Virgin Media looks for €30m in state aid for news shows
● Station boss writes to Media Minister over state-funded RTÉ’s ‘unfair advantage’
The Government should fully fund Virgin Media Television’s €30m news and public service content budget, the station’s managing director has told media minister Catherine Martin in a robust letter.
Áine Ní Chaoindealbháin claimed that privately-owned Virgin Media broadcasts more public service content each week than the state-owned channels RTÉ or TG4 and that plurality in journalism and the fair treatment of all broadcasters was “vital to Irish democracy”.
However, the TV executive said in the emailed letter sent last Wednesday, it was unsustainable for Virgin Media to compete against a state broadcaster in receipt of almost €200m worth of state aid each year, as well as “annual multi-million-euro taxpayer funded top-ups.”
Ní Chaoindealbháin claimed there was no requirement for “transparency and accountability of where and how this state aid is being spent”, and she hit out at RTÉ’s use of its state funding to help purchase British soap operas such as EastEnders.
The new Virgin Media boss, who took over the top role at the Ballymount broadcaster at the start of the year, took aim at continued state funding of RTÉ “despite manifest governance issues that distorts competition and fuels an unfair commercial market that is unsustainable.”
“RTÉ is continuing to enter into content and rights agreements without robust due diligence in place to ensure best use of public funds — for example to spend millions of euro each year with the BBC for content already available in Ireland, EastEnders for example,” she wrote.
“This continuous expenditure of state funds in this way simply fuels an unfair and increasingly anti-competitive broadcasting market and should not be allowed to continue.”
The television executive said Virgin Media was the only “public service and free-to-air broadcaster in Ireland not receiving any direct financial support from the State”.
Virgin Media, which began life as TV3 in 1998 before being bought by media giant Liberty Global in 2015, has pushed for reform of the way broadcasting is funded in Ireland. However, this latest letter to the minister is its strongest intervention to date.
“Public service media is more than just RTÉ and TG4. It includes Virgin Media Television, radio, newspapers and other outlets covering news and public affairs on a daily basis.” Ní Chaoindealbháin wrote.
Virgin Media has, over 25 years, played a major role “in ensuring plurality and diversity in Irish media” and was “the only Irish public service broadcaster to have seen an increase in share of viewing over the last four years,” she said. In her letter, she said Virgin Media currently provided 6.5 hours of live public service broadcasting every weekday and 3.5 hours at weekends — more than the output of RTÉ and TG4 — funded by commercial advertising with no direct financial support from the State.
RTÉ “in stark contrast” benefits from almost 90pc of the overall TV licence fee, which amounted to €195.6m in 2022 on top of the €152.1m state-owned broadcaster’s commercial advertising revenue, yet does not “account or distinguish separately” for the use of public and commercial funds, according to the Virgin Media boss.
RTÉ had also benefited from a further €31m in “supplementary aid” from the Government over 2022 and 2023 “with the very strong likelihood of further demands for more taxpayers’ money this year and thereby potentially more cash injections to be approved by the Government in 2024,” she wrote.
She claimed the cost of Virgin Media’s live public service content was currently €30m annually, including news and current affairs, Ireland AM and The Six O’Clock Show.
“To put this into context, the total operating costs of the RTÉ news and current affairs department in 2022 was €56m (according to RTÉ’s annual accounts). The continued provision of our news, current affairs and public service content is a direct cost to Virgin Media Television as a state-licensed public service broadcaster. This current level of investment is unsustainable as we are competing with an organisation that receives over €195.6m in annual state aid plus what have become annual multi-million-euro taxpayer-funded top-ups, without the requirement for transparency and accountability of where and how this state aid is bring spent,” she wrote.
Ní Chaoindealbháin said that any state or Exchequer funding, including the licence fee, should be made available to all public service media “with clear measures, obligations, and transparent reporting commitments.”
She suggested that the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland’s Sound & Vision Funding initiative — which uses the licence fee to fund content with cultural or heritage significance — was “a very good model to follow but the funding and remit must be significantly expanded. We believe that the full funding of Virgin Media Television’s €30m public service broadcasting content budget through a ring-fenced allocation within the Sound & Vision funding system is a viable and necessary model to follow.”