Dee Forbes banging the RTE TV licence drum again 60m uncollected fee *poll not working - pl ignore*

Scotty #

Elmo wrote: »

Special events are just 1% of RTÉ over all budget and to put that in context...

Special events lost €4.1m in 2019
Net deficit for the year was €7.2m

Therefor... special events accounted for 57% of the deficit.

The top presenters accounted for 0% of the deficit, but lets get rid of them first!

Elmo

Scotty # wrote: »

Special events lost €4.1m in 2019
Net deficit for the year was €7.2m

Therefor... special events accounted for 57% of the deficit.

Pope visited in 2018 might just have been an example but thought I'd mention it.

So special events and their top stars represent their total loss!

Also special event are accounted for in there segment account by genre type. General Elections are not special events in democracies.

Elmo

Scotty # wrote: »

Please, for the purpose of debate, can we please use facts and not just made up gibberish?

RTE 2 is the 3rd most watched channel in Ireland after RTE 1 and Virgin 1 and that includes UK & Sky channels.

RTE account for 25% of ALL TV watched in Ireland.

RTÉ2 in 2020 has dropped below 5% only pecking above 7% in Nov and Dec last year. There is no news on the channel and it's prime time consists of 55% of repeats, it own content has been bottom of the barrel stuff since 2004, when it re-branded to RTÉ TWO, all the while RTÉ spend 25m on imports!

Scotty #

Elmo wrote: »

Pope visited in 2018 might just have been an example but thought I'd mention it.

Huh? What has this got to do with what I posted???

Elmo wrote: »

So special events and their top stars represent their total loss!

No, the shows the stars (to use your term) work on generate income and profit. This profit is then used to subsidise other projects. It's really not that hard to understand.

Elmo wrote: »

General Elections are not special events in democracies.

So what? They are in RTE's accounting dept and annual report.

Elmo wrote: »

RTÉ2 in 2020 has dropped below 5% only pecking above 7% in Nov and Dec last year. There is no news on the channel and it's prime time consists of 55% of repeats, it own content has been bottom of the barrel stuff since 2004, when it re-branded to RTÉ TWO, all the while RTÉ spend 25m on imports!

All irrelevant. 6.1% for the whole year making it the 3rd most watched channel in the county which is the point I was making.

I'll bow out here. It's just going in circles now.

Elmo

Scotty it's going around in circles because you keep going back to RTÉ's whataboutery and their press releases.

You are not taking into consideration what posters are saying.

If RTÉ were making in roads in TV content, where 2FM was standing on its own two feet and RTÉ were making a loss, I would be totally behind RTÉ. However, over the last 10 years RTÉ have failed to reform and have failed to provide a quality service. IMHO.

During these ten years they have consistently spoken about "Special Events", which by enlarge are known about long in advance and from which funding is taken from the amount given towards the Department that is dealing with that particular special event. The Special Events do not appear in their financial statements before 2016 or 2015 and they are NOT part of page 109's segmented accounts for each channel and genre, they do not have a section called special events, they have one for Arts, Religion, Other factual, Education, Children's, News, Sport and Entertainment and Music. and perhaps one more but nothing for special events, these are part of the subgenre's mentioned.

In terms of presenters wages. RTÉ over the last 5 years have not cut any funding to presenters wages, they have give slight increases at times, but no cut. RTÉ over those 5 years said everything was to be examined in terms of cutting.

In 2016 RTÉ decided to move Children's content to independent producers saying that they were committed to children's content and that they would continue to support it, that year they cut it by 25% to 7m, the following year 50% to 3m and since then it has ranged from 3.5 to 5m per year or.... if you want around 1% of their overall budget, a similar figure to their top stars, but that is pure whataboutery.

The support for 2FM from the licence fee is questionably. RTÉ up to 2008 were always talking about how it support itself, by 2011 or 2012 it was getting funding from the licence fee, again even though cuts were being administered and 2FM had seen a fall in revenue of 50% it didn't take a cut.

RTÉ2 has lost a significant audiences and is only supported by Sport. They have cut back on its original programming, and spend 25million (every year on average with no cuts) on foreign content yet still manage to have 55% repeats on the channel's prime time schedule.

In 2014 RTÉ2 had a 7% share, in 2020 it had a 4.64% share. With the lack of original programming on the channel, the lack of news (particularly in 2020) RTÉ2 audience was down at 3.71% in May 2020. These figures would be fine if in some way RTÉ2 was not as commercial as it is. To compare it to VMT TWO, it had a 3.45% share in 2020, in 2014 2.5%. (I am not defending VMT TWO or 3e, BRING BACK CHANNEL 6!)

