Scrap the television licence

MementoMori

In these economic times why do the government not scrap the television licence?

This would remove the whole utterly pointless bureacratic nonsense and substanial cost involved in the collection and enforcement of the license.

In order to fund RTE they could simply increase the tax rate and pay RTE out of this.

Seems like a no-brainer to me?

Permabear

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CDfm

Any other public broadcaster would have fired Joe Duffy for creating a banking crisis.

maybe it could have a public broadcasting function paid for by advertising

it needs to go

gandalf

Given the amount of dross on RTE coupled with the fact they receive revenue from Advertising the time has come to remove the license fee or reduce it severely. Like the public sector its a bloated organisation with a operating mindset that is decades behind the real world. How they can justify the wages some of the so-called stars are getting is beyond me.

jmayo

CDfm wrote: »

Any other public broadcaster would have fired Joe Duffy for creating a banking crisis.

maybe it could have a public broadcasting function paid for by advertising

it needs to go

Yeah it's all Joe Duffy's fault that the banks are in ****e :rolleyes:

Shoot the messenger and not the gob****es i.e. the Minister that didn't have the cop on to raise the bank deposit guarantee before there was ever an issue or the regulator who appears about as useful and resilient as a paper underpants in a swimming pool.
You would rather the say nothing and hope for the best approach to our economic problemsI guess.

Either you work for one of our ever so solid banks :rolleyes:, or you are member of government party with comment like that.

Joe Duffy should be fired becuase he should have lost the bloody accent by now and now becuase he gave the banks and the minister a dose of reality and got the latter off his considerable ar**.

Ps look at the bright side at least we are not paying that eejit Ross

CDfm

jmayo wrote: »

Yeah it's all Joe Duffy's fault that the banks are in ****e :rolleyes:

Shoot the messenger and not the gob****es i.e. the Minister that didn't have the cop on to raise the bank deposit guarantee before there was ever an issue or the regulator who appears about as useful and resilient as a paper underpants in a swimming pool.
You would rather the say nothing and hope for the best approach to our economic problemsI guess.

Its hardly public interest broadcasting creating a run on the banks.

Irish broadcasting is awful - its like a local radio station in a small town in its quality. The depth of coverage of a church newsletter and the amount of interest as someone elses cold soggy biscuit.

Its not worth the money of the licence fee and needs to go.

Nodin

jmayo wrote: »

Yeah it's all Joe Duffy's fault that the banks are in ****e :rolleyes:

Shoot the messenger and not the gob****es i.e. the Minister that didn't have the cop on to raise the bank deposit guarantee before there was ever an issue or the regulator who appears about as useful and resilient as a paper underpants in a swimming pool.

Theres a difference between a well informed hour of journalism on the state of Irish banking, and an hour of whinging and wailing without counterpoint (Joe Duffy being absent from the former, while being in the midst of the latter). This is the man who seems perfectly content to let his callers claim - unchallenged - that Irish people getting drunk and students being rowdy are a phenomena unique to modern times and a herald of the collapse of civilisation......

nhughes100

I think RTE does a reasonably good job in sporting and current affairs broadcasting. I think it sadly falls down in entertainment - See the thread on Colm and jim jim's home run for example or watch ten seconds of Katherine something or other's wonder woman, could they make that national lotto show a little harder?

It's not going to be scraped anyway, who is going to bin their plasma screen tv that cost over a grand to avoid not paying the license fee. I do think it's an incredibly unfair system not least since I pay Sky digital to get RTE. I do think they pay some of their people far too much, like where are they going to go? TV3?

CDfm

but really - sports coverage and news pays for itself thru advertising.

we have too much current affairs broadcasting.

Its cheap boring and depressing

Fratton Fred

People should have a choice as to whether or not they have a TV, so the payment should not be made out of taxes imo.

But, if you want a state boradcaster, you need to pay them somehow if not then they just become another commercial station with no regulation and suddenly you lose all you sport to Sky.

I do think however that if you pay a tv license you should be able to receive TV coverage through a simple ariel which is not the case even in Dublin.

