Irish licence fee ‘comparatively low’, according to report commissioned by RTÉ

A report commissioned by RTÉ from PricewaterhouseCoopers describes Ireland's €160 licence fee as "comparatively low" and the scale of the broadcaster's budget cuts as "almost unique across the Irish semi-state sector".

The report claims the dual-funded broadcaster made a contribution of €384 million to the Irish economy in 2011 and suggests that for every €1 in licence fee income, RTÉ contributes €2.09 to the Irish economy.

It estimates that RTÉ employees, contractors and those who received redundancy packages from the broadcaster spent €82 million in the Irish economy in 2011, while the organisation spent a further €130 million sourcing goods and services in the Irish economy in that year.

The publication of the report coincides with a five-year funding review of public service broadcasting by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland.

The report, which was commissioned from PwC by RTÉ in December 2012, notes that the licence fee in Ireland has been set at €160 since 2007, compared with an average of €216 in western European, Nordic and Scandinavian countries with a public service broadcasting tradition.

“This comparatively low licence fee, compounded by a small population size, creates a high RTÉ dependency on commercial income,” the report states.

The proportion of RTÉ’s income that is derived from advertising is more than double the average among members of the European Broadcasting Union.

However, executives in RTÉ have been alarmed in recent years by the steep decline in the advertising market, which forced it to make cuts of €91 million to its operating costs between 2007 and 2011.

The report asserts that if RTÉ did not exist, its commercial revenues would either disappear, transfer to other broadcasters that do not spend as much in the Irish economy or switch to an alternative medium.

“It would be reasonable to assume that at least half of the Irish economy expenditures which result from RTÉ being in receipt of commercial incomes would disappear if the broadcaster did not exist,” it claims.

"Any creative economy relies on public and private organisations that nurture, support and give opportunities for talent to thrive and prosper," said RTÉ director-general Noel Curran in a statement.

“The report illustrates that RTÉ plays a unique and central role in Ireland’s creative economy, not only through the breadth of its broadcast and online output, but also by the direct and indirect jobs it sustains and the opportunities it gives to new writers, journalists, programme-makers, performers and other creative professionals.”