Strong backing from TDs and senators for £50 increase in TV licence

Political Reporter RTE's long-running campaign for a £50 television licence fee increase has been strongly supported by backbench TDs and senators, following a presentation yesterday to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Heritage and the Irish Language.

RTE Director-General, Mr Bob Collins, accepted that, the State broadcaster must be prepared to be "more formally accountable" for public spending.

"Proof is required: facts and figures that nobody can distrust. We have to be accountable. What we need now is a more formal means of underwriting that. We want to have a contract with the audience," he declared.

A PricewaterhouseCoopers examination of the RTE application is expected to be on the desk of the Minister for Arts, Heritage, the Gaeltacht and the Islands, Ms De Valera, "within days".

The application has not affected the station's digital broadcasting preparations, said Mr Collins, though it was currently using up cash reserves to fund a third year of losses.

"RTE is far from being insolvent. We have a very healthy balance sheet, with significant cash reserves," said Mr Collins, though commercial revenue would decline this year for the first time.

Director of radio, Ms Helen Shaw, defended 2FM from criticism by a Fine Gael senator, Mr John Connor. "I define public service broadcasting as serving every segment of the audience," she declared. Director of news, Mr Ed Mulhall denied suggestions that current affairs programming has suffered budget cutbacks. The station's flagship, Prime Time has regained time lost last year, he said.

Labour TD, Mr Michael D. Higgins asked why the broadcaster was being defensive in its fight against commercial stations. "This is a war. If you are going to go to war, you should declare first rather than try to come along at the back of the conflict." He supported the efforts by the Swedish EU presidency to ban children's television advertising on all stations based in the EU, which would, if implemented, cost RTE £14 million a year.

RTE should be supporting this proposal and seeking compensation from the licence fee, he said.

He believed RTE would lose out badly if it was not the first in the race to provide terrestrial digital TV services. "The first one on the air has a tremendous advantage. You should have been stronger than that," he declared. However, Mr Collins rejected this argument.