 12-11-2011 11:19PM

I don't pay it. Don't see why I should. 4 years down so far and only one inspector.

rubadub · 12-11-2011 11:21PM

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

Ireland's is a small market, incapable of sustaining good television from the TV tax alone

We could if we increased the licence fee, some might prefer more ads and a lower fee. Sky movies have no ads but other sky channels do, no doubt they researched what customers wanted. Most of the time I actually like having ads during movies.

HugoBradyBrown · 12-11-2011 11:22PM

MugMugs wrote: »

I don't pay it. Don't see why I should. 4 years down so far and only one inspector.

Surely even a rudimentary ethical sense, or a Kantian respect for the legitimate law of the land, would make every one of us pay the tax. Yes, we can strive to influence the public debate about the tax, but we are morally obliged to obey the law. Can you imagine if everyone did as you claim to do? (And can your address be identified, so that you might be given some additional moral guidance on this question?)

HugoBradyBrown · 12-11-2011 11:24PM

rubadub wrote: »

We could if we increased the licence fee, some might prefer more ads and a lower fee. Sky movies have no ads but other sky channels do, no doubt they researched what customers wanted. Most of the time I actually like having ads during movies.

But if the present TV tax is excessive for some, such a move would be profoundly anti-egalitarian and socially divisive. I would also be reluctant to see us taking any example from Mr Murdoch and his associates, given what we have seen of their methods and ethics, particularly in recent times.

Terry · 12-11-2011 11:28PM

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

Well, that is perhaps taking things to an extreme!

Did Flann O Brien have a character who used to carry his wireless set out to the married sister's in Skerries when he went on his holidays, and live for two weeks in terror of being caught by the inspector, since the married sister had neither a set of her own nor a licence?

I've no idea who that is, but it seems that I'll have to go and root out my scanner.

rubadub · 12-11-2011 11:28PM

MugMugs wrote: »

I don't pay it. Don't see why I should.

You are in effect a thief, plain and simple. The reason there needs to be more ads and higher fees is because of criminals like you stealing from everybody else who pays their share.

Terry · 12-11-2011 11:31PM

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

But if the present TV tax is excessive for some, such a move would be profoundly anti-egalitarian and socially divisive. I would also be reluctant to see us taking any example from Mr Murdoch and his associates, given what we have seen of their methods and ethics, particularly in recent times.

Murdoch no longer owns BSKYB. Ireland and the U.K. are relatively safe from his anti-Palestine/ anti-middle East/ pro-Israel agenda for the time being.

Oh, yeah. Scanner.

Johro · 12-11-2011 11:32PM

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

You see, we all view RTE television, at least during an election count, or during a Presidential inauguration, or when 'monster rain' is forecast, or when we have rights to a major sports event. Nobody, not even in the Black Valley in Kerry, ever really 'doesn't watch' RTE, in my experience.

I don't. I don't receive it. Due to my home's location (in a river valley surrounded by tall trees) I can't receive a television signal on a TV ariel, I'd have to erect such a tall mast it would be too costly, not to mention complicated and possibly dangerous. I've had a guy who erects ariels round to check for signal, and the best he could get was not good enough, with bad or intermittent sound and 'ghosting'. I have a satellite dish with freeview box, and that provides me with all the English channels. No RTE here. Or TG4. Or TV3, which I wouldn't watch if I did receive it.

MugMugs · 12-11-2011 11:33PM

If An Post go to all the effort of trawling the net to find me then hats off to them. I actually removed the receiver in my TV. Had a nice big row with the inspector over it but as it stands, my TV cannot receive a tv signal. God bless downloads and boards

12-11-2011 11:33PM

Are they scrapping the licence fee in the budget and replacing it with something else?

rubadub · 12-11-2011 11:34PM

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

But if the present TV tax is excessive for some, such a move would be profoundly anti-egalitarian and socially divisive. I would also be reluctant to see us taking any example from Mr Murdoch and his associates, given what we have seen of their methods and ethics, particularly in recent times.

