A Hard Station

The Minister has a point. Certainly in relation to broadcasting, which comes within Smle de Valera s own remit, our membership of the EU and our consequent acceptance of European competition laws has curtailed the State s freedom to support the national broadcaster, RTE, in a variety of significant ways. It may well have been that this issue was occupying Smle de Valera s mind in the run-up to her Boston engagement. With the recent purchase, by Grenada Television, of a 45% stake in TV3, the dominance of RTE in the local television market is under unprecedented threat. The word from Montrose has been generally gloomy, for some time. Already huge losses have been forecast by station bosses for this year. Now, the link-up of Grenada with TV3 means that RTE will lose Coronation St; produced by Grenada, it is top of the Nielsen ratings, the programme with the highest viewing figures in Ireland, a flagship show from a commercial standpoint. To see that plum stolen by the opposition because of events outside RTE s control must be a bitter pill to swallow.
The commercial realities of the new World Broadcasting Order are crowding its space. There are big fish in the market who are only too happy to snap up any kind of commercially attractive programming that s available. Currently, for example, RTE have the television rights to Saturday night coverage of the Premiership in the Republic. But for how long? Will ITV, who have purchased the rights to put a Match of the Day-style programme together for the UK from next year on, permit the Irish national broadcaster the luxury of picking up a prime piece of television real estate on the cheap? Or will they insist that UTV gets a free run on the island of Ireland, with what is an eminently bankable property in this part of the world?
Increasingly, RTE will come under pressure from TV3, from Sky and from ITV. And yet none of these channels (or institutions) either can or would in any event want to fulfil the public service remit that is properly at the heart of RTE s mission. It is, of course, a nebulous concept that can mean everything and nothing, depending on your perspective. In this lies one of RTE s great failures. As an organisation, to a very large extent, the national broadcaster has tended to be secretive and defensive a posture for which there is no justification whatsoever, given the subvention provided by the licence fee, which is, after all, paid (for) by the citizenry.
Long ago, RTE could and should have produced a compelling mission statement which would have given the public a sense of what it was buying into, and a benchmark against which the achievements of the station might be measured. Instead, the attitude has been that RTE will do what RTE wants because RTE knows best. One example is enough to illustrate the essentially cavalier nature of the station s stance on matters of this kind.
For years we have been told that RTE operates an informal policy of playing about 25% Irish music. It can, quite clearly, be seen as a logical component of its public service remit, and its commitment to the community of Irish musicians in particular, that RTE should formalise that policy. In truth, indeed, the commitment should be higher than 25%. And yet there has been a consistent refusal on the part of the national broadcaster to properly acknowledge this as a real and genuine obligation.
I have never understood why. It s not an exaggeration to say that any fool could produce a decent and workable playlist that would involve up to a 40% commitment to Irish music, for either Radio One or 2FM. And yet the resistance to making any kind of a structured, thought-out and therefore measurable commitment runs so deep within RTE that no-one would even countenance setting down a marker of that kind. There is of course a kind of arrogance involved: a don t-tell-me-what-to-play attitude that disguises a deeper kind of laziness. But the bottom line is this: if you work in RTE, part of the package is that you re supported by the taxpayers money. That money does not come free of obligations. So let s define what those obligations are, or should be.
I am convinced that playing a decent, agreed and measurable proportion of Irish music should be one of them. In fact I believe that a similar quota should be effectively imposed on commercial radio stations. But if the national broadcaster cannot be persuaded to make a clear, unequivocal and generous commitment, then what kind of invidious position would the IRTC be in, if it attempted to rigorously enforce a quota on commercial stations?
The existence of RTE is vital to the national interest. The station should be supported to whatever extent is necessary to allow it to compete for viewers and listeners with the most ambitious of the commercial broadcasters currently eating up market share here, while also fulfilling its public service remit in a satisfactory manner.
Almost certainly that would mean a substantial increase in the licence fee. While we re at it then, why not go the whole hog? In the current economic climate, isn t there an argument for freeing RTE from its more grinding obligations to the market by deciding that the national broadcaster should be entirely funded by a considerably increased licence fee, topped up with additional money from the exchequer where required.
There s a lot to play for over the coming months. RTE will need widespread public support if it s to stay in the race. Maybe this was on Smle de Valera s mind when she made her speech in Boston, maybe not. But either way she s going to have to come up with something special to inject a fresh sense of purpose into the RTE mission.
So let s finally hear what that is, and take it from there. If we can!!!