RTÉ has reported its highest annual turnover and profits in decades, although thousands of viewers are still evading the licence fee.

The broadcaster's annual results for 2005, released yesterday, show turnover hitting €369 million, up from €342 million the year before, a jump of 7.8 per cent.

Its profit or surplus for the year came in at €16.4 million, although it came in at €9.2 million under another accounting treatment. The profits are the highest for many years. As recently as 2002 RTÉ posted a major deficit and the company services were facing swingeing cutbacks.

However, a Government decision a year later delivered higher licence fee revenue for the station and since then it has been in rude financial health.

Its recent annual reports have disclosed the financial performance of individual stations and services. This year RTÉ 1 has managed a surplus of €16 million, but RTÉ 2 was a loss maker with a deficit of €8.9 million. One of its biggest cost headings was the €33 million spent on sports programming.

RTÉ Radio 1 posted a deficit of €4.6 million, while 2FM produced a surplus of €4.6 million. The broadcaster's online activities produced a deficit of €2.2 million.

The licence fee increased to €170 million from €166 million. The increase was mainly caused by new homes coming onto the market.

Despite this, RTÉ draws attention in the report to the level of evasion of the license fee.

"Licence evasion continues to be a problem however. RTÉ estimates that circa 16 per cent of eligible households do not hold a valid television licence.

"The level of evasion appears to have deteriorated in recent years despite the level of new licences acquired". The report says the level of evasion appears to be twice the rate in Britain. An Post is the company which collects the revenue from the general public, although it has expressed its desire to exit from the activity over recent years.

The operating costs at RTÉ rose significantly in the year under review to €346 million from €315 million.

The company's headcount numbers were up to 2,287 from 2,169. These were the highest employee numbers since 2001. The station acknowledged costs had risen, but said much of the extra spending went on drama, entertainment, music, lifestyle and documentaries. The headcount figures do not include TG4 which employed approximately 100 people.

The chairwoman of the RTÉ Authority Mary Finan said the figures built on the progress of recent years and much of the spending went on home produced programming. The director general Cathal Goan, the report disclosed, was paid a total remuneration of €363,000, up from €296,000.

The higher figure in 2005 was mainly explained by a €40,000 performance related bonus, paid in respect of work done in 2004.