RTÉ admits paying Tubridy €345,000 more than declared

If Govt. hadn't agreed to the €56m RTE wouldn't have been able to continue to pay Joe €350k, contract or not. That would have been an interesting dilemma. Instead they are saved, and my license fee continues to keep him comfortable.

When you think of what that 56m could be used for instead of proping up a failed organisation like RTE.

Let's start from first principles. A subscription TV service is a business, right?

It requires and initial investment to set up and get the people, the infrastructure, the CAMs, the smartcards, the subscription management system and the broadcast technology in place before the service can start broadcasting. Those initial costs generally have to be recovered over a period of years.

The size of the market for the subscription TV service is important. Too small a market and the costs won't be recovered and more importantly, the money from the subscriptions won't cover the costs of running the service or producing and aquiring the programming.

Working out what kind of delivery system will be used to deliver the subscription TV service to the market is also a major factor. If the bulk of the market is getting programming via satellite then satellite delivery via the gatekeeper player, in Ireland's case it is Sky, is probably a good solution. If the bulk of the market is on cable networks then using the gatekeeper's service, in Ireland's case Virgin Media, is a good solution. If the bulk of the market uses Digital Terrestrial Television then using an existing service which offers Conditional Access is a good solution. If the bulk of the market uses online/IPTV then using online delivery is an option.

The problem with RTE is that the market for a potential subscription TV service is fragmented over a number of the delivery methods above except DTT. The Irish DTT venture, Boxer TV Ireland, failed. SaorView is a Free To Air service that doesn't use encryption or a CA system. Many of the people outside the Virgin Media cable networks use Sky or Saorview for RTE. If you look at the back of that MPEG-4 TV that your bought, you may see a thin rectangular slot for a CAM. The CAM is generally only part of the system. A smartcard is typically used to provide access.

So, the market for RTE's hypothetical subscription TV service cannot be served economically with one Conditional Access system. The economic viability of a service is a major issue for real businesses. With the current RTE management, they might be pleased with your enthusiasm for a subscription TV service and happily take your 300 Euro. However, the associated costs might cause a few problems because RTE had to be bailed out yet again.

And then there is the security aspect. That's a very important aspect because it underlies the whole subscription TV model. The system used has to be secure in order to ensure payment of subscriptions. No subscription, no service. A poorly designed system (satellite, cable, online, DTT) will cause serious problems for the sevice operator because the programme providers will apply pressure on the company, including withdrawing their content from the service, to ensure that their rights are protected.

This might be getting a bit technical but the reason for the CAM and smartcards is that they allow a compromised CA system to be recovered or replaced. This was a hard and expensive lesson learned by subscription TV services that used what was known as the embedded secure processor approach. The set top box did all the descrambling and decoding of the subscription management data. Once it was in the hands of the subscriber or others, it was outside the control of the service provider. Most of those systems were hacked.

The smartcard was meant to solve a lot of those problems and it was the detachable secure processor in that the decryption of the keys and the subscription management was performed by the smartcard. That ran into a major problem when services like Sky became successful. The initial concept was that the smartcards would be replaced every six months or so, This would have made the system a moving target because by the time it was successfully hacked, the smartcard would have been replaced and the hack could not be monetised. The success of these services meant that the providers tried to get as long as possible out of each smartcard and the six months became years. It became a sitting target for hackers and pirate smartcards became a major problem from 1993 onwards.

If a service becomes succssful, it will see attempts at hacking it. The IPTV solution with a compromised subscription would be the most obvious threat especially if there are multiple systems in use. As an RTE subscription service would be more likely to be a broadcast/live service (one to many), the IPTV compromise, especially if there is an online version of the service, would be the least expensive approach for an attacker because it would not involve serious investment in reverse engineering the CA system. Detecting the subscriptions used to provide the pirate IPTV services may not be difficult but following up on the issue, if the pirate service is outside the jurisdiction is more difficult. This is why Sky and its proxies focus on the distributors of the dodgy boxes rather than end-users. It is more efficient to hit that weak point in the supply chain.

There are many parts of Subscription/Pay TV of which you seem to be unaware from management and costs right down to the hardware and software choice. It isn't as simple as you make out. The commerical viability of such a service, especially when RTE has had to receive another bailout, would shape a lot of RTE's approach to this issue. For them, it's not personal. It is business.

Regards...jmcc

The tl;dr version: RTE starting a subcription TV service with its current management (a lot of the same ones who thought that overpaying Tubridy etc was good value) is not a good idea.

Regards...jmcc

I do think RTE has declined in a lot of ways in recent years.

I would not feel Claire Byrne has the abilities to justify the opportunities she has got. Also the sports coverage is far poorer than it was. Michael Lyster and Bill O'Herlihy have not been properly replaced. The hurling coverage frequently has biased analysts from the competing counties. The rugby panelists are not as entertaining as Hook and Pope were years ago. There is too much groupthink in the current affairs coverage, with divisive issues like immigration and Covid lockdowns not debated as they should be. Ryan Tubridy is now gone.

Unfortunately it is all set to get worse rather than better.

If.... if Revenue is to be the collector of a new media charge, how will that work for those not on the Revenue radar (legitimately or not)? Say those who do not pay tax (SW benefits, low earnings etc.) It would be PPSN based I suppose, so a link with DSP? Then if you don't have a tax record or don't have to pay any, what source would it be collected from, since tax credits could not be reduced for example? I'm just musing, and I suppose there is an answer out there somewhere.

I did address the point.

Sport and original drama and original Irish content.

Condense the content, not increase.

Although we have been in same market, grotesquely unfairly in reality, with the streamers, the BBCs and ITVs, etc.

The first thing we need to do is acknowledge we can't compete.

Then we need to concentrate on what we can get, what we are good at and importantly now in this day and age what we can sell on.

The "Angelus" can remain FTA, but the likes of Room to Improve which is a popular broadcast goes on the premium service.

Again, you want to watch it you pay, you don't pay you don't complain.

One the most common complaints is people are forced to pay, but they don't watch it.

I'd be in this bracket, I'd rather pay more for value than what I am currently paying for abject scutter.

Please no. Never liked the standard tactic of Irish sports broadcasters sticking someone on who doesn't have a clue about the sport they are discussing.

Would much prefer people attempting to discuss the game properly instead of stupid opinions for the sake of an argument.

Almost guaranteed to be linked to the LPT so owners will pay instead of tenants. Just like water charges where landlords were liable for any fees their tenants did not pay and it was up to the landlord to chase the tenant (while GDPR denied the landlord to get confirmation that the tenant had paid from Irish water). More reason for landlords to be pissed off.

Are the 400 cuts just staff and not contractors?

In the hurling coverage now I think you have stupid opinions passed off as common sense. In a way your point is valid for sure, no point in having rows for the sake of rows. Actually I think the current Sunday Game day time presenter often tries to antagonise people, for the sake of it. It has been much poorer since Lyster finished.

Bill O'Herlihy was great, he allowed people to express views but could calm things down in a nice way if that was required.

They probably have 400 lower end staff on zero hour contracts that are probably some of the best workers in the place,so they will be guaranteed to be let go.

all while keeping the big money wasters in their cushy lifestyles.

they can't paywall the sport for obvious reasons

Why? The vast majority of sport is subscription based.

It's one of the main drivers for people paying for subscriptions.

are you going to address the money thing. This is your thing, you ignore the things you can't explain

neither the GAA FAI or IRFU want it

once you paywall sport, what will happen to it, they will get out bid by sky or virgin