Mr. Tim Collins:

I will address the issue of local television because it is interesting. Media are moving together and we are now content producers. Many radio stations will produce content on video. In fact, our station produces content for Irish television which is on the Sky platform. We do reports every month for Sligo and Leitrim. Our station and many other stations put video up on the web. Local television will probably not be broadcast on any other platform aside from the web because it is so expensive to get onto the satellite platforms or any other platform. However, it is certainly something of which many stations, both nationally and locally, will do more. They will start to produce content on many different platforms to try to reach the maximum number of people.

The state aid issue is somewhat ironic. RTE and TG4 are both commercial entities so the Government must apply, under the state aid rules, to allow itself to give them licensing revenue. The irony is that the same state rules are being used against us, so what is okay for RTE and TG4 is not okay for us. We have taken the trouble to get a great deal of legal advice on this. The advice from what are probably the best competition and EU lawyers in the city is quite clear. They are of the firm view that there is no state aid bar to funding the public service content on local and national stations in the independent sector. That is because we have a public service obligation under the 2009 Act. We are obliged by that Act to produce a certain amount of public service content, so it is perfectly within the ambit of the treaties as they now stand for the State to apply to the European Commission for a scheme that is either state aid or a scheme that does not come within the definition of state aid. There are a number of different ways we can do it. Article 107.3.c of the treaty would allow the State to put together a scheme which would not fall foul of the state aid rules. We can provide the committee with a copy of the legal advice we have, which is very clear on that.