RTE Cutbacks The Plan

elperello

If they all came into work in their bare feet carrying a sod of turf for the fire the core financial issues would remain.

Their strength and their weakness is that they are well known.

People see them or listen to them and think "That's easy anyone could do that".

Meanwhile there are loads of others out there in all walks of life doing very well out of the public purse that you never hear about.

Damien360

Boggles wrote: »

That's a bit ould fella down the pub ranting and raving TBH.

I imagine the commercial revenue from his Radio and TV more than covers the cost of his salary and production, etc.

But but but you could put a chicken on and they would get the same numbers, etc.

Basically don't hate the player, hate the game.

It's RTE that needs to change not Turbidy.

I don’t know the figures but does anyone know the current cost per minute of a radio ad and a tv ad during prime time shows ? Both shows disappear for the summer and various other breaks. So with a 1 hour daiy (5 day) show and his once a week 2 1/2 hour show, what revenue does it bring in for advertising alone. That’s completely ignoring costs to run each which every other business would have to account for.

FreudianSlippers

Damien360 wrote: »

The data for TV viewer numbers is extrapolated from 1090 homes (Tam Ireland website statement). I am probably the wrong demographic in my 40’s but I don’t know a single person that watches the late late other than the Christmas show. Certainly very few in their 20’s and 30’s. So where do they get 600k from. I would love to know the demographic of the 1090 homes used to calculate.

To put that into context, 500k is about 10% of the population; there are approximately 1.6m households in Ireland with 2.73 persons per household. So if I'm correct on my maths here, that's 183,150-ish households watching the Late Late - around 11%. I wouldn't say that's unrealistic, but it certainly doesn't mean that 500k people actually watch it.

FreudianSlippers

Boggles wrote: »

That's a bit ould fella down the pub ranting and raving TBH.

I imagine the commercial revenue from his Radio and TV more than covers the cost of his salary and production, etc.

But but but you could put a chicken on and they would get the same numbers, etc.

Basically don't hate the player, hate the game.

It's RTE that needs to change not Turbidy.

You've kind of hit the nail on the head there perhaps inadvertently. Why, if they can make money from commercial revenues, should they also take State subsidy? Either you're right here and they're commercial successes or they're not - it just can't be both.

Eric Cartman

They should scrap advertising or the licence fee, having the public pay and operating a commercial venture is not on.

Also i see RTE bosses are harping the ‘device charge’ again trying to make non tvkwners pay, their argument is that somebody watching rte on a laptop should pay , my argument would be that 1) f*ck all people watch rte player anyway and 2) if you want the money that badly, put up a paywall and see just how many people value the content that much..

Boggles

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

You've kind of hit the nail on the head there perhaps inadvertently. Why, if they can make money from commercial revenues, should they also take State subsidy? Either you're right here and they're commercial successes or they're not - it just can't be both.

Because we are small in terms of population and that's the way it was designed.

FreudianSlippers

Boggles wrote: »

Because we are small in terms of population and that's the way it was designed.

I mean it's specifically NOT the way it was designed, but ok. The licence is specifically designed to fund services provided for the public good: news, Irish-language, visual/hearing impairment... not to buy re-runs of Coronation Street or whatever muck RTÉ broadcasts. But if muck makes them money, good for them.

Damien360

Eric Cartman wrote: »

They should scrap advertising or the licence fee, having the public pay and operating a commercial venture is not on.

Also i see RTE bosses are harping the ‘device charge’ again trying to make non tvkwners pay, their argument is that somebody watching rte on a laptop should pay , my argument would be that 1) f*ck all people watch rte player anyway and 2) if you want the money that badly, put up a paywall and see just how many people value the content that much..

I pay the licence fee and think it is needed but no more. The public cannot be its cash cow. We do need a news service and we do need public broadcasting.

But of the various presenters, public broadcasting is not anyone on 2FM, not Darcy, Tubridy, Finnucane and certainly not Joe Duffy. Sean O’Rourke on Radio One definitely fits the public broadcasting criteria. €160 towards news, investigative journalism (not Hollywood crap) from payers and cut the rest of the fluff would give a first class service. Paying someone €160k to read a news script out loud is not value for money but it’s probably more market driven price than any other “star”.

With the fluff gone, fired, let go....whatever, then advertising revenue could stop except for targeted on the Rte player to pay for its running costs.

A news service essentially with an investigation arm.

FreudianSlippers

I'm not usually one of these "move things out of Dublin for the sake of moving them out of Dublin" but surely we should move RTÉ to Athlone or Limerick or something and have a Leinster House recording studio (which they already have AFAIK). That would save a few quid I'd imagine and it'd at least give the appearance of them doing something to cut costs and live like "the everyman" vibe. Window dressing, but populist window-dressing.

