Clarification

ON Saturday, July 4, an Irish Examiner report — headlined “RTÉ planning hike in licence fee” with a subsidiary heading “viewers to pay for €68m losses” — reported that “viewers faced the prospect of paying more for their TV licence to help offset potential losses of €68m at RTÉ”.

The Irish Examiner accepts that the reference to the sum of €68m refers to a potential shortfall in commercial revenues, and not a potential operating loss, and we are happy to make this point clear to readers.

RTÉ has also asked us to point that the state broadcaster is not pursuing a television licence fee increase as a significant step toward balancing its books in the context of the publicised €68m shortfall in its 2009 commercial revenues and that any suggestion that the public was therefore likely to pay to make up this shortfall is inaccurate.