IMHO

Elmo

From annual reports just to be clear.

political analyst

https://gript.ie/three-reasons-why-no-one-will-tackle-rtes-obscene-salaries/

RTÉ ‘stars’ used to justify these lavish salaries by contrasting their wages with those of BBC presenters. This conveniently ignored the fact that the BBC has an audience something like 15 times the size of ours and therefore pulls in a far greater licence fee and much bigger advertising revenues. It’s like expecting the salary of a Regional Director for Tesco when applying to run the local Spar.

So why does RTÉ think it's necessary to pay such high salaries to its presenters? It's not like any of them would move to Virgin Media!

ohnonotgmail

political analyst wrote: »

https://gript.ie/three-reasons-why-no-one-will-tackle-rtes-obscene-salaries/



So why does RTÉ think it's necessary to pay such high salaries to its presenters? It's not like any of them would move to Virgin Media!

what advertising revenue does the BBC have?

political analyst

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

what advertising revenue does the BBC have?

Fair point.

political analyst

Given RTÉ's financial predicament, why is it still wasting money on the unadulterated crap 'Pulling with My Parents'?

Not even Virgin Media (the former TV3) bothers with Irish reality shows anymore - the only reality shows it has are imports from the UK.

ohnonotgmail

political analyst wrote: »

Given RTÉ's financial predicament, why is it still wasting money on the unadulterated crap 'Pulling with My Parents'?

Not even Virgin Media (the former TV3) bothers with Irish reality shows anymore - the only reality shows it has are imports from the UK.

they're cheap.

Elmo

political analyst wrote: »

Given RTÉ's financial predicament, why is it still wasting money on the unadulterated crap 'Pulling with My Parents'?

Not even Virgin Media (the former TV3) bothers with Irish reality shows anymore - the only reality shows it has are imports from the UK.

Gogglebox Ireland remains one of their most important shows.

Atlantic Dawn

Would RTE rather US taxpayers money was spent outside this country instead?

Protection for then-president Donald Trump's two-day visit to his golf resort in Doonbeg, Co Clare, in June 2019 cost the US Secret Service more than $524,000.

Back in May 2019, ahead of his visit to Ireland, Donald Trump said that he would be staying at his golf resort in Doonbeg because it was "convenient".

https://www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2021/0125/1191961-doonbeg-trump-trip/

elperello

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Would RTE rather US taxpayers money was spent outside this country instead?

I doubt it.

Brian O'Donovan simply put in an FOI in Washington and made an interesting report out of it.

I just heard C Perry on the TV news making the point that such visits inject quite a bit of money into the local economy.

I expect Trumps next visit will cost a few bob as well but a bit more low key.

RabbleRouser2k

Elmo wrote: »

Gogglebox Ireland remains one of their most important shows.

Is that reality TV though? I mean, there's no phone in competition. Nobody is voted out.

Rubberchikken

Does anyone actually watch rte2?

Young people aren't, on the whole, watching rte in any form not listening to their radio stations.

Why would they when there's much better choice to be had on sky, netflix amazon etc.

AndyBoBandy

Rubberchikken wrote: »

Does anyone actually watch rte2?

maybe, just maybe, if they are showing a sport game I'd have a mild interest in watching.... but even these days that'd be a stretch for me.

RabbleRouser2k

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

maybe, just maybe, if they are showing a sport game I'd have a mild interest in watching.... but even these days that'd be a stretch for me.

Same. And since sports was reduced, greatly, due to the pandemic... I don't watch that channel at all.

Scotty #

Rubberchikken wrote: »

Does anyone actually watch rte2?

3rd most watched channel in Ireland believe it or not, after RTE1 and VM1. As many people in Ireland watch RTE2 and BBC1&2 combined!

All conventional TV is declining though with On Demand & Online slowly but surely taking over.

RabbleRouser2k

RabbleRouser2k wrote: »

Same. And since sports was reduced, greatly, due to the pandemic... I don't watch that channel at all.

they lost the majority of good sports tbf, lost Champions league bar one crappy match (which only united or Liverpool are shown - Chelsea fan) ....Ryle Nugent's obsession's with only making an effort in putting on rugby when he had the chance and (when they lost the rugby games people want to watch) him selecting underage Rugby instead of other sports - killed the sports variety on the network

RabbleRouser2k

Wesley Teeny Oasis wrote: »

they lost the majority of good sports tbf, lost Champions league bar one crappy match (which only united or Liverpool are shown - Chelsea fan) ....Ryle Nugent's obsession's with only making an effort in putting on rugby when he had the chance and (when they lost the rugby games people want to watch) him selecting underage Rugby instead of other sports - killed the sports variety on the network

Ryle was a disaster. Folks working in RTE, at the time, were very critical of the sports Dept. Very rare for employees to speak out about their employer while still employed there.
But that's how bad it had gotten. Didn't help they lost so much of the talent too.

