Pay the Broadcast Charge or shut down RTE?

Lando Griffin · 23-11-2013 12:27AM

There are alot of older folk who would be lost without Radio 1.
BTW is Larry Grogan still alive and spinning the discs?

constance tench · 23-11-2013 12:29AM

Apparently we already pay a broadcast charge through Tax...If you have a Salary of 35,000e you pay 28.96!

Only found out recently with this handy 'Where Does your Tax Go' tool [Community ,Culture and Environment]
You can use the slider to adjust the salary.Neat.

http://www.publicpolicy.ie/where-does-your-tax-go/#middle-link

wandatowell · 23-11-2013 12:29AM

RTE dont have the rights to show premiership highlights anymore so I dont use the telly anymore.

'cept to play my playstation

kneemos · 23-11-2013 12:30AM

Lando Griffin wrote: »

There are alot of older folk who would be lost without Radio 1.
BTW is Larry Grogan still alive and spinning the discs?

Think he has a helper.

Sleepy · 23-11-2013 12:59AM

Phoebas wrote: »

Library service

Contributes to education of the nation: good for economy and society in general.

Should people who don't go to museums pay for the Museum service?

see above

Should people who don't go to hospitals pay for the Health service?

Contributes to the health of the nation, therefore good in general (funding could certainly be spent better however)

Should people who don't claim the dole pay for the Social Welfare service?

Again in the interest of society. If we don't provide a social safety net we drive people to crime.

RTE provides nothing that society requires.

shruikan2553 · 23-11-2013 01:10AM

kneemos wrote: »

I think it's good to have a national broadcaster that provides Irish oriented programming,debate and sports coverage.
If you don't want it no doubt people close to you do,so think of it as a community service.

Grand so, once everyone helps to subsidise my netflix sub I'll consider subsidising peoples sports coverage.

Phoebas · 23-11-2013 01:10AM

Sleepy wrote: »

RTE provides nothing that society requires.

In your opinion.

On the other hand they are the biggest producer of news and current events content in the country, not to mention sports broadcasting, children' s programming, support for the Arts and so on.
RTE are the most popular broadcaster both on Radio and TV by a very long way. They also provide one of the most popular websites in the country.

But apart from that ... they provide nothing that we require.

kneemos · 23-11-2013 01:12AM

Sleepy wrote: »

Contributes to education of the nation: good for economy and society in general.

see above

Contributes to the health of the nation, therefore good in general (funding could certainly be spent better however)

Again in the interest of society. If we don't provide a social safety net we drive people to crime.

RTE provides nothing that society requires.

News,sports,music,current affairs,home produced programs...?

KyussBishop · 23-11-2013 03:37AM

I was originally of mind that they should just make it subscription or advertisement based, but as much as I don't care for RTE, think about what will happen when they become just another private TV station:
You will have more garbage like from TV3, which is a fair sight worse than even RTE (takes some doing), and you will have the TV channels (including news reporting) eventually under control of a small private oligopoly (not dissimilar to much of the newspapers), where reporting is heavily skewed in one direction.

So, as bad as RTE are, as much as they may be subservient to government interests, at least our news and media are not yet completely dominated by corporate interests - and that (coupled with the chance that, given enough reform, they can be made to serve the public interest better) is a good reason for keeping RTE. We don't want all our media controlled by private interests.

cros13 · 23-11-2013 04:03AM

constance tench wrote: »

Apparently we already pay a broadcast charge through Tax...If you have a Salary of 35,000e you pay 28.96!

Only found out recently with this handy 'Where Does your Tax Go' tool [Community ,Culture and Environment]
You can use the slider to adjust the salary.Neat.

http://www.publicpolicy.ie/where-does-your-tax-go/#middle-link

Really like that calculator. It's like the tax receipt the US government launched a while back.

According to the calculator broadcasting apparently takes €234.36 from me already.

I don't have a TV, I don't visit RTE.ie, I don't have a radio either and what I remember of RTE is that they generally fiddled with the balance sheet and spent all the advertising revenue buying old foreign TV.

I have no problem with funding TG4 or local production but do that through income tax and the budget. Down with stealth taxes!

JohnBoy26 · 23-11-2013 04:11AM

kneemos wrote: »

The two are completely unrelated unless you say that if everybody doesn't pay road tax we won't have roads,in which case I would say yes.

There is no such thing as road tax. There is a tax called motor tax but little if any of it goes towards roads.

jimmynokia · 23-11-2013 04:19AM

Phoebas wrote: »

In your opinion.

