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

Pa ElGrande · 06-07-2019 3:00pm

dxhound2005 wrote: »

The population of the country increased by a million in the last 20 years or so, and it is on the way up. 1.5 million people watched the Late Late Toy Show in 2018, and there were massive audiences for the other top 20 programmes, nearly all of them on RTE. I think you are overdoing the doom and gloom a bit. But maybe there is a great untapped audience for programmes about dérailleurs.

1.5 million people tuned into an extended 2 hour commercial for toys, then what does RTE do for the rest of the year? and why are they are still reporting losses despite the population growing by 1 million pairs of eyeballs and ears over the past 20 years in that context those results are not an argument for success.

I'm an outlier and I made a concious decision decade ago to switch off television for several reasons primarily RTE represented poor value for my money and had become irrelevant to me. How I and others consume media has changed and judging by the results RTE has yet to successfully make this transition and is determined to defer that come to Jesus moment for as long as possible.

Jimmy Garlic · 06-07-2019 3:05pm

There is a chunk of south Dublin that depends on RTE for a soft and cushy, cosseted life in exchange for little or no work. Think of the little ones, what would they do if mummy didn't have a range rover to drive them to the Dundrum town centre.

Pa ElGrande · 06-07-2019 3:34pm

Boggles wrote: »

Local Radio has nothing to with RTE.

Your Dad sounds like just a normal TV watcher, Public Service TV was never meant to keep everyone in the country glued to it 10 hours a day, it doesn't work like that. 95% of what is on is shíté, the other 5% is personal preference.

But that is true for every other TV station and online platform IMO.

I grew up in 2 channel land. RTE had first choice of the quality American content (Dallas, A-Team* and many others) and rebroadcast that and could bring in advertising revenue for little cost to themselves. They used that as their hook and used to put out programmes like Glenroe, Today Tonight and others on much more limited broadcast hours. My dad has plenty time on his hands and is generally positive towards RTE over the years however even he has his limits having seen all the repeats twice maybe three times over heck he probably even saw the original broadcast of the repeat. He has increasingly switched on to other channels including BBC and Sky now that they have become available to him, ironically forced on him by the arrival of wind turbines in the area.

Boggles wrote: »

Some analogue transmitters going back 30+ years use to beam out the BBC.

Sky have been in Ireland over 20 years.

Before them there was a great trade in analogue FTA receivers.

RTE haven't had exclusive control in quite a while and certain parts of the country they never did.

Radio Luxembourg anyone???

I used to listen to the great 208 fade in and out at night. I even listened to their final broadcast. I remember the plethora of pirate radio stations that dotted the country at the time with their own distinct characters.

RTE though remained the dominant player in terms of revenue and market share and their home produced content at the time was not bad, even if a lot of it was cloned original UK produced content, it seems to have been when they started expanding their broadcast hours that the lack of quality became apparent. I would also reckon that once many of the original producers and entertainers like Gay Byrne retired. Byrne in his heyday would genuinely have been able to compete at the top of the UK market. What has followed seems to have been dross borne out of nepotism. Maybe thing have changed since I stopped consuming their content they do seem to be able to churn out occasional content but not really anything to hold my attention.

Elmo · 06-07-2019 8:05pm

elperello wrote: »

I'm just guessing but I reckon they are popular and the price they buy in at allows them to show a profit by selling advertising.

Again this is IMO wrong. There is no need for RTÉ to broadcast EastEnders, it does well but I imagine any show in that time slot on RTÉ ONE would do as well.

If you choose to repeat most of the US programmes, while push the vast majority out prime time, where you sell few ads, or no ads at all.

In the past RTÉ might have suggested that such programmes were bringing in massive amounts of money, but only EastEnders get an audience above 200,000, and that varies to way below 150,000!

RTÉ spend of 25,000,000 on these shows is way off the mark:-

1. The spend is the same as in the past no cuts
2. The programmes as pointed out aren't as exclusive
3. For them to bring in audience to Irish Show RTÉ would have to produce some!

