RTÉ harms itself when it ignores public service
RTÉ television’s shocking neglect of the Irish language can hardly be a surprise to native speakers and lovers of the language. But the investigation into its programme output by the Languages Commissioner, Ronan O’Domhnaill, shows in bald terms how in recent years bilingual or Irish language shows have been passed over in favour of ratings winners like Dancing With The Stars or Room to Improve.
The commissioner found that television audiences had less than a 1% chance of stumbling across either a bilingual or an Irish language show on RTÉ. The pathetic offering, which couldn’t even be described as tokenism, breaches RTÉ’s public service remit and its legal obligations to the language under the Broadcasting Act.
It also begs questions about the licence fee, which supposedly funds RTÉ’s role as the cradle of the nation’s cultural life and promoter of niche interests that, without State support, would wither and die.
The same questions reared their head when the future of RTÉ’s two orchestras came up for public discussion.
A review concluded that the station could not afford to support both the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and the Concert Orchestra and recommended that the former be peeled away from RTÉ and funded by Government.
THE debate led to charges of RTÉ reneging on its public service remit in its preparedness to shed one orchestra out of a paltry two, when other broadcast organisations around the world could support several. What was the point of the licence fee if our orchestras weren’t even safe?
The deal with the licence fee is fairly straightforward, even if it is continually betrayed at Montrose. In return for the special tax, the broadcaster must promote cultural pursuits that might be described as elitist, but which would be unheard of in the cut-throat world of commercial broadcasting.
In Britain, the BBC survives purely on the licence fee and on
selling rights to its programmes in other territories. We have a hybrid funding model for RTÉ, comprising both ads and licence fee.
While RTÉ’s special status rankles with Virgin Media, which stand or fall on viewing figures, the principle of protecting one station from the ravages of the marketplace is sensible, if – and it’s a big if – it fulfils its vital role .
But increasingly RTÉ is not keeping its end of the bargain. Its news and current affairs output may be excellent but so too is Virgin Media’s and on far more meagre resources. Also like Virgin Media, it chases ratings and advertising with crowd-pleasing shows that do little to ‘educate or inform’. Its new offering Marty And Bernard’s Big Adventure deserves an Emmy for shameless drivel.
GRANTED, like all traditional media, RTÉ can legitimately plead poverty in its defence. It has to compete with services like Netflix, and the loss of ad revenue to the likes of Google and Sky. But all the time it chases advertising with formulaic shows it undermines the validity of the licence fee and specifically the pleas of its director general Dee Forbes that the fee be, if not increased, then reformed.
Forbes asks the taxpayer to stump up more money for RTÉ while ironically diluting the station’s public service role, denuding it of Irish language programmes, and generally showing willing to do away with the unprofitable parts of its operation. If she keeps it up she will destroy the case for the licence fee and public service broadcasting.