Virgin Media Television received “nothing” from the Government after requesting €30 million last year to fund its news and public service content, the broadcaster’s managing director has told an Oireachtas committee.
Áine Ní Chaoindealbháin, who has led the commercial television company since last year, also said on Wednesday that the criteria for media organisations to receive funding from the Coalition’s proposed Media Fund are too restrictive, and the cost challenges associated with producing its existing news output will remain.
Ms Ní Chaoindealbháin was giving evidence at the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Arts, Media, Communication, Culture and Sport, which is conducting pre-legislative scrutiny of the Government’s Broadcasting Amendment Bill.
Among other things, the bill proposes to convert the State’s existing Broadcasting Bill to a general media fund, which will help Irish media outlets to fund public service content across different platforms.
In her opening statement, Ms Ní Chaoindealbháin broadly welcomed the proposal but raised a concern that funding under the newly formed scheme will be granted only for the production of new categories of public service content.
This principle of “additionality” means the cost challenges associated with maintaining Virgin Media’s existing public service content output will “remain”, she said.
Ms Ní Chaoindealbháin said: “Delivering our public service content remit on a purely commercial basis is not viable under current funding arrangements.”
Referring to the decision to cut the Tonight Show’s air time to two programmes a week from four, she said: “Last year, we did have to make some difficult decisions [about] our existing content because of the commercial situation that we were in.
“So we don’t want to reduce our public service broadcasting content. We’re committed to our public service broadcasting content.”
However, Ms Ní Chaoindealbháin said that “to push that further, to add more bulletins, to add more current affairs content” so as to qualify for the media fund “would be a real strain on the system that is already very tight”.
Last year, Virgin Media, which is owned by US telecoms billionaire John Malone’s Liberty Global group and is funded through commercial revenues and advertising, wrote to then-minister for media Catherine Martin, requesting €30 million to fund its news and public service output.
In the letter, Ms Ní Chaoindealbháin raised questions about the sustainability of Virgin Media’s competition with RTÉ, given that the State broadcaster receives €200 million in annual Government funding, along with “annual multi-million-euro taxpayer-funded top-ups”.
Asked on Wednesday by Fianna Fáil TD Peter ‘Chap’ Cleere what Virgin Media had received in response to the request, Ms Ní Chaoindealbháin said: “Nothing.”
Labour Party TD Alan Kelly, who chairs the committee, later said its members are “not clear” what the principle of “additionality” means in the context of the media fund proposal, despite having interrogated the bill in detail in recent sessions.