I am just pointing out it could be done (more for other posters than you), you can't have your cake and eat it too, the money has to come from somewhere. I think its bizarre when people suggest getting rid of ads with no thought. You'd swear they only put ads on to annoy people.

I could have said the BBC rather than sky too, they obviously have it priced high enough to not need ads.

12-11-2011 11:34PM

Hugo, Reposted in case you missed it

Deleted User wrote: »

Hugo, what is your connection with RTE?

Johro · 12-11-2011 11:38PM

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

Paying some attention to British TV output this past week, I see that it is full of memorialism for wars past, and of more active celebration of Britain's contemporary adventurism in other peoples' countries. If we did not have RTE, how could we evade this jingoism? On the BBC it has been extending into the very cookery programmes, with Union Jacks festooning aprons and fridges in shot, and with endless mindless chauvinistic jubilation about British sausages and British rhubarb and British cheese and British asparagus.

By consuming their product undiluted, we can delude ourselves that we are becoming more international or more cosmopolitan, when we are simply adopting another, albeit friendly, country's parochialism. At least RTE serves up our own form of parochialism to us, our own home-grown stars, our own comedy, our own stories.

I said I receive it. I didn't say it was good. It is all I can receive here. I am, however, not under the illusion that RTE have something better to offer me. Television everywhere is dumbing down, pandering to the lowest common denominator, and selling them washing up liquid.

Johro · 12-11-2011 11:43PM

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

Paying some attention to British TV output this past week, I see that it is full of memorialism for wars past, and of more active celebration of Britain's contemporary adventurism in other peoples' countries. If we did not have RTE, how could we evade this jingoism? On the BBC it has been extending into the very cookery programmes, with Union Jacks festooning aprons and fridges in shot, and with endless mindless chauvinistic jubilation about British sausages and British rhubarb and British cheese and British asparagus.

By consuming their product undiluted, we can delude ourselves that we are becoming more international or more cosmopolitan, when we are simply adopting another, albeit friendly, country's parochialism. At least RTE serves up our own form of parochialism to us, our own home-grown stars, our own comedy, our own stories.

That I do agree with.

psychward · 12-11-2011 11:46PM

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

Measures have been taken to alleviate any financial discomfort experienced by people who find a couple of euros per week an excessive exaction. (THe equivalent of a shilling a week in the 1960's, I might point out.)

I dispute the use of the term 'shill'. It is not dishonourable to mount a defense in the face of a torrent of ill-informed and misguided criticism.

You're a shill who denies obvious facts. Everyone with a TV who isnt on disability or a pensioner has to pay this extortion so you can pontificate with your finger up your arse. So stop deliberately lying and denying that the poorest in our society paid for Gerry Ryans coke habit and for politburo style propaganda. Your RTE shower of wasters fell right off even your delusion of the high moral ground when you covered up the arrival of the IMF and forced us all to tune into the BBC to find out what was happening. You're just a propaganda service for whoever will pay you the most.

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

The Oireachtas has charged RTE with the public service duties of reflecting the nation back to itself, across space and time. Because some citizens have less elevated tastes does not obviate the obligation on RTE to strive through clever scheduling to dislodge them from their comfortable slough, and to give them the potential to aspire to something higher.

Yeah reflecting Eastenders and Home and Away and the X Factor back onto ourselves... keep digging . Youre a laughing stock already. RTE is 95% uneducational trash and is a shining beacon of immorality and me feinism setting a bad example to our nation. It should be cut out of the exchequer like the cancerous parasite it is. The 5% worthy of keeping comes from Telefis Na Gaeilge which runs it's programming on a miniscule budget compared to RTE.

HugoBradyBrown · 13-11-2011 12:00AM

psychward wrote: »

You're a shill who denies obvious facts. Everyone with a TV who isnt on disability or a pensioner has to pay this extortion so you can pontificate with your finger up your arse. So stop deliberately lying and denying that the poorest in our society paid for Gerry Ryans coke habit and for politburo style propaganda. Your RTE shower of wasters fell right off even your delusion of the high moral ground when you covered up the arrival of the IMF and forced us all to tune into the BBC to find out what was happening. You're just a propaganda service for whoever will pay you the most.

