Unsustainable

at

The launch of RTÉ’s Autumn/Winter 2018/2019 schedule last Summer.

This afternoon.

RTÉ ‘s annual report has revealed a net deficit of €13m in 2018.

The media organisation said although there had been a modest increase in total revenue, and a reduction in operating costs, the cost of special events – including the Papal Visit, the Presidential Election and coverage of the FIFA World Cup – contributed to the overall deficit.

Director General Dee Forbes said RTÉ could do a lot to help itself, but it needed action from Government and that had not come in to play, and that the licence fee system was no longer fit for purpose.

Ms Forbes added that RTÉ cannot continue in deficit because it will not have the cash to facilitate those deficits.

RTÉ reports net deficit of €13m for 2018 (RTÉ)

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47 thoughts on “Unsustainable

  1. dhaughton99

    Yer wan Kathern Tomas on the radio earlier, bragging about her walk-in wardrobes. All on the public teat. Makes my blood boil.

    1. Spud

      Anyone else think the special events excuse is bullpoo?
      Surely they would allow for better advertising revenue?
      And I’d you’re op costs for such were high, you planned it poorly!

  2. Dr.Fart MD

    close it down so.
    (on a seperate note, everyone in that photo would get my phone number apart from the woman in black and Tubs)

        1. Dr.Fart MD

          yea, but in a gas way. like, anytime i get modded it’s a lil ridiculous, for sayin somethin pretty soft. and this was soft too, but they modded it funnily. they sometimes do. i hate when they make ya say ‘bullpoo’ and kiddy words like that.

          1. millie st murderlark

            They’ve got me a few times. Always hilarious.

            Bodger told me it’s Chompsky who does the modding, the scamp.

            But Bodger also does a lot of the modding, I’ve just been informed. Including the wonderful example above, credit where credit is due.

      1. Spaghetti Hoop

        I recall a load of tripe here at eod yesterday about how women are uglier when using contraceptives.
        ???

        1. millie st murderlark

          Yes. Queenie was making a rather odd argument that the pill ages women and then it turned out he was trolling? Or perhaps saving face.

          Either way, I can’t say I agreed with the sentiments expressed.

          1. Al Bin Man

            Queenie indeed
            When not doing that he’s policing the site
            At least charger is funny now and again

  3. SOQ

    Everyone on the news is now standing up- apart from the middle aged men.

    Mind you, high heels wouldn’t suit most of them- but a couple are familiar.

    1. SOQ

      Do check with your service provider as to how often they refresh posts before sticking something critical of the nice people on RTÉ on your website John?

  4. BS

    For once I absolutely agree with someone from RTE! A licensing model is absolutely not fit for purpose and archaic!

    Switch to a subscription model. The people who want to watch rte will then pay to watch it. Think of all the money saved on paying an post to collect the licence fee!

  5. eoin

    So, RTE is unable to break even while it pays Tubridy €495,000 for (max) five hours radio broadcasting and two hours TV broadcasting a week. Tubridy gets to use his RTE profile and platform to earn 100s of €1,000 on top, and it was no mistake that he brought a Christmas kids book last year about a jumper thinking he could capitalise on the Toy Show and follow in David Walliams footsteps.

    Tubridy encapsulates RTE’s atrocious sense of entitlement and commercial incompetence. If Dee Forbes can’t cut her cloth according to her means then she should fupp off out of it.

    1. Cian

      I’m not one to defend Tubbs. But just because he only spends 7 hours on air doesn’t mean he only spends 7 hours working.

      Saying that, even if he does a 40 hour week, he is still way overpaid.

    2. GiggidyGoo

      Badly photo shopped image above. Not the people in it, but the yellow floor – flood fill. And probably a fortune paid for it.

  6. eoin

    Is the €8m a year that disgraced minister Denis Naughten gifted RTE the day before he was fired by Leo last October illegal state-aid?

    Also, has personal injuries specialist and culture minister decided to give RTE €4m a year of our money to subsidise the orchestras which seemingly pay their musicians around €150,000 a year; has anyone ever listened to them, but that that’s not the point, RTE is supposed to fund the orchestras from the licence fee.

    And with that extra €12m of our money a year, RTE is still unsustainable? Fupp off, and take €495,000 Tubridy with you.

