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MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS Pat Rabbitte has said that RTÉ’s deficit will likely hit €50 million by the end of 2012.
Speaking in the Dáil this week, Rabbitte described that level of deficit as “an unconscionable sum of which the great preponderance is in the redundancy programme”.
The minister was discussing the closure of RTÉ’s London bureau, which he said was decided “in the context of a restructuring and cost reduction programme across the entire organisation”.
Rabbitte also said that further bureau closures could not be ruled out, but that he had been assured that the London closure would not affect the quality of coverage from the broadcaster:
In circumstances where I have had to meet the board of RTÉ about the financial crisis confronting the organisation and when senior management in RTE is doing its best to preserve what is best in public service broadcasting while addressing that financial crisis, it is impossible to give an answer to the House and say the closure of any bureau is not at issue.I am advised by the professional people in RTÉ that between Belfast, Brussels and Dublin, in an era of digital technology, it is possible to ensure the quality of presentation from London does not suffer.
The minister said that RTÉ “has a serious financial problem”, noting that its commercial revenue fell from €240m in 2008 to €168 million last year. Crucial elements of the restructuring programme must be put into place this year, he said, to help the organisation “to a break even or small net surplus” from next year on.
A spokesperson for RTÉ told TheJournal.ie that the broadcaster had nothing to add to the minister’s comments, but said that the “Director General’s statement on March 29 last went directly to the same point of the imperative of reducing cost and achieving stability”.
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Reduce the ridiculously high salaries of the ‘stars’ of RTE. Stop replacing the likes of 4 Live and the Daily Show with rubbish and improve the quality of your existing shows that have turned into a joke eg. The Late Late. Revenue will soon be up.
160 euro a year for something i don’t even use. people that don’t watch the Irish channel’s should not be forced to pay for it simple as that it’s called the free market. 160 euro a year for a couple of channel’s isn’t a good price considering you get hundreds on freeview for free. just another reason why i think we actually live in a more communist state than a capitalist one. is there any wonder there’s feck all job’s i think not.
Scrap the poxy station altogether! Would it matter?
Colm Mc Carthy reckons that these schiesters get €190 million a year from the licence fee alone.
How can these snakes manage to ”lose” €50 million on top of that (plus any revenue from ad’s)???
The troika are looking for us to sell our state assets RTE would make a great start.
What an excellent suggestion. Why doesn’t everyone fire off an email to their TD to suggest the same? Abolish the licence fee and have them stand on their own feet. RTE can hardly be labelled a critical infrastructure! I would imagine it would be a popular move surely.
We would have to pay to get rid of RTE.
An asset Paul? Liability is more like it! It used to be terrible, and now it’s horrendous!
I would pay to get rid of RTE.
Where do I send the money.
It might even save me €160 a year (and rising), for life.
Just increase the licence fee again so we can cover the wages of our super stars.
Why can’t RTE have a wage cap of €200,000. They want the Bankers and CEO of state companies on this wage. Where else would the ” stars” get a job paying as much !
You’re being too generous Martin. The top dj’s in Norway, with a similar population, command only a hundred grand per year, tops. There’s a long way to fall here yet. There are so many receivers of grossly inflated salaries , as opposed to earned salaries, in this country, that has to be addressed before any significant changes are possible. Why would the lazy elite agree to change unless the ordinary people forces them to do so?.
The problem with wage caps is that you have people telling you that the top earners would leave if you cut their wages… Well good luck to them!! They’d find it very difficult to make anything near that somewhere else and they probably wouldn’t be long coming back with their tales between their legs!!
They get the lions share of €160 from every household and business in the country (even from ones who can’t recieve their signal like me) yearly. they have as many commercials and sponsorships as fully commercial stations, and their Irish programming both drama and current affairs/news (for which they get the fee) are amoung their most watch and thus commercially viable.. yet they still cant break even. what a joke of an organisation. stop overpaying people, its not like they’ll leave, no commercial station would pay them the levels Rte do. I actually like Marian finucane but Jesus half a million euro for two weekend radio shows. some of the most listened to broadcasters on radio only get half that, if even…. its time to cop on and cut the fat, let the troika take the blame for it sure. crazy practices from a well gone by age. cut their share of the licence fee, cut the cost of the licence fee and if they aren’t Davy enough to deal with it…. cut them loose.
Minister – There should be a total restructuring of RTE from the Top down , there has to be a lot of unsavory decisions made and carried out to the letter !
I turned on rte 2 last Saturday night for the first time in a long time, at 8pm there was a re-run of top gear from 2004. Is it any wonder why rte is screwed?
People I would not miss off rte (that would save loadsa money) Brendan o Connor, Pat Kenny, Marty Morrissey, that young annoying chef with his cool band, all the dragons….etc
RTE produces some good radio programs and the RTE orchestras are world class. Some good television programs are produced but there is an awful lot of tripe featuring overpaid talentless drones such as Tubridy, O’Callaghan, Whelan the annoying blonde one from no frontiers and pretty much anyone on daytime television.
Reduce their pay, chuck the chaff and RTE television might start to improve a little.
So by reducing salaries that will save 50million?what radio programmes are you on about?you dont work in the national concert hall do you?so there would be no orchestra without RTE?even if they catch the CRIMINALS hahahaha who dont pay the telly tax that will net around 25million so what about the other eh 25million presumably that will come from reduction of salaries NONSENSE,let me tell you what will happen,to reduce RTES deficit the exchequer will step in to fund the gap to a breakeven state or a small RTE surplus to make it look good to the media and public at large effectively an increase by stealth by the government of the tv license,and in a few years RTE will become lax again and tv tax will go up
Seems to me the biggest advertiser on RTE is An Post trying to extract the telly tax from us.
