TV LICENCE PAYMENTS PLUMMET ...AGAIN!
PAYMENTS of the TV licence have plummeted again after a fresh round of controversies at RTÉ saw the fall-off triple to €1.6million last month, new figures reveal.
Revelations over the redundancy payment of €450,000 to former chief financial officer Breda O’Keeffe – which emerged last month at the Oireachtas Media Committee, chaired by Niamh Smyth – as well as damaging reports on the loss-making Toy Show musical and exit payments for executives saw a new revolt against paying the €160 annual fee.
Speaking to the Irish Daily Mail, Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chair Brian Stanley, a Sinn Féin TD, said: ‘It’s clear that the licence fee is kaput in its present form. The Government has to make a decision here, they cannot keep kicking this can down the road.’
Mr Stanley said this is a ‘cash crisis’ for RTÉ after director general Kevin Bakhurst told the PAC the station would be insolvent in spring this year without the €40million Government bailout promised last year.
At the height of the controversy, TV fee payments were down by over €3.6million in both July and August last year – and the shortfall peaked at €4.3million in both September and October.
By this January, the loss had subsided to around €500,000, but that has now more than tripled for the month of February. Since a series of controversies unfolded at RTÉ last June, licence revenue has plummeted by over €22million, with more than 138,000 people not paying the charge.
Mr Stanley said the most recent €1.6million monthly drop shows the trend is ‘not going in the right direction’, and that there is an ‘issue of confidence’ from the public in RTÉ.
The TD said: ‘If revenue keeps falling sharply, obviously RTÉ is heading into tricky territory and it underlines the need for certainty to be given about this.
‘There is already a proposal for a new model, in the expert report from the Future of Media Commission. ‘If the Government thinks a different model is better, then that’s fine, I might disagree with them over it, but the thing is here that a funding model needs to be put in place, for RTÉ and for other public service media. This needs to happen very quickly, the drift can’t be allowed to happen.’ The Government is under pressure to decide on a new funding model for the station, after it rejected a proposal from the Future of Media Commission in 2022 to fund the broadcaster directly from the Exchequer. Mr Stanley said: ‘RTÉ does not have time on its side here, and the Government hasn’t either. What’s in the gift of the Government is to decide on a new model, get agreement amongst themselves, which they can’t seem to do.’ The Coalition paused deliberations on future funding last summer. Both Tánaiste Micheál Martin and Finance Minister Michael McGrath warned the TV licence will likely still be in place in 2025 until a new system has ‘bedded down.’
Meanwhile, Green Party leader Eamon Ryan defended Media Minister Catherine Martin’s failure to advise licence payers to continue paying the fee last year when the scandal erupted.
Last July, asked if she would urge people to continue to pay the fee, Ms Martin said: ‘I’m not going to advise anyone. We must remember the good of public service broadcasting, we must remember the staff when people are making these decisions.’
Mr Ryan said: ‘Seeing Catherine in action, she’s consistently made the case to Government colleagues that we have to come to a decision on the funding of RTÉ and on that she has been absolutely resolute and I think she’s right.’
He said the Government has set a target for making a decision on the new funding model for RTÉ by the Dáil summer recess, but he would welcome it sooner.
‘Drift can’t be allowed’