How money’s spent is the real problem – not the licence fee
ENVIOUS glances were doubtlessly cast across the Irish Sea from Montrose at the publication of BBC’s gilded wages report.
But aside from the debate on the gender pay gap, the report throws up a curious perspective on resources and how RTÉ chooses to spend its own.
While the BBC reaps the dazzling benefits of €4.2bn in licence fee monies, our own State broadcaster can only sigh wistfully at its own shabby attire, with licence fee revenues of €179.1m.
The BBC has a further €1.4bn in commercial revenue while still being fortunate enough to be able to shun advertising.
Beggars can’t be choosers, however, and RTÉ earns a further €158.3m from its own commercial activities.
Here, oddly, is where the stark chasm ends and the British figures start to strangely come into line with our own.
The British householder pays €166 in its annual licence fee – we, by dint of having a considerably smaller population – are carrying a heavier individual burden, paying a similar €160 for our own licence fee with arguably much less to show for it.
But there are no noises of gratitude coming from the national broadcaster towards their paymasters, the hard-pressed Irish public, for any of this luxurious licence revenue which is denied to any other media organisation in the country.
Instead, RTÉ seems ever disinclined to cut its cloth according to its measure.
We may have no stars in the dazzling €2m bracket like Chris Evans, but our own household names do startlingly well.
Ryan Tubridy’s earnings of €495,000 in 2014 would see him cut the mustard among the BBC’s top 10 earners.
He, at least, earns more than diligent ‘Antiques Roadshow’ presenter and news anchor Fiona Bruce – who takes home €395,000 and comes in just outside the top 10 on the BBC list.
Comparatively speaking, then, RTÉ’s stars are in fact far better paid than their BBC counterparts, if taken as a slice of the station’s revenue.
That is a clear-minded choice made by the national broadcaster.
Other questionable choices include lavishing almost €2.5m on its Centenary concert last year, which lasted all of 85 minutes, and spending €331,482 on this year’s Eurovision, with a total of 16 people sent to Kiev for a contestant who did not even qualify.
Yet despite these choices – and the €100m bonanza from the sale of nine prestigious acres carved from its Montrose site – RTÉ continues to insist that it is riddled with financial woes.
Director general Dee Forbes has pleaded for an increase in the licence fee up to €175, which would see us pay more than our British counterparts.
She described Ireland as a nation of story-tellers, but said it was ‘a real shame’ the State broadcaster does not have sufficient funding to reflect that and compete with other countries. Ms Forbes argued the cost of the licence fee had not been increased in a decade, unlike virtually any other public or private utility.
“To keep pace with inflation, stamps have increased in price, newspapers have increased in price, pay TV subscriptions, health insurance, phone bills, hospital fees, electricity, broadband, bus fares. Almost everything you can think of; so why not the TV licence?” she asked.
And while busily contrasting her lot against utility companies, Ms Forbes has apparently failed to notice that, per head of population, RTÉ is really doing quite well out of us.
It’s how it chooses to spend our money is where the real problem lies.