Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 18 January 2023

Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport And Media

Future of the Media Sector: Discussion

Photo of Micheál CarrigyMicheál Carrigy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for being late. I have a couple of questions and might come back later, if possible, as I did not get to go through the reports fully. A comment was made as to how trusted Irish media are. I believe the figures in the report are that 72% of people trust mainstream media versus 30-odd% who trust social media. That is acknowledged in the Future of Media Commission report and we as a committee have had a lot of discussions on this.

I am very supportive of investment in media that is across all media, including regional radio stations, regional newspapers etc. It is important to support them as well. I am a firm believer that the licence fee should be available to all media to access and that it should not be the preserve of a small number of organisations. The submission mentioned the loss in excess of €65 million per year in the licence fee and that it is not sustainable for the future of RTÉ. What do the witnesses proposing as regards the licence fee and what are their views on how it should be collected?

As regards income, and it is something I raised recently, I know RTÉ has diversified slightly with income revenue streams, one being Toy Show - The Musical. On the decision to go that route and put it on, where is it at financially with regard to the organisation and costs etc.? This committee in particular fought hard to get funding to ensure the pantomime industry, which is a massive part of the industry, was supported in Christmas 2021 with significant State funding. I do not understand State funding in the form of licence fee money going into something that was in competition with community organisations and small companies that we funded to survive, and yet State funding went up against that. I would like the RTÉ representatives to expand on this because it is something I do not understand and with which I totally disagree. I would like to know RTÉ's views as an organisation on where that decision came from, how much has been invested in it, whether it will lose money and what the future plans are.

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