Virgin Media is now really just ITV, spending most of its money on repeats of The Chase and Catch Phrase, and relying largely on ITV soaps and Reality series.

end of the road · 06-07-2019 8:38pm

Elmo wrote: »

Again this is IMO wrong. There is no need for RTÉ to broadcast EastEnders, it does well but I imagine any show in that time slot on RTÉ ONE would do as well.

i would doubt any old show in that time slot would do as well in reality.
eastenders is a popular program, sure, not as popular as it once was, but tv audiences are declining and the soaps are not immune to that.
if there was a program that could get the same or even bigger audience for a bigger return then it would be broadcast.

Elmo wrote: »

If you choose to repeat most of the US programmes, while push the vast majority out prime time, where you sell few ads, or no ads at all.

perhapse put that question to rte and let us know their responce? it would be interesting to find out the reason.

Elmo wrote: »

In the past RTÉ might have suggested that such programmes were bringing in massive amounts of money, but only EastEnders get an audience above 200,000, and that varies to way below 150,000!

it's still a guaranteed audience however, even if the number fluctuates from time to time.

Elmo wrote: »

RTÉ spend of 25,000,000 on these shows is way off the mark:-

maybe it is but so far i haven't saw very much to show that is the case over all. at certain times sure.

Elmo wrote: »

1. The spend is the same as in the past no cuts
2. The programmes as pointed out aren't as exclusive
3. For them to bring in audience to Irish Show RTÉ would have to produce some!

producing irish content costs a lot more money most probably. a broadcaster who is expected to be more commercial then public service given a choice between spending money on irish content or a bit less on something guaranteed to bring in an audience will go for the second option.
which is why rte should not be expected to be commercial and should be refocused to irish content and minority programming only, if you want an end to the imports.

Elmo wrote: »

Virgin Media is now really just ITV, spending most of its money on repeats of The Chase and Catch Phrase, and relying largely on ITV soaps and Reality series.

the returns are good for the costs i'd imagine. why bother producing anything when you can just import it. let someone else do the heavy lifting, pay out some cash for it but take in more cash. they are a commercial business after all so while i don't like it i can see why they go for it.
personally i am surprised that business model is actually working given ITV can be received across multiple tv platforms from free to air to presumably sky and other pay for tv services.

Mad_maxx · 06-07-2019 8:56pm

Watched a bit of the twink thing earlier, I'd do life in guantanomo before I'd ever pay the licence again

elperello · 06-07-2019 9:19pm

Mad_maxx wrote: »

Watched a bit of the twink thing earlier, I'd do life in guantanomo before I'd ever pay the licence again

Please yourself, you won't do any hard time anyway, but that was a great show.

Mad_maxx · 06-07-2019 10:11pm

elperello wrote: »

Please yourself, you won't do any hard time anyway, but that was a great show.

No accounting for taste as they say

elperello · 06-07-2019 10:20pm

Mad_maxx wrote: »

No accounting for taste as they say

OK and don't worry if you do get locked up I'll get Twink to bake you a cake with a file in it

Elmo · 06-07-2019 10:31pm

end of the road wrote: »

i would doubt any old show in that time slot would do as well in reality.
eastenders is a popular program, sure, not as popular as it once was, but tv audiences are declining and the soaps are not immune to that.
if there was a program that could get the same or even bigger audience for a bigger return then it would be broadcast.

It was never all that popular on RTÉ, bought only because TV3 got Coro St, when it was on TV3 it had an even lower audience. It's really only proped up because it on RTÉ one and even there it doesn't always hit the top programmes.

perhapse put that question to rte and let us know their responce? it would be interesting to find out the reason.

I have and they tend to ignore the question.

it's still a guaranteed audience however, even if the number fluctuates from time to time.

But that's only one show, and if I am correct by RTÉ's own statements it costs them around 208,000 euro a year for right, pretty good I will agree, but then there's the other BBC soaps that don't get prime time slots and don't get anywhere like the audience of EastEnders.

maybe it is but so far i haven't saw very much to show that is the case over all. at certain times sure.

