Why do we have to pay licence fee AND watch advertisements?

[dubsthcentralboy]

Why are we in the bizarre situation of having to pay out to RTÉ for a licence fee and we subjected to advertisements? Surely RTÉ ought to follow the lead of the BBC and make do with the licence fee.

Perhaps it's time to privatise RTÉ, remove the licence feel and let them operate within the same commerical realities as other television and radio stations.

Maybe then the Government could fund a C-SPAN type challen that would show the Oireachtas and other important press conferences/national events etc. and RTÉ would be freed of their obligations.

[Akrasia]

because Ireland is too small to pay Pat Kenny's million euro salary without corporate advertisments.. and what would we ever do without Pat Kenny?
(I'm not joking by the way, The plank is paid a 7 figure salary for a 13 hour week and he gets the same holidays as primary school teachers)
http://www.independent.ie/national-news ... 95300.html

[Aindriu]

Scap the license completely and make them solely rely on advertising revenue. With so many satellite channels available these days it is an anachronism to keep a license fee.

[krayZpaving]

It's a matter of scale. There's a basic cost to running a national TV/radio station regardless of how many people are watching it. BBC has tens of millions of licence fee payers, where as RTÉ has maybe 1.5m licence payers. RTÉ has to either set the licence fee at about ten times its current level or take advertising. I'd prefer the advertising.

[Twin Towers]

What do you suppose the acreage they are occupying in Donnybrook is worth? Have you seen what TV3 work out of and made 9 million last year.

[Dr Jimbo]

A lot fewer licence fees here than the UK. A critical mass is required, I'd imagine, before you can go ad-free.
What I can't understand is why people pay a massive subscription to Sky for the priviledge of being bombarded by ads.

[PaintingMedium]

Why are we in the bizarre situation of having to pay out to RTÉ for a licence fee and we subjected to advertisements? Surely RTÉ ought to follow the lead of the BBC and make do with the licence fee.

Perhaps it's time to privatise RTÉ, remove the licence feel and let them operate within the same commerical realities as other television and radio stations.

Maybe then the Government could fund a C-SPAN type challen that would show the Oireachtas and other important press conferences/national events etc. and RTÉ would be freed of their obligations.

The advertising revenue goes towards the imported shows and the salaries of the bigger names. the licence fees pay for home grown shows and community television. If they got rid of the fees, we would not see any as gaeilge shows or community shows as the majority of these would not be profitable

[Rabbitsears]

We could scrap the licence fee and rely completely on advertisments, but what would be dropped by RTE to reflect their drop in income?

Home produced programming for a start.

Look at TV3. 100% funded by advertisements and what home produced programming do they show apart from the news and Ireland AM?

Very little.

I certainly agree that the plank is not worth 1m euro but there is the matter of the sheer scale of home produced programming that RTE create, unlike their european counterparts. Now of course TG4 also have a large amount of home produced programming, but since they get funded directly from the taxpayer they can afford to make those programmes.

So we have three choices:

Scrap the licence fee and see RTE 1 and RTE 2 become TV3 clones;

Scrap the licence fee and put up our taxes to fund home produced programming on RTÉ.

Keep things as they are.

My view is that the status quo is the least worst option...

[seanad voter]

We are now in the 21st century, approaching the centenary of when Ireland (26 counties) got its independence.

Why do we now need a so-called "state" broadcasting station ? It's an anachronism.

[dubsthcentralboy]

Why are we in the bizarre situation of having to pay out to RTÉ for a licence fee and we subjected to advertisements? Surely RTÉ ought to follow the lead of the BBC and make do with the licence fee.

Perhaps it's time to privatise RTÉ, remove the licence feel and let them operate within the same commerical realities as other television and radio stations.

Maybe then the Government could fund a C-SPAN type challen that would show the Oireachtas and other important press conferences/national events etc. and RTÉ would be freed of their obligations.

The advertising revenue goes towards the imported shows and the salaries of the bigger names. the licence fees pay for home grown shows and community television. If they got rid of the fees, we would not see any as gaeilge shows or community shows as the majority of these would not be profitable

Turn on RTÉ1 AT 19.30, prime time viewing and what do they show? Eastenders bought from the BBC!

I think we could allow RTÉ to go ruthlessly commercial without the licence fee and the Government could fund a proper public service channel showing all of the other stuff, like C-SPAN in the US.