Elmo

Scotty # wrote: »

3rd most watched channel in Ireland believe it or not, after RTE1 and VM1. As many people in Ireland watch RTE2 and BBC1&2 combined!

All conventional TV is declining though with On Demand & Online slowly but surely taking over.

Scotty we've been through this in 2020 RTÉ2 will still be 3rd most watched but it down to 4.46% of the TV view audience. In 2016 it was nearly the 2nd most watched TV channel just pipped by TV3 and UTV Ireland, since the demise of UTV Ireland it has become the 3rd most watch channel from 4th but has lost its audience share! (Note: Actually RTÉ2 was still 3rd, when you discount UTV proper from 2015 and 2016)

Irish TV broadcasters represent just 45% of the total viewing audience, 55% of people watch English TV. And I know "...but there are far more stations", vast majority are watching BBC, ITV, Sky and C4 channels. The failure of Irish Broadcasters to create new digital TV station in the early years of Digital TV is all to apparent. Indeed according to BARB BBC 1, 2, ITV and C4 still manage a 41% share, compared to RTÉ 1, 2, VMT1 and TG4's 36%.

You might think that in some way RTÉ2 is yuff but its has really no aim, most of its alternative programmes have moved to RTÉ Player and there is a huge question to the quality of those shows, most are just You Tube videos at best.

And as pointed out RTÉ2's yearly audience share relies on Sport. In 2020 it could have reached 15% during the world cup and 10% during the olympics, giving them a 7% share for the year, the lack of these "special events" or "events that occur on a 4 year basis" has caused that hemorrhage of viewers along with the lack of news and other content on the channel.

Also RTÉ's 2024 strategy moves big sporting events to RTÉ ONE.

Broadcast still has a lot to offer.

Scotty #

Elmo wrote: »

Scotty we've been through this in 2020 RTÉ2 will still be 3rd most watched but but but...

Elmo why the constant need to elaborate on everything I say? Have I posted anything that was incorrect??

All I said was that RTE2 is the 3rd most popular channel in the state, which it is, after a poster questioned if anyone still watched it. You've agreed that it is the 3rd most popular channel but have to go into a rant about it anyway.

Some might call it trolling.

Elmo

Scotty # wrote: »

Elmo why the constant need to elaborate on everything I say? Have I posted anything that was incorrect??

All I said was that RTE2 is the 3rd most popular channel in the state, which it is, after a poster questioned if anyone still watched it. You've agreed that it is the 3rd most popular channel but have to go into a rant about it anyway.

Some might call it trolling.

RTÉ2 is the 3rd most popular channel in the state, largely due to sport.

TG4 is the 6th most popular channel in the state. 1.8% share

RTÉ2 once had a 10% share, while TG4 once had a 3.1% share.

These are pure headlines from both RTÉ2 and TG4, I have no problem with TG4 but RTÉ2 well if I was interested in live sport during the summer I am sure I would watch.

I didn't say you were wrong, I am only pointing out a different way of interpreting those figures.

It is not trolling I am just putting a different view from your own. I am sorry if you think it is trolling.

iseegirls

RTE2's top rated programme last week was Rick Stein's Secret France with 87,000, followed by Great American Railroad Journeys (72k), Home And Away (71k) and Treasures From The Bog (69k). Repeat of Young Offenders at 9pm on Thursday is their highest "home produced" (shared with BBC) with 51,000.

Hop back 5 years ago - RTE2 had The X Files, Blue Bloods and Grey's Anatomy over 100k weekly in Jan 2016. Don't Tell The Bride 127k avg.

10 years ago, Grey's Anatomy reached 325k for one episode, Shameless (199k) along with home produced programming like Katherine Lynch's Working Girls (154k), ICA Bootcamp (153k), Premier Soccer Saturday (148k), Savage Eye (135k)

15 years ago, Desperate Housewives - huge for the channel - 340k, with other home produced programming like Anonymous (229k), Des Bishop: Joy in the Hood (207k)

The fall from grace for the channel has been amazing. In saying that, all channels have fallen a lot - all the soaps are down about 50% of it's audience over 10-15 years. But for RTE2 they seemed to have really fallen behind. Really poor US and UK acquisitions, poorly scheduled, very little home produced programming, a RTE Teen/Jnr strand in the afternoon that seems to be on repeat also lobs in Shortland Street in the middle between Simpsons and the Aussie soaps.

RabbleRouser2k

iseegirls wrote: »

RTE2's top rated programme last week was Rick Stein's Secret France with 87,000, followed by Great American Railroad Journeys (72k), Home And Away (71k) and Treasures From The Bog (69k). Repeat of Young Offenders at 9pm on Thursday is their highest "home produced" (shared with BBC) with 51,000.

