THE chairman of the RTE Authority, Dr Farrel Corcoran, has said RTE will lose £2.4 million on broadcasting unless the Government increases the licence fee.
Speaking at a book launch last night, Dr Corcoran said RTE was bow operating on a deficit hidden by income from non broadcast activities such as the RTE Guide.
And he predicted that increasing competition will push up costs in areas such as the acquisition of sports programming.
Dr Corcoran said that at £62 a year for a standard licence, RTE's level of licensing funding was in the bottom six within Europe along with Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania. The cost of a licence had not increased since 1986 and there were no signs politicians were willing to address the issue of funding of public service broadcasting, he said.
If the licence fee had kept up with the consumer price index, it would now be worth £80 a year, Dr Corcoran pointed out. "There is absolutely no chance of getting that level of increase", he said.
RTE often looked as if it was "awash with money" but profit levels were skewed by income from activities such as the RTE Guide. Cablelink and other businesses. Broadcasting, the core activity, was always coming closer to a loss and the figures for 1995 would, for the first time in years, show a loss. The annual report for 1995 will be released later this year.
Dr Corcoran was speaking at the launch of Big Picture, Small Screen: The Relationship Between Film and Television, edited by two academics from the University of Ulster, Mr John Hill and Mr Martin McLoone.