Broadcaster hit by €17m net deficit last year
The deterioration in its finances comes despite RTÉ reducing its operating costs by €7.1m to €369.5m last year.
TV advertising has been worst affected by the downturn in the economy, falling by €6.3m last year and by 40% over the past five years.
TV adverting revenue now accounts for just 27% of all income at RTÉ compared to 36% in 2007.
Income from the TV licence fee dropped by 6% to €183.6m last year — equivalent to a level last recorded in 2006.
RTÉ blamed the fall in licence fee revenue for the impact of budgetary decisions taken by the Government in Dec 2010 which eliminated part of the direct exchequer grant to TG4 which had been paid through RTÉ.
It claimed the cumulative effect of such measures had reduced its revenue from this source by €18m per annum. RTÉ estimates that TV licence evasion rates are as high as 15%.
The number of employees at Montrose also decreased by 3% to 2,093 staff in 2011 as a result of early retirement and voluntary redundancy schemes.
RTÉ’s cash reserves declined by €2.5m to €60.7m and the station has warned that its cash resources are rapidly depleting and being replaced by borrowings.
The State broadcaster also expressed concern about the deficit in its pension scheme which could be as high as €72m. RTÉ said the scheme’s trustees may be required to submit a proposal to the Pensions Board to address the shortfall in the pension fund.
The total amount of home-produced programming broadcast during 2011 fell by 5% to 4,782 hours.
However, the broadcaster said RTÉ One had still managed to record a slight increase in its peak-time national share of the TV market to almost 31%.
Forty-seven of the 50 most watched programmes on any channel in 2011 were broadcast by RTÉ with all except two programmes being home-produced.
The top rating programme last year was The Late Late Toy Show which attracted an average audience of 1,529,000 viewers — the highest rate for the show in 17 years.
RTÉ reported that its TV advertising revenue fell by 6% last year as advertisers held back budgets in the second half of 2011 due to the economic crisis.
On radio, RTÉ Radio 1 maintained a steady hold on listenership growth of recent years, although it admitted that 2FM had “a difficult and demanding” year.
Radio advertising revenue at RTÉ Radio 1 remained at 2010 levels, and increased at Lyric FM. However, 2FM recorded a drop in advertising to mirror its falling market share.
RTÉ’s website continued to grow in popularity and recorded 1.3bn page impressions in 2011 with the number of unique browsers up 8% to an average of 4m per month.
The RTÉ Player — the broadcaster’s catch-up service — recorded 45% growth last year with 32m programme streams seen by 526,000 unique browsers.
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