Professor Kevin Rafter:

I agree entirely with Deputy Dooley in terms of terminology and the use of the words "independent" or "commercial". RTE is a commercial broadcaster although it gets half of its funding from the licence fee. Both the private and public sectors are independent. Talking about them as private and public is more clear cut. There is no doubt that the concept of a television licence fee has been undermined by changing consumption patterns driven by new viewing platforms and devices and it will have to be looked at. It does not have a long-term future, but it still has a short-term one. There is still in the region of €180 million coming in. The question is how one increases that pot for a win-win for both the public and private broadcasters. In the short term, there are actions that can be taken at departmental and governmental level to increase the total amount of revenue. An evasion level approaching 15% is unacceptable. There has been talk of dealing with this for many years and the simplest short-term method is to have access to the names and addresses of the subscribers to digital television services to increase the pot of money.

There is value in a commercial licence fee. Currently, we only have one type of licence fee which is payable and it covers all televisions in the same property. The Broadcasting Act 2009 provides for the introduction of regulations on different classes of licences for residential and commercial premises. The introduction of a commercial licence fee at a nominally increased sum above the current €160 level would be a positive move. Again, it would increase the pot of money. The idea is to increase the pot of money to ensure that RTE, TG4 and the private broadcasters have greater resources available to make public service content.

On the question of RTE's finances, it cannot continue on a path defined exclusively by continuously cutting costs and pleading for increased licence fee support. Something has to give in that space. It is sitting on a huge asset. The campus in Donnybrook needs to be looked at. RTE has serious capital investment needs and has within its own remit the ability to deal with some of its current funding issues.

On the question of balance in coverage, I can provide the committee with a number of studies we have done in DCU on political coverage. One in particular looks at the 2011 general election exclusively in terms of RTE and its allocation of broadcast time across the different political parties. This is a long-standing issue of tension between broadcasters and politicians. The study shows the positive endeavours the broadcaster made to ensure that there was balance across the different political parties proportionate to their support and sets out the matrix it used to allocate broadcast time during the general election. That was also replicated in the 2016 election. Those obligations for balance in coverage apply also to the private broadcasters.