Zird

You'd swear the way RTE go on that Ireland has the most old-fashioned system in Europe. Our next door neighbours, the Brits still have a black & white TV licence FFS. The other countries that RTE point out have higher licence fees equivalents are rich Scandinavian countries and Switzerland.

Boggles

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

I mean it's specifically NOT the way it was designed, but ok.

Indeed it was, it was designed to be commercial with a subsidy payed for by the license fee, it followed the same design as radio.

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

The licence is specifically designed to fund services provided for the public good: news, Irish-language, visual/hearing impairment...

It does pay for all that.

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

not to buy re-runs of Coronation Street or whatever muck RTÉ broadcasts. But if muck makes them money, good for them.

Coronation Street had it's advent on BBC. Which is completely publicly funded.

As for having RTE entirely commercial, we know what that looks like, it's horrific.

nkl12xtw5goz70

Boggles wrote: »

Coronation Street had it's advent on BBC. Which is completely publicly funded.

What? Coronation Street originated with Granada Television in 1960. It was never a BBC production.

FreudianSlippers

Boggles wrote: »

Indeed it was, it was designed to be commercial with a subsidy payed for by the license fee, it followed the same design as radio.

You're going to have to elaborate on that one. Clearly, the Broadcasting Act 2009 attempts to smooth over the commercial aspects of broadcasters but it is not in any way clear that it's intended for there to be significant overlap subsidy of broadcasters vis-a-vis licence fee funds, nor is it clear that the "design" was for what you claim. I'd argue by fact that the 2009 Act attempts rather ham-fistedly to deal with commercial revenues that is not the aim of the initial "design".

It does pay for all that.

I've seen RTÉ's annual report, it pays for a hell of a lot more than that. TG4 I can understand, but RTÉ is not balancing the scales fairly.

As for having RTE entirely commercial, we know what that looks like, it's horrific.

Then it's a dinosaur in the age of flying cars. Slash and burn and let's see if Tubridy et al are so great as they claim and can make the big bucks in the UK or US.

Boggles

Noemi Shapely Weakling wrote: »

What? Coronation Street originated with Granada Television in 1960. It was never a BBC production.

Sorry, I meant the non Northern one.

RTE don't show that one.

Boggles

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

You're going to have to elaborate on that one. Clearly, the Broadcasting Act 2009 attempts to smooth over the commercial aspects of broadcasters but it is not in any way clear that it's intended for there to be significant overlap subsidy of broadcasters vis-a-vis licence fee funds, nor is it clear that the "design" was for what you claim. I'd argue by fact that the 2009 Act attempts rather ham-fistedly to deal with commercial revenues that is not the aim of the initial "design".

RTE wasn't setup in 2009.

The commission tasked with setting it up, wanted it more ITV than BBC, or at least the government did, they didn't want to have to subsidize it more than was needed.

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

Then it's a dinosaur in the age of flying cars. Slash and burn and let's see if Tubridy et al are so great as they claim and can make the big bucks in the UK or US.

Killing the state broadcaster because you don't like Ryan isn't a great idea to be fair.

FreudianSlippers

Boggles wrote: »

RTE wasn't setup in 2009.

Can you show me where I said it was?

The commission tasked with setting it up, wanted it more ITV than BBC, or at least the government did, they didn't want to have to subsidize it more than was needed.

Source?

Killing the state broadcaster because you don't like Ryan isn't a great idea to be fair.

That's also a gross misrepresentation of what I said.

MrAbyss

My YouTube is very popular as it is not just marketed at Ireland.

Although it is a hobby and model building channel, I have noticed a huge interest from overseas when I cover Irish subjects. Irish historical military models and miniatures. This illustrates I think a major problem with RTE is that they fail to understand the potential of their vast cultural and historic archive and the interest overseas from non Irish people. Most of the best old RTE films and reports are on other people's YT channels. No one will be arsed looking at their site archive other than Irish people. There is a real hunger around the world by millions of people to learn something deeper and authentic about Ireland.

Why for the love of god, does RTE not have a YT channel called Irish TV Archive and rake in millions in ad money? They are sitting on a goldmine and none of them have the sense to see it. They can even have their presenters give a little intro on the backstory of the program. Very little production costs.

elperello

Interesting idea there Mr Abyss.

It's more of that sort of thinking we need. RTE needs to be built up not knocked down.

We just might end up with something useful to be proud of.

Calhoun

Noemi Shapely Weakling wrote: »

True, RTE would still be struggling even if those top 10 presenters' salaries were all reduced to 30k each.

