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

God, i never thought id be on the same side as rte ever again and yet here we are - they've been taken to task by an even bigger shower of bellends

A Fair City actor suing RTE? Kind of odd, to say the least.

https://www.cloudflarestatus.com/ seems to confirm it alright.

From what I can gather they are relatively well paid, and some then end up collecting the Dole (though people forget if you are paid through out the year and claim your claim can be tax if you earned enough during the weeks that you worked). AFAIK Fair City actors are on 80,000 per year and their year is still only 35 weeks. But I am completely open to correction on this.

I know a Ros Na Run actor brought the production company to court after her character was written out about 10 years ago. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ros-na-run-actor-settles-case-1.983039

The reduction in Irish Language programming only happen in the last decade. Only for that commitment did we actually avoid cuts a quicker pace than had occurred with English Language programming.

RTÉ need clear commitments in terms of genre programming and clear aims. I find RTÉ like to have someone else bark for them. For example because the ACT's complaints RTÉ have started airing programming from BBC, TG4 and getting funding from the NI's ILBF, as I pointed out Simon Delahney new show is almost entirely paid for by RSA.

RTÉ: "Want me to bark, pay me to bark and I will get someone to bark for me on their expense but thank you for the check, you can go bark for a refund".

As I have said RTÉ only want to produce News, CA and Sport. If at all possible RTÉ would love to get rid of the independent commissions unit and the RTÉ CO, while retaining their total funding and using said organizations for their programming. They have done this successfully with the BAI, IFB, BBC, TG4, C4 and other co-producers.

If only the Sound and Vision fund was funded by the Exchequer, and incorporated their Independent Commissions Unit!

Will he be taking Octomum with him?

So Catherine Martin (and MM) has had the 'Future of media commission' report on her desk for nearly a year now. Going to cabinet in two weeks and then might be released just before the TD's go on their hollybops.

The needle on my old analogue 'Dodgy-o-Meter' is twitching away nicely.

@jippo nolan You might be thinking of Octomum's husband Carson who's now Head of the BBC Scotland Channel.

So what you're saying there Ro is that a show on RTE, hosted by a NKM contractor which also had an different NKM contractor drop in, was a bit sh!t.

I'm flabbergasted!

On a side note - did anyone in the country actually watch any of that Baz show with his ma. I reckon they could have put up the test card and got better figures.

I'm just looking at the tonight show on VM hosted by NKM girl Doherty and with Ger Herbert (motoring) who I suspect is an NK girl too. It's ******* ridiculous.

Dee forbes won't be pleased. She'd hoped Revenue would take over collection of the License fee. Despite RTE getting a whopping €200 a year in funding she's been complaining for years about under funding and yet over sees and clearly signs off on outrageous Salaries to a small cohort of Talentless "contractors" knowing full well other outlets would only pay a fraction of what these contractors are on.

If it wasn't so outrageous it would be funny, but not even worthy of a live line Funny Friday sketch.

From the bewildering Ray D'Arcy, Self indulgent Ryan Turdbidy, Opinionated and Bullying, clueless Joe Duffy who between them get close to €1.3 million a year ( and that's what we know of) it's just utterly unbelievable, combined they don't even work an average working Week infact far less.

It's just beggar's belief not a single politician is calling out what is going on. I was forced to listen to Tubs yesterday and my lord 40 minutes (allowing for news and RTE self promotional adverts) of self indulgent rambling nonsense, it's extraordinary.

You are aware Virgin Media TV operates on a shoe string budget (and it shows) it is essentially ITV 5

I've personally no objection to RTE spending vast sums on broadcasting rights if they are sustainable. Let's be honest and it's not popular to say this, there's ample choice now available to view sporting events elsewhere , heck I'd wager most people paying the TV licence watch none GAA Coverage on other channels and I might add, pay for it on top of the license fee which in essence funds absorbant salaries and sentimental fluffy nonsense.

RTE should essentially be an Independent News and Current affairs station with some programing related to Ireland, Documentaries, GAA etc in my humble opinion. There's enough reality TV Nonsense elsewhere to contend with it.

How is TG4 not a public-service broadcaster?

The Player is the biggest joke, TG4's offering works seamless and then if you look at All4 it's perfect too and free for Irish users. Surely an off the shelf solution already built is what RTE need, not some solo run black hole project costing tens of millions.

Whatever system the RTE Player uses to show the ads always works flawlessly...

what's the local company?

So one of the questions posed to the people interviewed was

How Should public broassting be funded?

Paul Farrell (VMTV CEO) - Agrees with public funding but suggests that RTÉ ONE, NEWS and Radio 1 have no advertising. (This has been suggested on many occassion here on boards, though many think all the rest should be dropped).

Ed Guiney (Co-founder of Element Pictures) - Retained in some form

Sarah MCInerney (RTÉ Radio Presenter) - Retained but no real view

Darren Smith (Kite Entertainment) - Not Asked/Not Answered

Kim Bartley (filmmaker) - not asked/not answered

Cormac O hEadhra (RTÉ Radio Presenter) - not sure what he is saying, if you want in depth analysis it should be funded???

Diarmaid Ferriter (Historian) - does say if he agrees but he sees the problem with direct funding

Marian Keyes (Novelist) - is against direct funding, due to government bias etc

Fergal Keane (BBC Reporter) - not asked not answered

Debbie Ging (Lecturer DCU) - not asked not answered

Larry Bass (Shinawhil) - License Fee not fit for purpose - wants dedicated fund

Siobhán McSweeney (Actress) - not asked not answered

Peter McKenna (Ireland's only TV Drama writer along with Lisa McGee) - old fashioned, should be exchequrer funded

Vincent Browne (Former RTÉ/TV3 current affair presenter) - He thinks it should be divided between those who provided public service current affairs but questions how does that work without government interference ???

Mark Little (Former RTÉ presenter) - get rid of licence fee, replace with direct funding, says focusing on just RTÉ's funding is myopic, should be how do we protect and fund public accessible facts and culture?

Dee Forbes (the person on the title of this thread) - out of date, old fashioned etc

Not one person against the license fee or funding, now I think it should be funded but I respect those who don't think this way enough to let them say so.

Let's not forget that RTE already get a fair whack of money off the government in addition to the licence fee and that's not counting all the money they made with the advertising

• RTÉ/TG4 can only have an average of 6mins per hour across 24 hours and a max of 9mins in an hour.
• It is currently linked to inflation but they've not implemented that since 2009 I think, collection method hasn'tc changed
• I'd agree, with a mix of some high end programming from abroad.
• Pres election is every 7 years, the company that collects the fee is up for election e.g. An Post?

Not sure about the last part, RTÉ are state owned.

Did they honeymoon period end at 2 years or is she still in her honeymoon period.

Any views yourself?

I overheard Lyric FM the other day, some guy called Hamilton presenting.

I bet my sister 1000 EUR, it couldnt be George Hamilton, the retired RTE sports presenter.

I mean, WTF ?