They are have are lossing 13m, they are available on almost all other platforms, they have never cut that programming, but tended to cut all other types of programmes, they aren't getting the same audience as Friends and Lost back in the Day. But yeah lets just cut Drama by 50% and Chilren's by 75% and so on.

producing irish content costs a lot more money most probably. a broadcaster who is expected to be more commercial then public service given a choice between spending money on irish content or a bit less on something guaranteed to bring in an audience will go for the second option.
which is why rte should not be expected to be commercial and should be refocused to irish content and minority programming only, if you want an end to the imports.

So Irish content does 2 things. Yes it cost more money but often it bring in a bigger audience. RTÉ2's non-sports programmes nearly always top their list but they have so few or they are surround by US programmes that don't have audience that their audience are low, this is not the fault of the producer or the quality but the fact that they are surrounded by imported repeats or repeats of RTÉ ONE shows.

the returns are good for the costs i'd imagine. why bother producing anything when you can just import it. let someone else do the heavy lifting, pay out some cash for it but take in more cash. they are a commercial business after all so while i don't like it i can see why they go for it.
personally i am surprised that business model is actually working given ITV can be received across multiple tv platforms from free to air to presumably sky and other pay for tv services.

Well if we want RTÉ to become Virgin Media then perhaps they should talk Virgin Media about it all, but the substandard programming on VM doesn't hold on to an audience, you just have to look at how people leave the channel following their ITV shows.

dublinman1990 · 07-07-2019 1:51am

When we talk imports being shown on RTÉ's 2 main channels. There is one show there that has been shown by RTÉ for about 3 decades now and that is Home & Away. It is currently in trouble with falling viewership numbers of 50% in the space of 10 years on it's main broadcast network Channel Seven in Australia. Australian media reports have said that Seven will make plans to rearrange H&A's schedule onto one of it's other linear channels or have 5 episodes shown for 1 day a week on it's own catch up service; 7Plus.

Now if that plan is deemed to be a commercial failure by Channel Seven in Australia; What will RTÉ do with their schedules of the show if it gets cancelled in future?

The show is broadcast once a day on Monday to Friday afternoons on RTÉ One & once a day on Monday to Friday evenings on RTÉ2. There are also currently 3 showings of it on Saturday mornings & it's shown twice on Sunday mornings on RTÉ2. I think they are the repeat showings or part of the omnibus broadcast of the show shown on RTÉ One during Monday to Fridays. That is a lot of spare content to fill up during a normal 7 day week if it was eventually cancelled. Once it gets scrapped; the show would have a limited life span for new episodes on RTÉ's schedules here. RTÉ will than have to consider plans to put something else in it's place after H&A shows it's last ever episode for good. But it all depends on how Channel Seven will officially end the show via an online press release or through their news bulletins in Australia.

The production team of H&A does have plans to improve it with more adult-oriented story lines. But does an idea like that create a significant challenge for the H&A production team in creating something that takes away from the original aim of the show which was a soap aimed for a young people's audience? Does creating soaps in this category not create a lot of risk creating something like a mirror image of other traditional adult soap operas out there in the broadcasting industry today?

Lackadaisical · 07-07-2019 10:19am

Not to get off topic but a lot of Australian productions seem to have gone way too "uppidy". They used to be far more watchable and realistic, but they've all become very bling bling and brash and more like American stuff, possibly reflecting fairly profound changes in Australia itself over the past 15 years.

I was stuck in a waiting room with Home & Away on in the background and it seemed to be trying to be Bay Watch. Whereas when I remember it, it was very much a teen soap with plots they were about fairly mundane teenage oriented topics, but it worked.

The Late Late Show · 08-07-2019 12:59am

Lackadaisical wrote: »

Not to get off topic but a lot of Australian productions seem to have gone way too "uppidy". They used to be far more watchable and realistic, but they've all become very bling bling and brash and more like American stuff, possibly reflecting fairly profound changes in Australia itself over the past 15 years.

I was stuck in a waiting room with Home & Away on in the background and it seemed to be trying to be Bay Watch. Whereas when I remember it, it was very much a teen soap with plots they were about fairly mundane teenage oriented topics, but it worked.

Home and Away is 100% responsible for a whole generation of Irish people going to Australia for holidays or to work in or even to move to.

