It's only the recent past, but television in Ireland was a different proposition in 2007. Netflix was something to which people in metropolitan America subscribed. Pat Kenny was still hosting The Late Late Show. And RTÉ collected €140 million in TV advertising.
By 2013, that figure had plunged to €77 million. The recession hurt, but so did the competition. RTÉ’s share of TV revenues, which stood at 56 per cent in 2007, has been whittled down below 45 per cent. Popular, high-rating programmes have been axed because they cost too much to make or buy.
So when a high-profile writer such as Graham Linehan complains about RTÉ not stepping in as the majority funder (after the BBC pulled out) on his grim comedy series The Walshes – and the manner in which he says the decision was communicated – he does so in the context of organisational upheaval and an immense money drain.
Programme-makers may have many valid objections to the bruising nature of engaging with a large media organisation such as RTÉ, even especially RTÉ. No, it has never been good with sitcoms (though it does keep trying). But it is also true that the RTÉ of today is not well placed, financially, to green-light much in the way of expensive dramas or scripted comedies.
A report on the Irish advertising market, commissioned by the Government from consultants Indecon in 2013 and published last week, teases out the TV numbers. The big joke is that it’s already out of date. It neither captures the impact of UTV Ireland’s entry into the market, nor Channel 4’s move to sell advertising here, nor the fact that Sky’s ever-swelling portfolio of opt-out channels is now 33-strong.
But it still manages to set out the fragile scene – one in which neither RTÉ nor the for-sale TV3 are sitting comfortably. When it comes to "commercial impacts" – an industry measure of how many times a 30-second TV spot has been seen – Indecon notes RTÉ's share has seen a "significant decrease". It remains way out in front, overall, but not for every demographic. When it comes to the lucrative 15-34-year-old group, the winner is Sky.
Sky is a different kind of beast. It's a big employer in Ireland, and makes programmes here (Moone Boy, Penny Dreadful), but it's not an indigenous broadcaster. Unlike TV3 and UTV, it is not dependent on advertising money for revenue – it comes as a bonus on top of its subscription income.
And it's a nice bonus. As well as selling advertising around its own output, it does business on behalf of channel brands such as E! (home to new trash favourite The Royals), Dave (for all your Jeremy Clarkson needs) and MTV (no idea what's on MTV these days, sorry). Most of these channels command tiny audiences, but they all add up.
Meanwhile, an estimated 700,000 Irish households subscribe to Sky's television platform, which remains the only way of accessing Sky Atlantic, its home for the dramas and comedies it buys in from HBO (Game of Thrones, Veep) and AMC (Mad Men), as well as ones it creates itself (the well-promoted Fortitude). The channel is both dangled as an incentive to potential customers and used to prevent churn.
Sky Atlantic is a mere sideshow in commercial terms, however, compared with the role played by Sky Sports. When Sky began its GAA coverage last summer, the sports press focused on the low audience ratings, implying this proved the GAA’s deal was not in the best interests of its fans. That may be true, but Sky did not buy GAA rights because it thought it could echo the RTÉ viewership. It bought them as a means to expand its subscriber base.
The Indecon report highlights how this plays out in a small market such as Ireland. A “major broadcaster in another country” can use its purchasing power or strength in another market to obtain content on an exclusive basis in Ireland. “Such content is thereby not available to indigenous broadcasters” – which must make almost all of their decisions “based on the limited scale of the Irish market.”
They’re snookered. Or to use a non-sporting metaphor, they are denied the fat that helps them make their own cream.
Ask any commissioner in RTÉ and they will say they would love to have a bigger kitty to make programmes. Of course they would. And they will be among the first to question the proportion of resources allocated to corners of Montrose that seem divorced from content production. But as things stand, the default answer to most programme pitches is likely to be no.
Anyone lucky enough to have a track record in comedy would indeed be better off approaching Sky. It can afford to act like Mrs Doyle.