As for the quality, well, that's another story

mike65

I'd love to jump on the state broadcaster esp with Home Run currently disgracing Sunday evening but without the licence RTE simply wouldn't exist (okay that might be reason enough to scrap the licence!), ad revenue is crashing, the Montrose inmates are even having to buy thier nibbles as managment clamp down on in house freebies. There is obviously scope for cutting star name salaries even if its largely symbolic in terms of savings.

I guess you could make an argument for a slimmed down station which ditches RTE 2, Lyric FM, etc and is compelled to spend its income on home produced material only except that would result in nothing but cheapo game shows and talking heads.

Mike

Permabear

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CDfm

mike65 wrote: »

(okay that might be reason enough to scrap the licence!), ad revenue is crashing, the Montrose inmates are even having to buy thier nibbles as managment clamp down on in house freebies. There is obviously scope for cutting star name salaries even if its largely symbolic in terms of savings.

I guess you could make an argument for a slimmed down station which ditches RTE 2, Lyric FM, etc and is compelled to spend its income on home produced material only except that would result in nothing but cheapo game shows and talking heads.

Mike

The property in montrose must be worth a nice hunk of change. Move the studios to tallagh.

THe radio stuff should be self supporting as local radio stations are - why do we need Lyric FM. What need does it serve?

jmayo

CDfm wrote: »

Its hardly public interest broadcasting creating a run on the banks....

Nodin wrote: »

Theres a difference between a well informed hour of journalism on the state of Irish banking, and an hour of whinging and wailing without counterpoint (Joe Duffy being absent from the former, while being in the midst of the latter)....

What was the bank deposit guarantee before the Joe Duffy show and what was it after ?
I put it to both of you that the show did a disserrvice to the banks (and their lackie regulator and minister) and not the general public i.e. the bank depositors.
To me that is public service broadcasting. He got more done in one afternoon than others managed in months.
You may not like his methods but did you like the result ?

PS everytime we have had a well informed discussion on the state of Irish Banks, we have just heard the same sh*** fromthe bankers/regulator that everything is ok and there is nothing to worry about.
I guess that is why the shares are arount a euro and nobody will touch them.

donegalfella wrote: »

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At least it was home grown drivel and not Farily Shi**y or imported unfunny US sitcoms, effing makeover programs, cookery programs and reality tv shows which is all we get now.
How can kids today play at things like CSI, Law and Order or Ciminal Minds FFS ?
Anyway I suppose they are all in their SUVs and at their playstsions

Nodin

jmayo wrote: »

What was the bank deposit guarantee before the Joe Duffy show and what was it after ?

You seem to be under the impression that causing a panic that causes a bank deposit guarantee to go up justifies causing a panic.......

Nodin

jmayo wrote: »

At least it was home grown drivel and not Farily Shi**y or imported unfunny US sitcoms, effing makeover programs, cookery programs and reality tv shows which is all we get now.

I'm forced to point out that Fairly Sh/itty and the great majority of those makeover and cookery programmes are home grown drivel too....."Paths to Freedom" was probably the only thing they've produced in the last few years thats stuck in the mind.

Permabear

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CDfm

Nodin wrote: »

You seem to be under the impression that causing a panic that causes a bank deposit guarantee to go up justifies causing a panic.......

It was downright irresponsible to do what he did.

I will raise another issue - the Beverly Cooper-Flynn case. Factually Charlie Birds news report was incorrect on this and she had never met the guy. So on a truthiness scale it was not factual it was tabloid journalism.

Also- Questions and answers is not objective -the questions and comments from the audience are from plants. So it is not a free and open or representative discussion.

That much doesnt happen in the country to justify the level of current affairs and news coverage that we have - so they create it.

CDfm

donegalfella wrote: »

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I agree that specialist and classical music programmes may have a niche - but surely not enough to have their own station. Get into internet radio -it was adequetely covered by RTE 1.

Agree with you on Wanderly Wagon - it was a world class show.

Permabear

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CDfm

donegalfella wrote: »

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but is it?

is it the case that it should essential programming in the public interest -such as weather traffic reports and so on. We no longer live in the 1930s 0r 60s and RTE existed as there was no TV coverage in rural areas - TV coverage was available on the East Coast.