  7. Skeptik

    Disband RTE, create a commissioning authority for Irish TV and Radio and let independent studios produce domestic programming instead. Flog Montrose. See what TV3 does with a tiny industrial unit in Ballymount as an example of cost effectiveness. Privatise the transmission network and create a real streaming platform like iPlayer.
    You could do it so cheaply that the advertising could fund the lot. Quality and creativity could be boosted all at the same time.
    Or just let the whole lot become even more irrelevant in a post-broadcast world. YouTube and its advertisers will be the ones to gain.

  8. GiggidyGoo

    “Ms Forbes added that RTÉ cannot continue in deficit because it will not have the cash to facilitate those deficits.”
    So the deficit situation has just happened recently then? Ehhhhh…… no!

  9. Dub Spot

    Great diversity on display in that picture.

    Shut the whole shebang down and turn RTE Donnybrook into a wildlife reserve.

  10. Truth in the News

    Whats RTE’s carbon footprint, they constantly lecture everyone else about
    climate change

  11. eoin

    Having now studied the report, all the hifalutin stuff about transparency is rubbish. There’s nothing about the declining RTE share of eyes/ears as the organisation becomes more irrelevant. If you pull out the 2017 report and read it side by side, you’ll see Radio 1 has lost 4% of its audience, down from 22.2% to 21.2%. What has the loss been at RTE 1 TV? It’s not in there at all, but judging by the weekly ratings, the Late Late Show down to 350k, Ray Darcy below 250k and Fair City just over 200k, RTE 1 is not looking good, especially as the population is growing by 2% a year, the implication is, we’re watching more Netflix, Amazon, Youtube or not watching linear stuff at all. The report shows they’ve made financial savage cuts to RTE 2 TV in 2018 and that is reflected in the weekly ratings, often you just need an audience of 40-50,000 to get in the Top 20.

    And the reason the RTE report has been published very early this year (it’s normally out in August) is, RTE wants the shady Richard Bruton to propose changes to the licence fee before the politicians go on holiday in a fortnight. Cynical, the opposite of transparent and someone really needs look at the orchestras/Naughten €12m a year state-aid stuff.

    1. Al Bin Man

      Agreed
      Lifeboats and Titanic spring to mind
      Oh look there’s yer wan in a green dress though!

    1. Al Bin Man

      At least it wasn’t an upcycled one!

      See my earlier comment to Johnny Green about the sense of entitlement of these people, invariably women.
      The men are just as bad but better at hiding it, I find.

  12. Rugbyfan

    Rte:
    Dying on its feet
    Overpaid ‘talent’
    One too many TV stations
    Male dominated airwaves on Radio One
    Reruns galore
    Better content elsewhere
    Still can’t breakeven
    Not worth E20 nevermind E160

    People wouldn’t pay water bills and that changed. Time for people to stop paying the license fee en masse

      1. millie st murderlark

        +1

        Lyric is a great use of taxpayers money.

        I’d add RTE jr to that too. It’s a brilliant kids channel.

      2. Spaghetti Hoop

        Ditto.
        Make the TV licence modular; separate out radio and delete RTE from your subscription TV services as proof to the Regulator. I haven’t watched RTE on TV for years and only view BBC2 & Ch4 occasionally. I’d have no problem paying 80 squids for radio only and not for dreadful soaps, the Tubridy/Darcy and Operation Transformation oul rubbish.

        1. eoin

          Page 30 of the RTE Annual report helpfully shows you how much of your €160 licence fee goes to each service.
          Radio 1 – €12
          Radio 2 – €3*
          Lyric – €4*
          Online – €7 (imagine if the Irish Times were available for €7 a year?)
          RTE 1 – €49
          RTE 2 – €25
          They don’t split out RTE jr, lumping it in with “Other Channels and Services” which cost €8

          * worth saying that elsewhere in the report, page 31 for example, RTE claims RTE radio 2 costs €12m a year while Lyric costs €7m, which undermines its analysis of the €160 licence fee.

          1. Spaghetti Hoop

            Very useful thanks eoin. Paying 100% yet using only 10%. This would be a better starting point for a licence petition, plus it means that you can still own a TV without RTE services streaming in, which is a much fairer fee system than simply owning an electronic appliance = pay Tubridy’s salary.

          2. Cian

            * I don’t know the actual figures, but it is possible that more of my licence fee goes to Lyric than to Radio 2 – even if Radio 2 costs more than Lyric. The licence fee isn’t the only source of funding for the radio stations.

            Could Radio 2 raise more in advertising than Lyric?

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