On the other hand they are the biggest producer of news and current events content in the country, not to mention sports broadcasting, children' s programming, support for the Arts and so on.
RTE are the most popular broadcaster both on Radio and TV by a very long way. They also provide one of the most popular websites in the country.

But apart from that ... they provide nothing that we require.

Tv3 manage to survive well with no funding,so why cant RTE?

JohnBoy26 · 23-11-2013 04:24AM

kneemos wrote: »

News,sports,music,current affairs,home produced programs...?

Home produced programs? Like what fair city? a poor excuse of a show with cr#p acting and storylines. Lots of other silly cheap home produced programs on air by rte as well over the last few years. Shows such as the all Ireland talent show and that sports quiz thing hosted by grainne seoige were dire and not worthy of the high licence fee.

kneemos · 23-11-2013 04:31AM

JohnBoy26 wrote: »

Home produced programs? Like what fair city? a poor excuse of a show with cr#p acting and storylines. Lots of other silly cheap home produced programs on air by rte as well over the last few years. Shows such as the all Ireland talent show and that sports quiz thing hosted by grainne seoige were dire and not worthy of the high licence fee.

Still extremely popular.So lots of people do like them which is a good reason to support the license fee.

JohnBoy26 · 23-11-2013 04:42AM

kneemos wrote: »

Still extremely popular.So lots of people do like them which is a good reason to support the license fee.

Popular or not IMO all the programs I mentioned are an insult to the license payer. Rte are producing programs which nowhere near justifies the high license fee due to their distinct lack of quality.

The Narrator · 23-11-2013 04:44AM

They should cut the yearly fee to €30.

With that they show the news (as they do currently), some sport and other main events like the eurovision (even though most watch it as on BBC anyway).

The rest of the time they show nothing. Most people have no interest in watching the crap that RTE are making, it's a travesty what we are paying for it.

Banjo String · 23-11-2013 09:11AM

Phoebas wrote: »

In your opinion.

On the other hand they are the biggest producer of news and current events content in the country, not to mention sports broadcasting, children' s programming, support for the Arts and so on.
RTE are the most popular broadcaster both on Radio and TV by a very long way. They also provide one of the most popular websites in the country.

But apart from that ... they provide nothing that we require.

Ah Phoebe.

So late on a Friday night? Don't your FG overlords give you time off?

RTE is broadcast digitally now, and if the Govt think people want to watch it, scramble the broadcasts, and only subscribers will receive the deciphered programming. Like what setanta do for example.

The state wishing to criminalise it's citizens who don't wish to receive state controlled media is a load of bollox tbh, and I hope they get their app responses from the people coming into the local elections.

RTE, FG, Lab, and Pat Feckin Rabbit can go take a Crap in a hat. Tossers.

suicide_circus · 23-11-2013 09:28AM

€160 is wildly disproportionate to the return we get in terms of content quality. They could do the same job on half that. What they couldn't do is pay the bloated public service wage and pension bills they have. That is where the majority of your €160 goes. The quality of some programming such as prime time and some of the radio one stuff is good but nowhere near "€160 with the threat of imprisonment for non payment" good.

Phoebas · 23-11-2013 09:51AM

Banjo String wrote: »

Ah Phoebe.

So late on a Friday night? Don't your FG overlords give you time off?

Do you ever get tired of playing that same old tune?

Phoebas · 23-11-2013 09:59AM

jimmynokia wrote: »

Tv3 manage to survive well with no funding,so why cant RTE?

RTE would be just another TV3 without public funding for public service broadcasting, and personally I'd hate to see that happen.

I'd like to see a situation where the funding for public service broadcasting was spread out a bit more and maybe give TV3 some help to up their game on that front.

Phoebas · 23-11-2013 10:11AM

JohnBoy26 wrote: »

Popular or not IMO all the programs I mentioned are an insult to the license payer. Rte are producing programs which nowhere near justifies the high license fee due to their distinct lack of quality.

Fair City, going by the viewing figures, (and its longevity) is loved by the licence payer. Its not something I'd watch myself and maybe not something that appeals to the Boards.is demographic.
A lot of the 'rubbish' stuff (the studio based game shows and some of the bought in American stuff) would earn more in Ad revenue than they cost anyway.

Days 298 · 23-11-2013 10:11AM

€30 a year should be enough. RTE should have to control its own budget. And what they are paying the "stars" is a joke.

disco1 · 23-11-2013 10:15AM