Yeah reflecting Eastenders and Home and Away and the X Factor back onto ourselves... keep digging . Youre a laughing stock already. RTE is 95% uneducational trash and is a shining beacon of immorality and me feinism setting a bad example to our nation. It should be cut out of the exchequer like the cancerous parasite it is. The 5% worthy of keeping comes from Telefis Na Gaeilge which runs it's programming on a miniscule budget compared to RTE.

Let it never be forgotten that Coronation Street was whipped from under our very noses, once a unabashedly profit-motivated multinational broadcaster put a tentacle into the Irish market. Eastenders is there to give substance and allure to the schedule, to serve people who do not have foreign channels, and to capture and retain viewers for the rest of the evening, so that they will watch our nationally-produced home improvement or health or cookery programmes, our news, our current affairs, The View, and whatever else is on on the same evening, to their benefit, to the station's and to the nation's. Simple, really. Simple, but very, very clever! (If I say so myself!) Scheduling is one of the minor arts.

And RTE News & Current Affairs is emphatically entirely independent of government in editorial terms, and always has been; recall that the late great Kevin O'Kelly of this parish went to gaol in the early 1970's, rather than reveal his sources. That is the touchstone of N&CA, let me assure you.

Terry · 13-11-2011 12:03AM

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

Let it never be forgotten that Coronation Street was whipped from under our very noses, once a unabashedly profit-motivated multinational broadcaster put a tentacle into the Irish market. Eastenders is there to give substance and allure to the schedule, to serve people who do not have foreign channels, and to capture and retain viewers for the rest of the evening, so that they will watch our nationally-produced home improvement or health or cookery programmes, our news, our current affairs, The View, and whatever else is on on the same evening, to their benefit, to the station's and to the nation's. Simple, really. Simple, but very, very clever! (If I say so myself!) Scheduling is one of the minor arts.

And RTE News & Current Affairs is emphatically entirely independent of government in editorial terms, and always has been; recall that the late great Kevin O'Kelly of this parish went to gaol in the early 1970's, rather than reveal his sources. That is the touchstone of N&CA, let me assure you.

I'm going to jail. Yay!

rubadub · 13-11-2011 12:05AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland#Criticism

a poll was already done about subscription

The associated opinion poll recorded agree:disagree percentages of 54:29 for the statement "Public Broadcasting should be financed by the licence fee."[30] Respondents were asked what level of monthly fee they would be prepared to pay to receive RTÉ if subscription access were hypothetically to replace the licence fee: the annualised mean and median household figures were €180 and €252.60, compared to the then licence fee of €150;[31] those watching more RTÉ programmes were more willing to pay.

It was still just looking at households, it could be a decoder box just like UPC do, you pay a fee and then more for each additional box. You can have lots of TVs if you still want. Years ago it was 1 licence per TV.

TV licence fees make up 50% of the revenue of RTÉ.

So it would have to roughly double to cover it under the current forced subscription model.

I also know people who watch RTE all the time and do not pay a fee, they watch it on the internet, ridiculous.

And just when I thought they were a bit moronic I read this.

In 2002, the rate of licence-fee evasion was estimated at 12%.[6] In the Dublin region in that year, approximately 21% of detected evaders were summonsed for prosecution (6,000 cases);[7] approximately one third of these cases resulted in fines, averaging €174.[8] Only 4% of fined evaders followed up three months later had purchased a licence.

Thats right folks, few are caught and the fine is a mere €14 more than what you are stealing, no wonder the country is over run with these thieving scumbag cunts.

kumate_champ07 · 13-11-2011 12:08AM

Zombrex wrote: »

The thought of only having rubbish stations like TV3 in Ireland sends a shiver down my spine, I'll happily pay a license fee to prevent that happening.

