Alex White (Dublin South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I would be very much in favour of having that conversation. One of the difficulties with the notion of what constitutes public service broadcasting, in terms of a programme, is that when one analyses practically any programme or programme strand, there are very few that could not be defined as a public service programme. For example, sport, which attracts very high commercial interest and can very often bring in huge income to a broadcaster, is also essentially a public service. Would we be analysing each and every programme broadcast by every station and trying to define whether it is public service or commercial? How would we determine the threshold between the two? It would actually be extremely difficult, although the conversation is still worth having.

The traditional approach has been to fund the public service broadcaster rather than funding individual programmes that are regarded as public service. That has been the case right across Europe. I am quite happy for that to be opened up and for us to have a debate about what constitutes public service broadcasting. I think the independent broadcasters have a good case, particularly those very strong, vibrant local radio stations outside the main cities which do struggle. There is a financial issue for many of those stations and they perform a huge function, particularly but not only in rural Ireland. Can we find ways to assist the independent sector?

The other question which I would ask the Deputy to consider, and which I am not going to answer, concerns the 20% requirement for news and current affairs that was introduced in the 1989 Act for the commercial sector. Is it desirable or necessary for that to continue? I remember being involved in the debate at the time. There was a concern that commercial radio stations would just be pure, wall-to-wall music. If there is a demand for music stations, why would there necessarily be a statutory requirement for them always to have 20% news and current affairs? That is an issue which we could debate.

See this speech in context