RTÉ’s ‘dominance’ of advert market threatens papers

THE future of the Irish newspaper industry is threatened by public service broadcaster RTÉ’s dominance of the advertising market, the Oireachtas communication committee was informed yesterday.

Representing the country’s print media, National Newspapers of Ireland (NNI) coordinating director Frank Cullen said that “successive governments have failed to implement a cohesive media policy”.

Mr Cullen outlined the problems in the Irish media market, with publicly-funded broadcaster RTÉ already having 60% of the TV advertising market, the highest retained by any public service broadcaster in Europe, where the average is between 27% and 29%.