Mr. Michael O'Keeffe:

As the Chairman said, we recognise the independent broadcasters, their programming and the public service they provide. We recognise they have had five or six years when business has been very tough. When we talk about the rebalancing, we are proposing that the licence fee funding would go to the public broadcasters but that we would rebalance the situation such that there is greater potential for the commercial sector to get more money from the commercial sector, which would pay for the programming.

We are not distinguishing between the programming they do. We recognise the programming is public service broadcasting. The issue is how that is funded. Now it is funded through commercial revenue. There are some restrictions on the commercial revenue and we have engaged with the Independent Broadcasters of Ireland, IBI, on matters such as the sponsorship and minutage regulations which the Chairman mentioned. There are restrictions on the amount of minutage for commercial radio but not for commercial television. We will look to do something about that. There are restrictions on the sponsorship and promotions area and the radio sector has asked us to examine that. We have engaged with the radio sector and done that. There is a balance between funding of the commercial sector through commercial activities and the public broadcaster through that combination. RTE 2fm is permitted only five minutes of advertising per hour. The commercial stations are permitted ten minutes of advertising per hour. There are differences to reflect the fact that there are differences between the licence fee funding the public broadcasters get and the other funding the commercial sector gets.

We recognise that, since 2008, it has been more challenging and commercial revenue has dropped dramatically. That has had the greater impact on the newer, niche and youth music services, and we have recognised that and allowed them to make adjustments to their programming to reflect that. The advertising revenue of the traditional broad-based local radio service has dropped. It has probably stabilised this year and the applications they have made for the continuation of their licences, which process we are going through now, in general project the situation stabilising, with some growth over the next few years. We are addressing the fact that the commercial marketplace for commercial radio has been tougher and there are things we can do, but we draw a distinction between that and the licence fee funding which should still go to the public service broadcasters, as it does now.