RTE might not be the BBC (you pay the same level of license fee in the UK btw it is just a much bigger population results in much more money for the BBC), but by god things could be a lot lot worse if all TV stations in the country were private.

but how many tv and radio channels does BBC have compared to rte1,rte2 and rte radio?

Johro · 13-11-2011 12:51AM

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

...of providing the best radio and television in the country...

Compared to TV3, yes. Otherwise, no. Not by a long shot.

jimmynokia · 13-11-2011 12:55AM

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

I should have thought that the final collapse of capitalism in recent years would have been enough to silence anyone minded to argue that "the market should decide" anything, and, most particularly, that the market should decide anything in as important an area as the cultural domain. What we are facing now is the development of a gentler, public-service oriented form of life, and RTE is a pre-existing template on which to model other services. The world has changed; we have reached the 'End of History' in a Hegelian sense, but not where Fukuyama though the terminus was. (And even he has a new book out, just to emphasise the point!)

ah here we go again captain i swallowed 5 dictionary's for breakfast and studied 7 more languages for lunch lad.

WUM

jimmynokia · 13-11-2011 01:07AM

psychward wrote: »

You're a shill who denies obvious facts. Everyone with a TV who isnt on disability or a pensioner has to pay this extortion so you can pontificate with your finger up your arse. So stop deliberately lying and denying that the poorest in our society paid for Gerry Ryans coke habit and for politburo style propaganda. Your RTE shower of wasters fell right off even your delusion of the high moral ground when you covered up the arrival of the IMF and forced us all to tune into the BBC to find out what was happening. You're just a propaganda service for whoever will pay you the most.

Yeah reflecting Eastenders and Home and Away and the X Factor back onto ourselves... keep digging . Youre a laughing stock already. RTE is 95% uneducational trash and is a shining beacon of immorality and me feinism setting a bad example to our nation. It should be cut out of the exchequer like the cancerous parasite it is. The 5% worthy of keeping comes from Telefis Na Gaeilge which runs it's programming on a miniscule budget compared to RTE.

BINGO

parrai · 13-11-2011 01:10AM

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

and, I would suggest, a red herring intended to muddy the waters.

This is the common denominator of this posters contributions, mixed with a condescending tone. Take the status quo of the post in question, flip it and then, keep raising and moving the posts... Read a lot of him, quite entertaining as it goes and all that! Don't forget the thesaurus, lest we repeat a word or two... Definately After Hours at its best...

We all know RTE is crap... simples... Don't feed the trolls

Wetai · 13-11-2011 01:11AM

Yes. At the very least it should be an RTE license; i.e. they have to prove you actually WATCH RTE, not just have a TV - an opt-in subscription would be good, but then the auld people probably wouldn't be able to figure out how to get it. You shouldn't have to get letters because those at RTE automatically think "Who doesn't have a TV... Ah shure, why aren't we getting their moneys"
Pay for a service you don't use or (potentially) get a fine.. if this was the US they'd probably be done for being a monopoly.

bradlente · 13-11-2011 01:22AM

I voted yeah for the removal of it in its current form.Its too much for too little imo.

HugoBradyBrown · 13-11-2011 01:29AM

parrai wrote: »

This is the common denominator of this posters contributions, mixed with a condescending tone. Take the status quo of the post in question, flip it and then, keep raising and moving the posts... Read a lot of him, quite entertaining as it goes and all that! Don't forget the thesaurus, lest we repeat a word or two... Definately After Hours at its best...

We all know RTE is crap... simples... Don't feed the trolls

I categorically deny ever owning or using a thesaurus!

psychward · 13-11-2011 01:35AM

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

I categorically deny ever owning or using a thesaurus!

Well no-one from RTE actually owns anything morally since they steal their means from the taxpayer whether he uses their services or not. Why not turn your back on Mafia tactics and stop making us an offer we can't refuse Hugo.

RTE and the Licence FEE

Comments