RabbleRouser2k · 08-07-2019 1:26am

Mad_maxx wrote: »

Watched a bit of the twink thing earlier, I'd do life in guantanomo before I'd ever pay the licence again

Caught the last 10 minutes of the show-there was the most tacky cake I had ever seen...

And they were raving about how 'great' it was... Gawd, I thought she was supposed to be broke?

Did it go into her 'forays' into reality TV? Cos they never painted her in a positive light...

Mehapoy · 08-07-2019 1:56am

Boggles wrote: »

Have you kids?

Children don't give a flying fúck about níche cartoons. It's not 1988 anymore. If it was, Bosco is still knocking around, he'd be back in the primetime in a hot minute if he were still relevant.

They want Paw Patrol, Blaze and the Monster Machines, Pokemon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, etc.

So unless RTE heavily invest in the next one of those, it is futile.

Times have changed, 2 sock puppets that looked like they are stitched together by Stevie Wonder laughing at Ian Dempsey doesn't cut it anymore.

Ninjago in HD whenever they want it is the new norm.

RTE need to pick their battles and pumping millions into childrens tv is not the way to go given the level of available competition, they should certainly invest more than they are, but of course that doesn't mean anyone will watch it.

On the other side of that, in Australia the ABC produced bluey, an animated series about a family of talking dogs, I'm sure it was not expensive but is massively popular and has been sold to overseas stations. Its all about being creative with the budget available.
On that i wonder how RTEs budget compares with the ABC? Bigger population in oz but no advertising revenues and makes public service shows, gardening, rural etc. but also entertainment/comedy shows. If someone gets popular they get poached by commercial stations as they dont pay as well but some give up that pay to make creative stuff. They would be an example of making do on a not massive budget.

RabbleRouser2k · 08-07-2019 3:01am

Mehapoy wrote: »

On the other side of that, in Australia the ABC produced bluey, an animated series about a family of talking dogs, I'm sure it was not expensive but is massively popular and has been sold to overseas stations. Its all about being creative with the budget available.
On that i wonder how RTEs budget compares with the ABC? Bigger population in oz but no advertising revenues and makes public service shows, gardening, rural etc. but also entertainment/comedy shows. If someone gets popular they get poached by commercial stations as they dont pay as well but some give up that pay to make creative stuff. They would be an example of making do on a not massive budget.

Are children even watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? I remember that show was produced in Ireland (Murakami Wolf's animation studio-now defunct).

It's one of those properties that didn't connect when they tried to relaunch it. It's from a bygone era.
Same as the Sonic the Hedgehog movie is doomed.

Boggles · 08-07-2019 9:11am

Mehapoy wrote: »

On that i wonder how RTEs budget compares with the ABC?

ABC's budget is slightly over a billion dollars for this year. Roughly €620m.

RabbleRouser2k wrote: »

Are children even watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?

Constantly one of the top watched Cartoons on Nickelodeon.

Basically go into any toy shop, if they have a merchandise stand or if it stocked that cartoon is popular.

Oasis1974 · 08-07-2019 12:29pm

Didn't BBC axe Neighbours and ITV Home and Away years ago and RTE still show that shyte?

Kivaro · 08-07-2019 12:30pm

First item on the RTE news last night: no forever homes for 800 asylum seekers who were granted refugee status. The git reading the news (who reminded me of the North Korean news anchor) presented the piece in a scolding manner, as if 800 of us should give up our own homes for the lucky 800 ..... but still pay the mortgage.
Then they had the "CEO" of the Irish Refugee Council come on and bitch about it too. "CEO"? Nice gig if you can get it. Wonder how much the Englishman gets paid for that cushy number?

If it's not the so-called homelessness crisis, RTE rams asylum seekers stories down our throats almost on a daily basis. The liberal agenda well and truly to the fore ... thanks to our national broadcaster.

samjames · 08-07-2019 12:36pm

I pay but RTE is rubbish, there is nothing any use on it, the quality of programmes is very poor

Elmo · 08-07-2019 12:38pm

Oasis1974 wrote: »

Didn't BBC axe Neighbours and ITV Home and Away years ago and RTE still show that shyte?

Channel 5 bought the rights to both Soaps.

