Levy Netf lix to pay for public service TV
THE head of the Oireachtas Media Committee has called on the Government to introduce a levy on Netflix, Sky, Disney and other popular streaming platforms to fund the cash-strapped national broadcaster.
Niamh Smyth warned the Coalition will be looking to explore ‘more creative solutions’ to plug the huge loss of license fee revenue in the wake of the RTÉ hidden payments scandal.
The Fianna Fáil TD said retaining the current license fee model or replacing it with a new tariff would not be acceptable to many. She also dismissed the direct exchequer funding model favoured by RTÉ and Media Minister Catherine Martin.
She told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘Simply providing funds to RTÉ is not a sufficient response to a set of actions that have been outrageously cavalier, even beyond cavalier.
‘The idea that people will happily pay another tax is optimistic. The Government has to find another mechanism. They have smart people in the Department of Finance who are more than capable of coming up with innovative solutions.’
One solution, she suggested, was that streaming giants could pay to support public broadcasting.
She said: ‘It is a very crowded marketplace and companies like Sky and Netflix are impacting seriously on the RTÉ market share. RTÉ is being crowded out. ‘People are happy to pay Sky and Netflix, so we should consider a charge on these companies to fund public service broadcasting.’ Such a move would mirror the example in France, where the government takes 17 cent from every euro Netflix earns. Other countries have imposed similar levies on streamers, but Ireland has yet to do so.