Dr. Roderick Flynn:

We already submitted a written document offering a detailed response to the proposed Bill. However, we want to emphasise a few points. The first is to point to the glaring omission of a new long-term funding mechanism for the public service media institutions, RTÉ and TG4, in the legislation. Replacing the licence fee with direct Exchequer funding was a key recommendation of the Future of Media Commission. Given that the proposed legislation implements several commission recommendations, the decision to retain a funding mechanism, which has been repeatedly identified by a number of bodies, including an earlier version of this committee, as inadequate and inappropriate for a 21st-century media environment, is remarkable. The failure to do so undermines some of the changes introduced by the new legislation. Amending the operation of the Sound and Vision Fund, which will become the media fund, and RTÉ’s commissioning of independent programming while leaving the basis on which both activities are funded seems problematic.

Moving to what is in the Bill, we are concerned at the decision under head 6 to narrow the definition of “connected person” to the spouse or civil partner of a commissioner. I may be missing something but this appears to allow a commissioner in Coimisiún na Meán to adjudicate on a media outlet owned by their parent, brother, sister or child. The rationale for excluding those relationships from the conflict of interest provision is not clear. The new Chapter 1A introduced under head 19 replicates existing section 124 of the Broadcasting Act, insisting that RTÉ and TG4 are subject to external review. The only difference is to increase the frequency of such reviews from every five years to every three years. Between 2009 and 2023, these reviews saw the BAI, the predecessor to Coimisiún na Meán, repeatedly recommend increases in the public funding made available to RTÉ and TG4. These recommendations were consistently ignored by every Administration in that period, raising the question of the value of introducing more frequent reviews if a given Minister in an Administration will continue to ignore the expert recommendations.

There are a number of issues with head 23. The key issue is the decision to exclude RTÉ and TG4. The rationale is they are already in receipt of public funding. This misses the point that the fund has never supported public service institutions; it supports content production. It seems illogical to bar institutions notionally dedicated to the provision of public service content from accessing a fund designed to support the production of such content. TG4 is a publisher-broadcaster. It does not produce content. Why would one prevent it from accessing production funding? It does not seek production funding.

Finally, head 30 removes Coimisiún na Meán’s authority to levy broadcasting and video on-demand services to support the production of European works. A Nordicity and Saffery feasibility study commissioned by Coimisiún na Meán on the introduction of the levy suggested it would raise approximately €20 million per annum. That is more than the current Sound and Vision Fund spends. The stated rationale for taking this power away from Coimisiún na Meán is a concern that the levy will be an intolerable burden on consumers. To do some maths, Netflix currently charges €16.99 per month for its standard package. If this was increased by 3% - the levy Nordicity and Saffery recommend - it would increase by 31 cent to €17.30 per month. This does not seem like an onerous increase for what is a discretionary household budgetary expenditure. Furthermore, the streaming market, in contrast with the cable and satellite markets, is quite competitive in Ireland and streamers and other audiovisual providers may have a strong incentive to absorb the cost internally. Given this, we counsel against proceeding with head 30.