Even at that time and when RTE 2 TV was launched in 1977 or there abouts -the question was whether or not to rebroadcast UK TV stations - as National Multi Channel service. Most people in rural ireland wanted that option.

But this is niche programming gone mad. Why not a mandarin chinese or a Polish channel while you are at it.

What I am saying is this is a public broadcaster gone wacko- dolally - not operating in this dimension and not satisfying any kind of real need that cant be satisfied by the private sector.

FTA69

donegalfella wrote: »

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I live in a house with 4 students, if he went searching our jacks he'd never make it out alive.

I find it much easier not to let them in to begin with.

Permabear

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cavedave

Originally Posted by donegalfella
We often get visits from television inspectors—who hunt around suspiciously for our nonexistent TV. The last time, he even searched in the bathroom. All very silly.

Offtopic but why do you let him in?

In an age when most young people get there news/entertainment from the internet does public service broadcasting have a place? I would say yes but the extra hassle associated with getting a tv licence are very annoying.

Permabear

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cavedave

donegalfella

We have nothing to hide! We genuinely don't own a TV set. So we figured that letting him search was the quickest and easiest way to stop the harassment.

Fair enough. I would not let an inspector in but it is your house.

The idea of someone wandering round harrassing people and seeking entry to houses without a warrant to see if they have a receiver for electromagnetic radiation seems like something out of a dystopian novel.

Permabear

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ChocolateSauce

I agree with you OP, but you're for it for the wrong reasons. The TV "licence" is a means of extracting money from people to fund a television station which they may not watch. I am a vehement opponent of the licence for two reasons:

1. In principle. The government has no business using my money without my permission to fund a TV station. If it cannot survive on advertising revenue, it should go under.

2. I don't watch RTE because it is crap. It is extremely uninteresting, badly run, and rarely has anything worth watching. I might be mollified a bit if it was good and I watched it. As it happens, I rarely watch TV at all and use it only for DVD's and games, and I'm expected to pay 160 euro for this?! My TV is worth maybe 5-10% (19 years old, 12 inch) of that, and over the years the amount the licence has cost has vastly outweighed the cost of even an expensive TV. It is utterly sickening....

jmayo

Nodin wrote: »

You seem to be under the impression that causing a panic that causes a bank deposit guarantee to go up justifies causing a panic.......

Well the panic actually alarmed the banks, who then alarmed the poor ould minister, who had to be woken from his snooze, who then actaully decided to get off his ar** and up the bank deposit guarantee from where it was at the EU base, even though we were supposedly one of the richest countries in the EU.
It was only done at behest of the banks to stop deposits leaving to foreign owend banks. Had they ever thougth of asking for guarantee to be upped before that point ? I bet not.
Who was the winner but the ordinary bank depositor.
Do you have a problem with that and if so please tell us why ?

BTW the regulator stilled hasn't awoken, well apart from a few minutes when he slapped measely fine on a particular well connected bankers son :rolleyes:

Nodin wrote: »

I'm forced to point out that Fairly Sh/itty and the great majority of those makeover and cookery programmes are home grown drivel too....."Paths to Freedom" was probably the only thing they've produced in the last few years thats stuck in the mind.

Yes I know they are home grown. Duncan bloody Stewart et al :mad:
Does that make them any better or worse than the suff from UK:mad:

CDfm wrote: »

I agree that specialist and classical music programmes may have a niche - but surely not enough to have their own station. Get into internet radio -it was adequetely covered by RTE 1.

Agree with you on Wanderly Wagon - it was a world class show.

Oh yes we should all tune in to our own particular radio station using the internet.
Have you ever tried listening to internet radio on a 28.8k modem line :rolleyes:
Some of us may live in areas that Eircom dems not worthy of Kathryn bleedin Thomas' greatly advertised Eircom broadband coverage.
Oh and we may not have a local provider like one of our esteemed MODs either.

donegalfella wrote: »

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You may not need a license but you sure as hell do need decent broadband

CCCP^

Is RTE going to transfer to the digital signal like the Beeb? If so our old TVs will be exempt as they won't be able to pick up the signal!

Permabear

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