£8 rise in RTE television licence fee

AN £8 increase in the annual RTE licence fee, which will be indexed in future, has been announced by the Government.

The Cabinet also agreed that a review of RTE's overall financial structures would be carried out every five years.

The £8 increase, which is less than the £13 a year requested by RTE and sought by the Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, Mr Higgins, will bring the cost of a colour licence to £70 a year. A black-and-white licence will cost £52. The increases will come into effect immediately.

The increase in the fee will yield an extra £12.5 million for RTE in a full year. RTE's current dependence on commercial revenue is 66 per cent.

The RTE accounts for 1995, the last available, show that the station, made a deficit of £2.35 million on its broadcasting activities. It made a corresponding profit of £3.45 million in 1994.

Government sources indicated last night that the £2.35 million broadcasting deficit last year was not immediately evident from the healthy profit of £14.85 million made by RTE in 1995. That was mainly due to the £10 million acquired from the once-off sale of shares in Cablelink.

Mr Higgins, said last night that if RTE was not awarded an annual increase of £8, it would be in terminal decline.