Dr. Mark Carpenter:

I thank the Chair and members of the committee for the invitation to participate in this meeting. Brevity is of the essence, so I will briefly outline some key points from Sky Ireland’s more substantive submission. I welcome any questions in the forthcoming discussion.

Sky plays an important role in the Irish media sector. We are the number one television platform in Ireland, watched by more than 2 million viewers and delivering over 500 channels, including the Irish public service channels, to our customer base. While we have been offering our services in Ireland since the early 1990s, in 2013 we significantly ramped up our presence with the opening of our headquarters in Dublin. Since then, we have increased our Irish workforce substantially from 40 to approximately 1,000. We have continued to create new jobs throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, hiring more than 100 people in each of the last two quarters.

Sky also makes a direct contribution from a content perspective. In 2021, this will include the Deirdre O’Kane Show, which will be recorded live in the Olympia Theatre, and the Jim Sheridan documentary,Murder at the Cottage,a five-part series that examines the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier. Our two Ireland correspondents, David Blevins and Stephen Murphy, continue to provide regular coverage of Irish stories to Sky News viewers, both in Ireland and further afield.

We also make an annual contribution to the Exchequer, in corporation tax, VAT and employer PRSI in excess of €150 million. We set this out both to show our commitment to, and investment in, the Irish market and to demonstrate how we have a very real stake in policy decisions taken in this area.

We support the establishment of a media commission and in particular bringing the regulation of traditional broadcast services, on-demand services and video-sharing platform services together, under a single regulator. This makes sense, given that the Audiovisual Media Services Directive, AVMSD, explicitly seeks to ensure a level playing field between all media players in the market.

We also welcome the focus on online safety in the Bill, particularly the proposed introduction of online safety codes, underpinned by statute. Without statutory-backed frameworks, including sanctions for non-compliance, there are no guarantees that sufficient companies sign up to any voluntary codes of conduct, or that signatories actually abide by their terms.

A possible future content levy has received significant attention in some quarters. As the establishment and functioning of any content levy scheme is likely to be highly complex and may result in unintended consequences, we agree that the media commission should first carry out a review of its viability. It is notable that most other EU member states have not introduced a levy scheme. In those that have, no two member states have opted for the same approach, thereby demonstrating the complexity of issue.

Member states that have introduced levies typically allow media service providers to fulfil certain investment obligations in lieu of paying the levy. This is also recognised by the AVMSD. The media commission should examine this in detail as part of its research. If a levy scheme is considered viable, it is highly likely that the best way to deliver positive results for the audiovisual sector and for the Irish economy as a whole will be to encourage investment while also providing media service providers with a level of flexibility. Should policymakers wish to secure additional funding for domestic production, we believe this could be achieved via other avenues which are less distortionary than content levies have the potential to be. We note, for instance, that licence fee evasion and non-declaration of TV sets result in an annual loss of up to €50 million to public service broadcasters, PSBs, primarily RTÉ. It seems clear, then, that introducing measures either to reduce this level of evasion or, alternatively, to replace the licence fee with a new system which brings more households into the net should be the first port of call.

I thank the committee for its time.