Mr. John Purcell:

I thank the committee for the invitation to attend this meeting for a discussion on the future of public service broadcasting. Radio listenership across our stations and RTÉ in Ireland is a unique media success story. Each day, a massive 3.9 million people listen to local, regional, city and national stations. Some 68.6% of prime time radio listening by these people is spent listening to the member stations of Independent Broadcasters of Ireland, IBI.

During Covid, prior to Covid and regardless of what happens post-Covid, our stations hope to provide an important public broadcasting service, inclusive of news, sports, discussion and a forum for debate, information and programme content that is relevant to the people who listen to us and reflects their lives. Ours is a sector that has suffered huge disruption and decreases in revenue, threatening our services long before Covid. We welcome the establishment of the Future of Media Commission and we look forward to working with Professor MacCraith and his colleagues. However, we believe the entire process after the commission produces it report, from hearings to implementation of legislation, will, by its nature, be very protracted. It is obvious that changes as a result of the deliberations will not be implemented until at least the second half of 2022 or, perhaps, into 2023. We cannot wait that long. We are preoccupied with surviving the current crisis. We, and the entire media sector, need action now to enable the survival of our services and the services of other media through the protracted Covid crisis, which has intensified the already severe threats we face.

Our sector is grateful for the special measures brought in to help us weather the initial Covid trauma. This consisted of a fund of €2.5 million distributed to stations that committed to specific public service programmes up to a period lasting to the end of the summer. The broadcasting levy was also suspended for the first six months of this year. Government investment in advertising on our stations was also hugely welcome. We all thought, somewhat optimistically I think with hindsight, that a close to normal situation would have returned by the commercially crucial fourth quarter of the year. Instead, we are spending November, the most commercially important month for all stations, in level 5 lockdown and the support measures lapsed months ago. The broadcasting levy has been reintroduced since last July and the money allocated for Covid programming is now spent. The €2 million in the July stimulus package for sound and vision, which was mentioned by the Minister at this committee last week, does not apply to our stations. We urgently need another fund to support public service output. We also urgently need to have the broadcasting levy waived until such time as the necessary legislation to abolish it, which we have been promised as far back as 2016, can be implemented.

We are delighted to have the opportunity to meet the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, this coming Monday. We look forward to that meeting. We welcome the Minister's acknowledgement at this committee of the importance of the services we provide. We were heartened by her pledge to work with us to ensure that we survive this current crisis and continue our important work. I cannot emphasise enough the current situation for media operators, be they radio, television or newspapers, is very urgent. Time is of the essence and actions speaks louder than words.