‘No indications’ of issues in RTÉ during Future of Media Commission’s dealings with broadcaster

There were no indications of RTÉ's payments controversy during the Future of Media Commission’s dealings with RTÉ, the chair of the committee, Prof Brian MacCraith, has said.

Prof MacCraith said he was shocked at the recent revelations, which have engulfed the national broadcaster since June.

A recent report found adjustments were made by RTÉ finance staff during 2020 which caused published earnings figures for star broadcaster Ryan Tubridy throughout 2017, 2018 and 2019 to change to an amount below €500,000 from the actual amount.

[ Discussions on RTÉ's future funding to begin in September ahead of Budget 2024 ]

Prof McCraith said no one had any sense of what was going on. “That issue did not form part of our concerns at that time.

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“There’s a real opportunity for a reset now to take a modern, progressive approach,” said Prof MacCraith has said.

Speaking on RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland, Prof MacCraith said a decision on the future of the State broadcaster was now “unfortunately” critical.

“ The recommendations and the comprehensive analysis made by the Future of Media Commission are now even more important and really provide a clear blueprint of the options and a rationale for the particular recommendations given.”

[ The future of RTÉ, by Mark Little, Larry Bass and more ]

Although it was more than a year since the commission had published its recommendations, Prof MacCraith said he believed they were still relevant.

“The Government has made it clear that the actions they would take would be contingent on reforms of governance.

“We looked at the various options, moving away from commercial, the hybrid model and moving to public fund funding only, we certainly ruled that out in terms of the scale of what would be involved. I think the view very clearly articulated in the report is that the dual funding model is still the right model going forward.

“But I think clearly corrections have to be made on the commercial side in terms of operational culture,” he said.

Prof MacCraith explained that the commission had looked at five options.

He said commercial-only funding and public-only funding were ruled out.

“We looked at reforming the license fee. It’s not progressive, it’s regressive, it’s anachronistic.”

[ TV licence revenue drops €2.7m in July ]

Prof MacCraith also said the number of people qualifying for free licences is increasing, mainly due to the ageing population, which results in the Department of Social Protection providing €70 million in free licences per year. In addition, the number of no-TV households is at 13 per cent, and increasing.

However, the main issue with the licence fee is high evasion rates, said Prof McCraith. The proportion of people not paying their licence fee was recorded at 15 per cent before the RTÉ pay controversy.*

“It’s very poorly regarded by the public. We did surveys on this and they strongly indicated that the public would prefer more fairness and a more progressive model.”

Prof MacCraith said 31 of the European Broadcasting Union countries use a taxation approach, of which there were a number of versions.

He said the commission suggested Norway’s model of direct taxation was the way forward.

“One takes it from the broader exchequer, which would come from income tax, corporation tax. And then there would be a broader income tax adjustment to cover for that.”

* This article was corrected on 25/08/23 to clarify the percentage of people not paying their licence fee before the RTÉ pay controversy