Hop back 5 years ago - RTE2 had The X Files, Blue Bloods and Grey's Anatomy over 100k weekly in Jan 2016. Don't Tell The Bride 127k avg.

10 years ago, Grey's Anatomy reached 325k for one episode, Shameless (199k) along with home produced programming like Katherine Lynch's Working Girls (154k), ICA Bootcamp (153k), Premier Soccer Saturday (148k), Savage Eye (135k)

15 years ago, Desperate Housewives - huge for the channel - 340k, with other home produced programming like Anonymous (229k), Des Bishop: Joy in the Hood (207k)

The fall from grace for the channel has been amazing. In saying that, all channels have fallen a lot - all the soaps are down about 50% of it's audience over 10-15 years. But for RTE2 they seemed to have really fallen behind. Really poor US and UK acquisitions, poorly scheduled, very little home produced programming, a RTE Teen/Jnr strand in the afternoon that seems to be on repeat also lobs in Shortland Street in the middle between Simpsons and the Aussie soaps.

God that's depressing. The drop I mean.
Tbf, I probably watch more youtube and streaming services now than I do television. I think I tune into the news, and that's it. But I usually tune into the BBC news, over the RTE news.

Elmo

Just wanted to say that for me its not about how good audience are or if RTÉ are make a loss.

I just want quality content and in some cases just content.

I may never have any interest in the content that RTÉ provide, but they should provide content.

Dead Still might not have got an audience, but at least it was produced.
I might think The Southwesterlies is the biggest load of crap, but at least it was produced.

But that few and far between.

My parents watch RTÉ a good bit, they've moved over to TG4 on occasion and they're other channel hopping really is Discovery channels like Quest, DMax or UKTV channels like Yesterday, also ITV4 and maybe Sony Channel for Classic WWTBAM, these are RTÉ viewers and even they don't even seem all that impressed.

jmcc

iseegirls wrote: »

RTE2's top rated programme last week was Rick Stein's Secret France with 87,000, followed by Great American Railroad Journeys (72k), Home And Away (71k) and Treasures From The Bog (69k). Repeat of Young Offenders at 9pm on Thursday is their highest "home produced" (shared with BBC) with 51,000.

Hop back 5 years ago - RTE2 had The X Files, Blue Bloods and Grey's Anatomy over 100k weekly in Jan 2016. Don't Tell The Bride 127k avg.

10 years ago, Grey's Anatomy reached 325k for one episode, Shameless (199k) along with home produced programming like Katherine Lynch's Working Girls (154k), ICA Bootcamp (153k), Premier Soccer Saturday (148k), Savage Eye (135k)

15 years ago, Desperate Housewives - huge for the channel - 340k, with other home produced programming like Anonymous (229k), Des Bishop: Joy in the Hood (207k)

The fall from grace for the channel has been amazing. In saying that, all channels have fallen a lot - all the soaps are down about 50% of it's audience over 10-15 years. But for RTE2 they seemed to have really fallen behind. Really poor US and UK acquisitions, poorly scheduled, very little home produced programming, a RTE Teen/Jnr strand in the afternoon that seems to be on repeat also lobs in Shortland Street in the middle between Simpsons and the Aussie soaps.

It may also be due to improvements in how viewing audiences are monitored. As most of the population is in cities with cable networks that require subscriptions and settop boxes, that means that viewing figures can be more accurately "monitored" for advertising purposes (of course). Ten years ago, Cablelink/NTL/UPC/Virgin was still carrying analogue channels which required no STB.

Regards...jmcc

Elmo

jmcc wrote: »

It may also be due to improvements in how viewing audiences are monitored. As most of the population is in cities with cable networks that require subscriptions and settop boxes, that means that viewing figures can be more accurately "monitored" for advertising purposes (of course). Ten years ago, Cablelink/NTL/UPC/Virgin was still carrying analogue channels which required no STB.

Regards...jmcc

TAM Ireland have a viewing panel, I don't think they are using digital in that way. It's a daily look at the viewing habits of 1000 or so households. You would need to give permission to allow Sky and Virgin to allow TAM Ireland to use your data for viewing figures. Same goes for BARB in the UK, though their panel is larger.

retalivity

RabbleRouser2k wrote: »

Ryle was a disaster. Folks working in RTE, at the time, were very critical of the sports Dept. Very rare for employees to speak out about their employer while still employed there.
But that's how bad it had gotten. Didn't help they lost so much of the talent too.

God he was awful, I remember him doing football once and he hadn't a clue. And how do you go from a commentator to head of sport?? Actually, I think I already know...


I see he know works for Channel 4 - talk about failing upwards.