Pressures on RTÉ

Madam, – Your Editorial (“Pressures on RTÉ”, April 25th) fairly described the immediate challenges facing RTÉ, but went on to…

Madam, – Your Editorial (“Pressures on RTÉ”, April 25th) fairly described the immediate challenges facing RTÉ, but went on to draw unfair and inaccurate conclusions about the deployment of licence fee and commercial income and about the funding of our extensive web service.

RTÉ, like most media organisations, is facing immediate financial challenges in the current economic climate. At the same time, we face the structural challenges caused by changing patterns of media production, distribution and consumption. The downturn has made what was an already testing challenge all the more difficult.

The lines between public service and commercial broadcasting have never been drawn starkly – in fact, they can’t be. While there will always be examples of programmes or services that fit neatly into both boxes, much of RTÉ’s output will not. What is critical is the character of the schedule as a whole. For example, a drama series such as Whistleblower on the Neary medical scandal at Drogheda; or the Bertie series; or – depending on the choices of guests and topics – the Late Late Show, span this ambiguous divide.

Similarly the election coverage provided online in 2007 fulfilled a very real public service, particularly for those living outside of Ireland. Yet the re-purposing of content for this new service was funded entirely using commercially-generated income.

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Our legislators have always tried to balance public provision with private competition across a media industry of converging technologies and diverging missions. The dual, not-for-profit, funding model under which RTÉ operates is the most prevalent method of funding public service broadcasting (PSB) in Europe and it is the only model by which a small country like Ireland could realistically hope to sustain a high quality PSB service – a service that must compete against some of the best resourced English-language broadcasters in the world.

Of course the model has risks, but a commercial imperative that demands efficiencies and responsiveness to our audience is no bad thing and indeed often creates the necessary tension between creativity and relevance. The licence fee income that RTÉ receives has never been large enough to wholly finance RTÉ’s public service commitments and to suggest that programming can be easily separated into commercial and public service fundamentally misunderstands RTÉ’s services and role.

RTÉ is very transparent about its plans and its utilisation of licence-fee revenue. Each year RTÉ’s annual report includes a segment analysis which uniquely sets out an income statement for each RTÉ broadcast service and business division for that year and clearly indicates where licence fee revenue is spent and where it is not.

At the beginning of each year RTÉ publishes its statement of commitments which details our plans across all our services for the coming year. Our performance against these commitments is also reported annually in the RTÉ annual report. RTÉ is subject to continuous performance assessment by the Department of Communications, Energy, and Natural Resources which informs decision- making in relation to level of licence fee awarded.

Finally of course, RTÉ is constantly challenged by our audience and a wide variety of organisations all of whom demand, as licence fee payers, certain standards and engagement.

The coming months will be very challenging for RTÉ. Significant adjustments will have to be made but we will continue to improve our existing services and develop new ones, such as the RTÉ Player. To remain relevant we have to meet our audiences where they are; on radio, on TV and online. We can’t stand still; our audiences rightly demand nothing less. – Yours, etc,

CATHAL GOAN,

Director-General,

RTÉ,

Donnybrook,

Dublin 4.