RTÉ head to tell Oireachtas Committee TV licence system is 'completely untenable'

Wide-ranging budget adjustments are required to stabilise RTÉ’s finances while the TV licence system is now “completely untenable,” Director General Dee Forbes will tell TDs tomorrow.

Ms Forbes will also say that it is not possible for RTÉ to continue to operate from a position of deficit.

“We need to reduce projected costs by €60 million over the next three years. This is in addition to the cost reductions of 23% of operating costs, achieved between 2008 and 2018,” she will say.

An RTÉ delegation will appear before the Oireachtas Communications Committee to discuss the embattled broadcaster's dire financial position and will make demands of the politicians to change the licence fee.

In her opening address, seen by the Irish Examiner, Ms Forbes will hit out strongly at the failure of Government to move on the licence fee for up to five years.

Ms Forbes will say: “The remedy proposed was that the licence fee collection would be put out to tender, and that the term of contract would be for a five-year period. Given that the collecting agent would likely be contracted from 2021 onward, this would in effect, delay the transition to a media charge for close to seven years from the point of announcement.

That is completely untenable. Evasion is now almost 13% resulting in the loss of €25 million per year.

She will say that she and her team want to ensure increased investment to deliver the type of service and content that we know our audiences want. “That means creating greater efficiencies within the operating costs, new work practices, more efficient use of the regional studios, and other pay cost-related measures,” TDs will hear.

By virtue of outdated legislation, 11% of households (and growing) do not pay the TV licence and yet can consume public service programming on online devices, the committee will be told.

Ireland’s TV licence system is irrevocably broken and is no longer capable of properly sustaining public service broadcasting or Ireland’s broader audio-visual and creative sector, she will say.

“By way of example, for the recent Ireland v Russia rugby match, we had near equivalent viewership on the Player live streaming as we had watching the match on RTÉ2. This lag in legislation is resulting in a further loss of €20 million in public funding annually. Licence fee receipts are down against forecast for this year, and have been for the past number of months, making a difficult financial situation, ever more acute,” the Director-General will say.

“To be clear, many of these changes need to happen, and will happen, irrespective of licence fee reform,” she will say.

“There is no doubt that national media services are struggling with the haemorrhaging of commercial income in particular to the large-scale digital players. That should be a matter of concern for all of us,” she will say.