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

First item on the agenda is to decide what sort of Public Broadcasting Service we want.

By the way, you can listen to Liveline and in fact all of the radio stations in Ireland for free.

Free? That depends on how you value your time. The business model is as part of the deal a listener must also give up their time and head space to advertisers and other promotional activity the broadcasting enterprise engages in. The station must carve out a captive audience for itself. If say you just only want the weather forecast (or death notices) and radio is your only means to get that information, you must wait for it, paying attention all the while. Radio stations are competing with smart phone apps, podcasts and information services.

That is the question that dominates so many of these discussions.

Sports for sure, maybe a bit of drama, a documentary or two, some investigative journalism.

Presuming news includes current affairs, etc. etc.

Really the sky or the budget is the limit.

We really need to put a lot of thought into it.

Announced today

A new €10.5m BAI fund for TV/Radio will support

climate change awareness - €5million

Irish language broadcasting - €2m

live music productions - €2m

and €1.5 for general Sound and Vision production schemes.

Sound and Vision currently gets 7% from the license fee. c €10.5

The Broadcasting Authority now has €20m for productions.

I'd question how the minister can define this as part of the SandV fund as the Broadcasting Act has stipulations on how that fund can be spent.

Where are they getting the owners name? I had 3 notices sent to me, which I sent RTS/No longer at address, the final one to The Occupier, after 3 eventually got it right. No PIN on the letter, is this after you bought the licence?

I'm not sure what you are getting at but I think it makes sense to continue funding RTE until whatever plan we come up with is in place.

If that goes on for too long I suppose it will be the old "kicking the can etc." syndrome.

And they are not kicking the can down the road? The government have numerous reports on RTÉ. The BAI recently commissioned on from Mediatech (or some such london based organisation), the Commission on the Future of Media has yet to have its report released, the Oireachtas Committee have a full report that is published, in 2002 there was the Snoddy commission etc etc etc.

But lets say after all these reports and all is said and done and it was agreed that RTÉ would get no extra funding, would you be happy with RTÉ to continue as they are? I am not removing funding.

For example are you happy that Dee Forbes said that it cost €3m per episode to produce Normal People, but never mention similar type programme e.g Can't Cope Won't Cope that only cost €150,000.

Are you happy that RTÉ said they wouldn't cut funding to children's content but cut it by 75% with in 2 years of saying that?

Are you happy they cut funding to Lyric FM but increased funding to 2fm?

Do you think RTÉ management were right?

It's like deja vu all over again.

We have covered this ground before.

I support the concept of a Public Broadcasting Service and think it should be funded by direct exchequer transfer.

I just wish the government would wake up and get on with it.

That would make me happy.

And it seems as stakeholders "drag their feet" we will continue to be in groundhog day.

I support licence fee also, but I don't support RTÉ (as an organisation), its board or its management. I have no faith in them to reform following the reform of the licence fee.

It's always worth a refresh of the 'secret producer's' work exposing what a shambles RTE actually is.

So apparently the only question that we should be asking is: What's the best to pay for this?

They seem to want direct exchequer funding so they can keep shoving 10's of millions down the toilet, it's just that you won't be thinking about it as much.

Hey Dee, how about you get the top 10 earners figures out there....cheers Babes.

Also a lot just asking that RTÉ provide the minimum, News and Sport.

For the last decade or more RTÉ have being moving in this direction with the exception of Radio.

RTÉ's strategy seems to be to move content as much as possible to other funders and co-pros. You have the situation where Entertainment takes up 50% of their total independent commissions fund (€20m of about €40), while the other areas of content have seen their funding reduce with the exception of Irish Language programming, largely due to commitments put on RTÉ, but I can see them working with BBC Geailge as time goes on.

50% of all independent production's funding comes from other sources such as 481, Screen Ireland and co-productions. This brings the funding to around €80m. Indeed soon Drama will just be co-pros and imported Irish produced dramas, actually with the exception of Fair City I don't think RTÉ alone funds any Drama on their own and almost all Dramas are give very little from RTÉ.

I can actually see RTÉ's "IPU/Commissioning Department" moving over to the BAI, with funding coming from the exchequer and eventually no requirement for RTÉ to have any independent productions.

They'll then start the push to move RnaG over to TG4, while RTÉ will press to move RTÉ CO over to the NCH along with its sister orchestra the NSO. Again all funding coming from the exchequer, and sure stick Lyric FM on to that also.

RTÉ is then left with just News, Sport and Radio 1 and 2fm (who needs those pesky digital services really). And RTÉ will happily live alone in Montrose with no one to pander to.

So you won't be paying 80+ euro for you and your family to go?

@political analyst am I right to say that there was no 9 news on Saturday night due to Eurovision?

No AFAIK RTÉ are allowed to utilize their brands as they see fit. I assume that the brand has been franchised out, much like the PJ's in Pennys.