Enough of the Béal Bocht, RTE, if you want us onside, cut stars' pay
Digital is killing the TV stars but RTÉ still acting like it’s master of all it surveys
RTÉ’s lucrative and controversy-hit summer undermines the case for a licence fee increase as under-30s vow not to buy one. Can they get away with that? Yes, if they dump their TVs and stream content, as many seem happy to do.
More than half of the under-30s (55%) are considering not buying a TV licence. Can they get away with that, legally? There was confusion surrounding this issue earlier this year when it was proposed that we’d have to buy a TV licence for tablets, laptops and computers as well as TVs. But that was rejected. Now the official Government position is that there is no need to get a TV licence for a monitor ‘so long as the computer is unable to display television channels distributed by conventional television broadcasting networks’.
However, you do need one if there is a TV or any televisionreceiving equipment such as satellite boxes in your home.
Dumping all of this TV paraphernalia can pay off.
Not only can viewers save on a €160-a-year TV licence, but also on TV services costing another €300 a year at least.
You can stream free content from many sources such as Youtube, Blinkx.com and TwistedMirror.tv to name a few.
You can even get free content online through broadcaster apps such as RTÉ Player.
Or it can be paid for with subscriptions to Netflix (€9.99 or €7.99 a month depending on the option), Amazon (from €2.99 a month) and Sky’s NowTV, which costs €15 a month. Add all three together and you could have a superior package to conventional television for less cost – even before the licence fee is taken into account.
Viewers on average now watch over 6.5 hours of streamed internet content a week, a recent survey by broadband provider Pure Telecom found.
However, that’s a lot less than the viewing hours for conventional TV. Average TV viewers watch considerably more than that, with the over-55s clocking up 4.5hrs daily in front of the telly. (Maybe they should get out more?!)
Whether to stream or not seems a generational choice. Worryingly for RTÉ, it’s young people, the audiences of the future, who choose to watch nine hours of streaming, 50% more than average, Pure Telecom’s survey found.
‘The quality of content produced for online platforms has been steadily rising to the point where it is now at least on a par with – and in many cases it outshines – what is offered on traditional television channels,’ CEO Paul Connell said.
People no longer want to pay charges for something they feel they don’t benefit from, said a spokeswoman for comparison site Switcher.ie.
‘If you mainly stream, and rarely watch live TV, you could think about downgrading your TV package and upgrading your broadband for a smoother streaming experience,’ she said.
‘Remember, if you do this, you’ll also need to make sure you have a decent data allowance – or unlimited broadband – to avoid any additional charges.’
The TV licence debate isn’t just about the viewing quality. It is also about public services.
The licence fee pays for TG4, our two RTÉ orchestras and the BAI’s Sound & Vision fund for programmes of cultural and historical merit. However, the bulk of the fee – 79%, or €126 – goes to RTÉ activities.
RTÉ didn’t do its case any favours, with new figures showing how much it pays stars. RTÉ’s top three earners pocket €1.3million a year – and they are all men, dragging the broadcaster into a BBC-style gender pay controversy.
RTÉ’s figures for 2015 show Ryan Tubridy was paid €495,000 in 2015 – the same as a year earlier although down from his €753,000 pay packet in 2012.
Ray D’Arcy earned €400,000 a year, somewhat undermining RTÉ’s claims to be keeping a lid on pay.
Joe Duffy is on €390,000 a year, down from €417,000.
Miriam O’Callaghan was the highest-paid woman on €299,000, with Marian Finucane just behind at €295,000.
The controversy over the pay gap heaps further financial and moral pressure on the broadcaster, particularly as gender balance is a key part of its public service remit.
RTÉ could solve both problems at once, saving both money and face, by slashing pay to the male stars to bring them into line with female colleagues, as one reader suggested in a letter to our sister paper, the Irish Daily Mail, this week. That’s not likely to happen. Instead, RTÉ is under pressure to raise the pay of female stars, at a potential cost of millions.
TV licence payers might ask if RTÉ stars could get by on, say, a few hundred grand a year instead of half million?
Could the 24 senior managers on up to €250,000 a year and the 77 staff paid €100,000€150,000 not make do with less also?
This summer, RTÉ has also been embroiled in a controversy about alleged ‘bonuses’ paid to top managers.
The broadcaster, somewhat pedantically, rejected the word ‘bonus’ as used in some news reports, describing these payments as ‘performance-related increments’ instead.
This makes little difference to the public who just see very highly-paid people getting even more money.
RTÉ has retrenched. A 2015 report on the broadcaster by NewERA consultants concluded that it had reduced operating costs and improved ‘efficiency to the point where its costs are now in the middle range of comparable European public service broadcasters’.
But the licence fee begrudgers can’t see past the overpaid stars.
There’s also anecdotal evidence of a less-than-austere attitude to spending at Montrose that jars with what the public see as the principals of ‘public service broadcasting’.
Insiders speak of lavish budgets for Christmas parties, while the bill for guest drinks and expenses runs to over €600,000 a year.
External contractors also charge higher rates to RTÉ than they would to other companies on smaller budgets in the private sector.
Yet, incredibly, given all of these potential savings, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform recently suggested that RTÉ should cut back on the one thing it’s good at – public service broadcasting!
If it wants to win back a disillusioned public, this is not the way to go.