Staying In This Afternoon?

at

This afternoon (approx 5pm)

The Joint Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment will hear from RTE Director General Dee Forbes.

Via The Times Ireland Edition:

Dee Forbes will tell TDs on the Oireachtas communications committee this morning that the regime is “broken”, and that licence-fee evasion costs the state broadcaster €40 million a year.

“We would once again put on record our concern that the need for reform is urgent,” Ms Forbes will say. “Without it, there will be far-reaching consequences for our journalism, for national cultural and creative expression, and for employment in the broader media.”

Hmm.

Watch live here (approx 5pm)

‘Broken’ licence fee harming TV output (Catherine Sanz, The Times ireland edition)

Yesterday: A Shabby Sense Of Entitlement

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27 thoughts on “Staying In This Afternoon?

  1. paul

    fee evasion costs RTE nothing. Too many people employed to do too little. RTE’s output is bad anyway.

    no need to watch it now.

  2. BS

    She’s absolutely right. The idea of a “license” to own a piece of technology that receives a television signal is archaic and not fit for purpose. It is now just another stealth tax or as those incredibly annoying radio ads say another one of the “terms and conditions of living in Ireland”

    Make rte a a subscription service, pay to view, your subscription gets you web and app access as well as tv through your choses provider.

    Make a payment mandatory for the radio services or increase income tax a small amount and ring fence it for the radio service.
    They will quickly see that giving the likes of tubs half a million euro for 5 hours of radio and 2 hours of tv a week is not sustainable when you’re not getting dig outs from the government.

    1. Cian

      Are you are suggesting that Tubs only works 5+2 hours a week?

      There is a lot of preparation that goes into TV/radio shows.

      saying that, I agree that 500k is excessive for the output…

      1. Andyourpointiswhatexactly?

        He’s desperate, though. I watched a bit of his show last week. He’s so jittery and seems to completely lack empathy.

        1. Brother Barnabas

          because he knows people like you are watching, poised with glee to post negative comments online. his nerves are gone. leave him alone and see how amazing he’ll be.

          1. Andyourpointiswhatexactly?

            Shurrup, you. I know he’s sound (he was very good to a friend of mine) but he’s useless on the telly.

      2. scottser

        he has a production crew that do everything from pick his clothes, write his scripts, prepare his questions and research his guests for him. you could train a monkey to do it.

      3. BS

        That’s exactly what I’m suggesting. He turns up, sits down at 9am has an agenda handed to him by researchers and rattles through an hour of radio where he reads stories from the newspaper and gives his view on it, talks about some book he’s reading then asks a guest questions that have been written for him. Then says he’s going to nip out to the cinema or to read a book that afternoon.

        I’d say he is in rte for about 4 hours a day.

      4. Jeffrey

        yep. Or not far off. Certainly not 8h a day, everyday. They have researchers for all the guests, topics, etc… the guy I thought was ok in the beginning but recently its absolute crapola.

      1. BS

        You just have to look at the mess they make of things they buy in to remake. There’s a complete lack of talent in rte which is strange because there’s a lot of talent in general in Ireland when it comes to films and tv that gets made elsewhere!

  3. Andyourpointiswhatexactly?

    I’m not sure what Dee’s brief was, but for someone who has so much experience, I’m not seeing much improvement in how RTE is run.

    1. Otis Blue

      Old wine in a new bottle.

      We only hear from her when she’s shilling for an increased license fee.

      I guess an acid test will be when the contract negotiations come up for the ‘talent’. Given that she’s sucking on the tit as much as they are, there can little grounds for optimism.

    2. curmudgeon

      It is run for the benefit of its staff, and of course the govt.
      Dee is doing a great job, she successfully got the station and extra 8.6million this year and all she had to do was ask the govt for it instead of all the hassle and effort of getting better audience figures.

  4. Optimus Grime

    Well now Dee I had a look at the listing for RTE 1 the other day and the first bit of home produced programming, bar the news, that came on in the day was at 3pm in the afternoon. And even that was Maire and Daithi!

  5. Ollie Cromwell

    I’d like to ask why,if Tony Connelly is RTE’s Europe Editor,why he only ever reports from Brussels ?
    How many of the many other EU countries does he actually visit.
    Or does he spend so much of his RTE-paid time knocking out his latest book.

        1. millie st murderlark

          I have the great pleasure of listening to him every day and I can verify he’s rather dreadful. I don’t like him.

          Personally, he’s actually very nice. Quiet.

          As for that other gobpoo, Eoin McDermott, well I’d only love to give him a kick. He absolutely wrecks my head.

  6. McVitty

    It’s an inefficient and wasteful enterprise – look at the salary comparisons with the BBC. Instead of importing shows from the UK and US, it should be funding and broadcasting homegrown productions, promoting engagement with the Irish language – for people who have low levels of fluency but it seems inevitable that before long, RTE will be broadcasting the same disruptive cultural marxist garbage the BBC does – stuff like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HExOdnZ3eJs

  7. Lilly

    I knew someone a while back who worked there. Still does. His official starting time was 9.30am but he would rock up every day just before midday. Dream job.

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