That said, it's legitimate to for the outraged taxpayer to say: "We don't want to fund a gravy train. Don't come crying for more money from us until you've reduced all your costs to a reasonable level."

It takes over 3,000 TV licenses just to pay Tubridy. At the current average 2.75 people per household, that's equivalent to the population of Tuam.

I'm sure if we were to look at the level of salaries, expenses, car allowances, pension contributions, etc., across RTE, there's a lot that could be cut. Tubridy's salary is the peak of the iceberg, but it's a symbolically significant peak.

Exactly this, i don't care what RTE pays its stars as long as the tax payer doesn't have to fund it but when you come cap in hand looking for more money and have the likes of Finucane in place its red rag to a bull and puts people off the whole organization.

When you see salaries like this it immediately brings a question of what other excesses are going on.

I am as much of a supporter of a root and branch clearing of the decks and bringing costs in line but also want to see those on the gravy train taken in hand.

Apparently some of them are so good they could go to the UK or further afield so let them jog on.

lola85

elperello wrote: »

If they all came into work in their bare feet carrying a sod of turf for the fire the core financial issues would remain.

Their strength and their weakness is that they are well known.

People see them or listen to them and think "That's easy anyone could do that".

Meanwhile there are loads of others out there in all walks of life doing very well out of the public purse that you never hear about.

Radio presenters on 400,000 a year for 20 hours work a week?

I think not my friend.

lola85

elperello wrote: »

All the talk about presenters salaries in RTE is just noise.
It keeps people outraged and brings out the worst sort of begrudgery.

Larry Goodman and his family pocket c. €430,000 in Single Farm Payments annually. That's just for owning two large farms in Louth.

Larry Goodman has had business’s going back 40 years and worked day and night to keep them going.

elperello

lola85 wrote: »

Radio presenters on 400,000 a year for 20 hours work a week?

I think not my friend.

Please read what I said.

I'm not your friend ...yet.

elperello

lola85 wrote: »

Larry Goodman has had business’s going back 40 years and worked day and night to keep them going.

I refer you to the Beef Tribunal.

TallGlass2

elperello wrote: »

Please read what I said.

Certain posters, here only seem to read between the sine wave, so to speak.

Seamai

Harry Palmr wrote: »

She isn't - her contract is. if you were being offered money for old rope you'd take it as I would. The problem is that RTE management back when they were under no fiscal pressure opened the taps to full flow and didn't react quickly post 2008 crash (probably due to contracts that were too long without any escape clauses).

However as has been pointed out frequently, the costs associated with the so called household names is small in the scheme of things. RTE employs too many people, is obliged to fund things they shouldn't - orchestras, broadcast infrastructure and so on.

---

Does anyone else think 2FM is being kept going by RTE not because it makes any fiscal sense but simply as a spoiler in the marketplace - if they have it then they weaken Today FM esp. Close it and DO'B radio and the big Dublin stations will have more listeners and potentially a larger income.

Marian Finucane actually mentioned her contract in the discussion with Moya O'Doherty in a way that made it sound like it negated her.

FrancieBrady

lola85 wrote: »

Radio presenters on 400,000 a year for 20 hours work a week?

I think not my friend.

Whatever about the 400,000 what makes you think they only work 20 hours?

It really is an asinine comment and the wrong headed way to approach this.

Damien360

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Whatever about the 400,000 what makes you think they only work 20 hours?

It really is an asinine comment and the wrong headed way to approach this.

That’s true. Lots of planning for shows.

But....Mariaune Finnucane is on for 2 hours one day a week and collects €300k. It surely doesn’t take 38 more hours to plan a 2 hour show ?

Loafing Oaf

Damien360 wrote: »

That’s true. Lots of planning for shows.

But....Mariaune Finnucane is on for 2 hours one day a week and collects €300k. It surely doesn’t take 38 more hours to plan a 2 hour show ?

Gary Lineker gets £1.75m a year for 90 minutes a week (on premier league weekends).

limnam

10000maniacs wrote: »

A lot of people have DAB only radios. This will leave a lot of people without radio.

What % of radios are DAB only?

Be surprised if it's in anyway significant

Damien360

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

Gary Lineker gets £1.75m a year for 90 minutes a week (on premier league weekends).

Look sunshine. We are talking about RTE that has a audience potential the size of Ireland. Very little if anything sells outside of ireland, particularly radio. The BBC sells its products, MOTD is one of them, globally. Same with Top Gear. You can’t compare salaries and certainly the RTE gang shouldn’t even aspire to those salaries without a wholesale change in RTE.