Diceicle · 08-07-2019 12:44pm

Mehapoy wrote: »

On the other side of that, in Australia the ABC produced bluey, an animated series about a family of talking dogs, I'm sure it was not expensive but is massively popular and has been sold to overseas stations. Its all about being creative with the budget available.
On that i wonder how RTEs budget compares with the ABC? Bigger population in oz but no advertising revenues and makes public service shows, gardening, rural etc. but also entertainment/comedy shows. If someone gets popular they get poached by commercial stations as they dont pay as well but some give up that pay to make creative stuff. They would be an example of making do on a not massive budget.

It would seem to cost the avg Ozzie $40 a year.
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/abc-costs-every-person-40-a-year-or-11-cents-a-day/news-story/cbf8122c291db81251ef0b5704ce877c

Elmo · 08-07-2019 1:12pm

Diceicle wrote: »

It would seem to cost the avg Ozzie $40 a year.
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/abc-costs-every-person-40-a-year-or-11-cents-a-day/news-story/cbf8122c291db81251ef0b5704ce877c

Per head of population that works out the same as here. ignoring the exchange rate.

Though based on the number of Household in ireland 1.7m the fee could generate 272m
An Post collect 1.48 rasing €236.8 in 2018
Divided between RTÉ, BAI, TG4 and An Post.

Elmo · 08-07-2019 1:23pm

Elmo wrote: »

Per head of population that works out the same as here. ignoring the exchange rate.

Though based on the number of Household in ireland 1.7m the fee could generate 272m
An Post collect 1.48 rasing €236.8 in 2018
Divided between RTÉ, BAI, TG4 and An Post.

I don't see how they are lossing out by 30 to 60m

€236.8
Would suggest that 220,000 households are not paying the licence fee. I think it'd be fair to say that about 90% of those homes have people over the age of 70 in them, meaning that they don't need to have a licence.

Seems more an issue for the Depart of Social Protection than that of An Post and Dept of Comms.

RabbleRouser2k · 08-07-2019 4:16pm

Elmo wrote: »

I don't see how they are lossing out by 30 to 60m

€236.8
Would suggest that 220,000 households are not paying the licence fee. I think it'd be fair to say that about 90% of those homes have people over the age of 70 in them, meaning that they don't need to have a licence.

Seems more an issue for the Depart of Social Protection than that of An Post and Dept of Comms.

I suspect Rte are hoping the government try to do what the last government did, except instead of scrapping the medical card for the overs, they scrap the free tv license.

The Late Late Show · 08-07-2019 4:26pm

Flicking through channels last Friday, I came across Mrs Brown's Boys on 2 channels. This is the worst TV series ever made and lowers both the bar and the tone completely. Why both RTE and BBC insist on pushing this absolutely unfunny vulgar drivel at us all the time I will never understand.

kneemos · 08-07-2019 4:29pm

The Late Late Show wrote: »

Flicking through channels last Friday, I came across Mrs Brown's Boys on 2 channels. This is the worst TV series ever made and lowers both the bar and the tone completely. Why both RTE and BBC insist on pushing this absolutely unfunny vulgar drivel at us all the time I will never understand.

RTE used to have it on late at night,until the BBC started showing it earlier. RTE followed suit.

Boggles · 08-07-2019 4:33pm

The Late Late Show wrote: »

Flicking through channels last Friday, I came across Mrs Brown's Boys on 2 channels. This is the worst TV series ever made and lowers both the bar and the tone completely. Why both RTE and BBC insist on pushing this absolutely unfunny vulgar drivel at us all the time I will never understand.

It's not that hard understand TBF, it gets ratings.

Very simple really.

Elmo · 08-07-2019 4:51pm

RabbleRouser2k wrote: »

I suspect Rte are hoping the government try to do what the last government did, except instead of scrapping the medical card for the overs, they scrap the free tv license.

So where are they getting the 15% evasion rate?

vriesmays · 08-07-2019 6:22pm

Mad_maxx wrote: »

Watched a bit of the twink thing earlier, I'd do life in guantanomo before I'd ever pay the licence again

Did they include the RTÉ clip where she's in black face.

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