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

I would suggest we're down the road of splitting the two with non-psb going to what I would propose as a fully private sector company. This private company can do what it wants on the same footing as Virgin Media.

The public service side would be fully state owned and funded and would be responsible for public service content creation. It would not provide content directly to the public but would make it available to broadcasters and other platforms on an equal footing for an agreed price depending on what the thing is, but would be relatively cheap for broadcasters. I would imagine it would mainly be a commissioning body and relatively small in size. It might co-fund productions that would otherwise not be commercially viable.

I would see most of these executives would move to the commercial arm, but now would have shareholders to answer to rather than the State. Some might still earn a lot but they would have to earn it. It could produce or buy whatever it wanted, subject to regulations, but would sink or swim on its ability to satisfy shareholders and the viewing public.

That would mean forcing people who don't have a TV to pay for a TV licence.

RTÉ don't produce enough cheap reality crap to justify only spending 2% of their budget on Independent drama commissions. Most of which are co-productions and have little or nothing to do with RTÉ.

Ah it was all becuase of the financial constraints that Dee and Breda didn't do their work.

I can't imagine Breda who told us that she was very fastidious in the oireachtas committee on other people wages would have allowed such a thing to happen but according to Kevin Bakhurst Defender of Galaxy RTÉ says: -

I wonder if Ms O'Keeffe was still on the Executive board when it was signed of on, so she had no hand act or part in this redundancy, it was all RTÉ's fault, she just happened to be CFO at the time of the agreement!

What a load of **** nonsense.

Surely this is the final straw, this whole saga has now got to be investigated properly, fraud squad need to be called in as its public monies and the stench of dodgyness is overwhelming. If it’s a small number of cases, this should be a quick turnaround (but this is Ireland so don’t hold your breath). Forbes & O’Keefe must be compelled at this stage (need Jennings in aswell). They cannot continue to hide behind sick notes/I’ve nothing more to say BS anymore.

yer one dee has a face on her like a well slapped arse!!

the more i read about this the more i think the fraud squad has to be brought in...

This country doesn't really do consequences for people operating at the level of Dee Forbes, is the problem.

What was the redundancy package this woman got?

Is Dee Forbes receiving any RTE pension?

She's a gangster.

Dee should be made, forced to answer questions, can a legal case be brought against her, would it be fraud the packages she signed off on

But any ordinary John and Jane can be brought to court for no licence

Revenue should look at the package. Was it illegal or not. No hiding behind I no longer work there with them. Package should be null and void as it was not signed off properly due to them two laughing at us

No consequences it seems with Catherine Martin. Useless.

It is really a way of making better use of public funding by focusing that funding on content rather than a broadcaster or a set of channels.

On your point about commercial operators realizing that it is cheaper to import rather than paying for locally made content, that is kind of the point of public funding in the first place. The funding is to bring down the cost to the operators so that it becomes competitive and should be set at such a level.

On the last point, I think while we have a broadcast infrastructure and large numbers of people still tune in to TV with an aerial or via cable, then operators licensed in Ireland would have priority, then later money could be recovered through international sales and sales to streaming platforms.

The basic philosophy is that you have a small focused body responsible for Irish produced content that would otherwise be noncompetitive while privately owned broadcasters compete for viewers and advertisers.

to my mind it should be sweet FA until every thing is sorted and completely above board...

Why kind of public service broadcasts do you get?

already Ireland does what you are suggesting: -

1. RTÉ own commission unit with a set amount to spend (circa 40m) though all programing remains on RTÉ platforms
2. TG4 budget that largely goes to their programming (circa 40m) again all programming on TG4 platform
3. BAI funding programming (circa €15m) which is spread across all broadcasters
4. and to a lesser extend the Screen Ireland (who often act more like a IDA rather than an Enterprise Ireland type funder)

Who are the broadcasters, or online providers you'd include or exclude in the work, would they have to be licensed? What if none of the product fits their vision, while you can say that Star Trek may not sit well on RTÉ, its not a major risk as it is a bought in programme, but what if a commissioning editor was Sci-Fi mad, and only really one niche broadcaster could take it.

How much content to you plan to get from this fund and how much is the fund in total?

Are you including Radio, Newspapers and other publications?

I suppose my point would be where is the media, Ireland has so little media divergency, RTÉ, Bauer, Virgin Media TV, Mediahuis, The Wireless Group, The Irish time Trust, and some smaller radio outliers.