The CEO should be sacked and the wages cut drastically
No howzat it needs to be privatized,but it wont be,howzat they will privatize all your other daily services but not RTE,they have received 2billion in the last 10years in funding look what you get in return a 50million deficit rubbish programmes and over paid salaries and the angelus,we have to remove 4billion from the economy this year,howzat u can be pretty sure your local a&e in your hospital will take a hit,hows your broadband speed or signal i bet its pretty lousy in comparison to the baltic states,use the tv licence fee every year to roll out high speed broadband around the country to help our economy.
RTE = really terrible entertainment!
It’s incredible,. There are so few people who would praise RTE or say that the so-called stars deserve their colossal salaries and yet nothing has been really done about any of it, save for a token 10% pay cut to salaries at 100% over what they should be.
It is like every other bl**dy administration in this country . They believe their own spin . How marvellous they all are , the politicians , the church men , the media, the tv stars . These shower of GOBSh1tes are nothing short of beggars on horse back. they are nothing . All they have is confidence , to bull doze their way to the top and ignore who they are stepping on. Knowledge is power and they get their power by either saying nothing or saying just enough …….. Grrrrrrrrrrrr ! Funny that all these administrations are self imploding !!!
Make original programmes that people actually WANT to watch. Problem solved
I dont have a TV does this mean i have to pay the new broadcasting charge?
Yes unfortunately you do. If you own tv or radio or computer or iPhone/iPad you gotta pay. A load of bollo**s
Just let it wander away into oblivion along with the scam that is the license fee. RTE when first started was the internet revolution of it’s time (well, TV in general) over the last twenty years it has become an embarrassment. Off you pop there now, begone.
That wasn’t my point. my point was that population size directly impacts on the amount of funding available so the bbc having substantially more isn’t strange. Also, we spend crazy money on shows like craig doyle, updating the set for brendan o’connor’s entrance to the sat night show, seriously mad levels of pay for presenters in a country this size, etc. RTE can’t handle the money they have, never mind giving them more. Talent finds a way, always.
Well said lisa here here you are totally correct,400million for rte,national lottery licence will be spread over 30 years to pay for national childrens hospital because the exchequer is bankrupt and cant fund it,oh i almost we dont where to build this hospital zzzzzzzzzzz
The problem is not the wages of the few elite, slashing their wages will not fill much in a 50 million hole. Anyway, some of these presenters will be lost elsewhere if their wages are slashed further, and some are quite good and would be missed. What needs to be done is to stop making sh*te programmes such as The Social. How do they expect advertisers to pay good money to advertise during tripe that. It needs to be a wholesale rejig of how RTE works, not just top presenters.
Andrew tell me why new zealand same population as ireland abolished their public service broadcaster and we cant?there must be 4.5million bored kiwis down in wellington christchurch and auckland,rte will never be cut loose its the social fabric of this country like the catholic church isnt that right sean brady, and everyone will pay no matter what or youll all be in jail,rte is unionised to the hilt no chance of privatisation then is there pat rabbitte.in ireland we have corrupt politicians bankers and developers to go alongside twisted dissident republicans and a rapist catholic church,ireland is the land of gombeenism
total budget for Rte (licence fee + ad revenue) to run Rte1, Rte 2, the +1 channel, subsidize TG4, the website, News Now and 4 radio stations plus DAB = €400 million euro.
Bbc1 programming budget alone = more than 1.8 billion STERLING.
and the RSO too!
iNaturally. There is a big difference in population size between Ireland and the UK, they have more to do, and more funds to do it. What’s your point?
that the costs to make tv to the standard we expect (since we receive all the UK PSBS) are pretty similar here and the common language sees loads of our talent getting exported. its not a popular opinion to hold but you can’t ask a producer in Ireland to get paid proportionately to the size of the population!
@alan o driscoll,i cant afford an iphone or ipad,but i do have a radio and a little netbook with a rubbish internet connection,and if pat rabbitte who is my local td and who i voted for in the last election basically because im a sheep thinks im going to pay 160euro for having an internet connection or becoz rte happens to be on the wavelenghts and i dont listen to it he can think again,rabbitte stick it where the sun doesnt shine literally
Yep, it’s pure waste Declan and it’s the one entity that should be privatized and isn’t due to its affiliation with government. Just look at what Tg4 does with their limited funding. They have a lot of interesting programmes and I actually watch more on there than I do on rte 1, and it’s not just because of the Irish language.
@jamie jamie are you an employee of rte?jamie ring joe duffy tomorrow to talk about for example the sean brady issue,the people taking your call on the other end will take your name and phone number to call you back to go on air which is normal and fine,but guess what they also ask you your full address line by line,i wonder why that is!!!also try talking about the tv licence with joe duffy you will not be allowed on air,i guarantee you,also read above jamie my comment about new zealand abolishing their public servive broadcaster then come back to me with your response,dont compare ireland and uk,bbc have journalists based everywhere from damascus to kashmir to bogota,does rte?no they dont
No, i don’t work for them. TVNZ is owned by the New Zealand government by the way. Some of their channels aren’t allowed any advertising while other are allowed loads.
And BBC have journalists in lots of places yes, but the news budget is separate fro the programming budget.
Sorry last line meant oh i almost forgot we dont know where to build the hospital,sorry while i was writing on my mobile i was shaking in fear of this 160euro broadcasting charge that i will be forced to pay for having a mobile phone with the threat of a custodial sentence hanging over me ahhhhhhhhhhhhh
Can’t believe the poor quality of the news channel first thing in the morning. The rest of rte isn’t too bright either. Was a waste of time paying for a decent aerial to get digital rubbish.
Posted here earlier, but no show. It was certainly innocuous. Just curious.
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