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Irish Television

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Submitted By mehall87
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Evaluate the funding of public sector broadcasting in Ireland from a public finance perspective.

A public broadcaster, it is suggested, can increase societal welfare by catering for minority interests (e.g. specialist tastes), by educating and informing (e.g. political information), by enhancing the sense of community (e.g. broadcasting major sporting events), by developing new talent/programming and by providing insurance with respect to the existence of broadcasting itself and with respect to ensuring basic services (e.g. quality) through demonstration.
Ireland’s broadcasting sector, both public and commercial, is at a point of departure. With new legislation, which consolidates 50 years of broadcasting legislation, finally in place and with a new regulator, the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, emerging, one can expect significant changes in the coming five years. While the recession, which has hit media’s commercial revenue hard, currently dominates the boardrooms all Irish broadcasting businesses the real seismic change for broadcasting is not the economic downturn but the shift online and the convergence of content in a multi-platform environment. The public sector broadcast consists of Radio telefís na hEireann (RTE) and has provided a radio service since 1926 and a television service since 1961. As RTE is an organization it is subject to the nine member RTE authority appointed by the government, this consists of the RTÉ executive board, which is responsible for the day-to-day running of RTÉ and is headed by RTÉ’s director general, reports to the RTÉ Authority. At the given moment RTE is broadcasting three television services, RTE ONE , Network 2 and TG4 as well as four radio stations, Radio 1 , 2FM , Lyric FM and Radió na Gaeltachta. The PSB/RTE are also responsible for advertising, performing groups, publishing and transmission.
RTE is dually funded with approximately 40 per cent of its annual revenues in recent times coming from licence fee revenue with the remainder from advertising (approx 50%), other broadcasting revenue and RTÉ
Commercial Enterprises. In 2003 their was a significant increase in the licence fee, the new fee was now €150 a jump of €43 from the previous level of €107, this means that the licence fee is now RTE’s main source of funding along with commercial advertising/sponsorship revenues as well as the TV licence fees.
The main objectives of this funding is,
-To support the production of high-quality radio and television programmes based on Irish culture, heritage and experience.

-To develop such programmes in the Irish language.

-To increase the availability of programmes on Irish culture, heritage and experience to audiences in the State and support programmes that aim to explore these themes in innovative ways.

-To support programmes that represent the diversity of Irish.culture and heritage.

-To develop local and community broadcasting through support for the production of programmes by this sector.

-To support programmes aimed at improving adult literacy.

The core objectives of the Broadcasting Funding Scheme is to increase public access at national, local and community level to high-quality radio and television programmes in English and Irish which explore the themes of Irish culture, heritage and experience, in contemporary or historic contexts .

I do not believe that what RTE broadcasts is entirely public sector broadcasting in that they provide a comprehensive range of programmes, in irish and in English, which reflect the cultural diversity of Ireland.

RTE is specially mandated to supply
-Programmes that entertain, inform and educate.
-Programmes of news and current affairs.
-Coverage of sporting, religious and cultural activites.
-Coverage of the oireachtas and European Parliament.
As these four points are usually met a lot of the funding is siphoned of to gain access to international televsion.

“Beyond these so called heritage events, everything else should be considered commercial. The licence fee should not be used to produce The Premiership, for example. It is clearly ditto the US Masters golf, the Champions League soccer, the Heineken Cup in rugby or races from Cheltenham. RTE has used the licence fee to invest hugely in sport and prop up the Network 2 [RTE2] schedule. Leave aside the Special Olympics (which is truly public service broadcasting), and sports programming filled 14 of the top 20 shows on Network 2 last year and seven of the top ten. Of the top 20, Winning Streak and three movies filled the other slots. Just like Sky, RTE is using sports as a kind of ‘battering ram’ for Network 2.”
Sunday Tribune, 20th June 2004

It is evident from the article above that RTE put an emphasis on sport and pay a high price for these rights. As the article says RtE use the sports as a’battering ram’ for Network, their clearly paying a high price for these programmes using the licence fee resulting in unfair competition against some of the smaller stations who do not receive quite as much funding.
RTE has a massive amount of US programming, and this is a really interesting example, because it is clearly outside the public service remit. RTE has all of the top American shows. It has gorged on US studios in terms of acquisitions, so much so that a lot of it is played out at 2am or 3am - programmes that Channel 6 or TV3 would play at peak time

I 1999 TV3 first lodged a complaint with the commission about RTE's revenue model. TV3 argues that RTE and TG4 are inn a position to bid for foreign programming rights beyond a reasonable commercial value, tv3s complaints to the commission was based on state aid conferring an advantage. Commission found that under article 87 RTE had been given an advantage , but as in place prior to Irelands entry in the EEC in 1973 and changes since then were administrative and as such they were limited to checking for manifest error.
Commission examine the compatibility of state aid with Article 86. This involves looking at the public sector remit (broadcasting fine but questions about non-broadcasting), entrustment & supervision (problems as RTE Authority not independent), Proportionality (cannot say as RTE account far from transparent on difference between public and private activities)
David McRedmond of tv3 claims that the ‘fuzzy, unfettered funding’ of RTE gives it an unfair advantage over commercial rivals in the advertising market. ‘‘If RTE receives commercial revenue, it only makes sense we should receive funding for our public service broadcasting. I’m not looking to get huge swathes of licence fee to cover all our activities, but just for that element, if this is to be a market where commercial broadcasters can compete.”
Tv3’s main problem is that RTE get so so funding that they have a monopoly running and dominate our television screens, proving hard for other independent stations to gain access. As RTE is the public sector broadcaster is receives a larger sum in fees annually, TV3’s complaint was due to RTE not following proper advertisment and public sector broadcasting legislation.
The core objectives of the Broadcasting Funding Scheme is to increase public access at national, local and community level to high-quality radio and television programmes in English and Irish which explore the themes of Irish culture, heritage and experience, in contemporary or historic contexts. TV3 felt these needs were being neglected by RTE.
A generally recognised definition internationally of Public Service Broadcasting and its obligations is ‘a free-to-air national broadcasting service that provides particular genres of programming, delivers programmes with certain characteristics including quality, originality & impartiality, serves particular audiences, such as children & regions, and supports the national production service’. Further to this the Amsterdam Protocol of 1997 states that the public service remit in EU member states should not be limited to programmes and services which commercial operators do not provide, but rather should cover the whole range of programming so that the entire public is reached.
In the rapidly changing broadcasting and communications environment our members find themselves in tough competetion where obligations were never more important.
Two of the key obligations on any Public Service Broadcaster are not to act in a way akin to a purely commercial broadcaster and also to provide total transparency on exactly how the licence fee is spent. Such obligations should be statutorily recognized.
The broadcasting environment in Ireland consists of both the public service broadcaster and the independent production sector working together to provide cultural diversity, efficiency and value for money to the Government and licence fee payers. Such objectives are best served by greater competitiveness in the industry

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