THE GOVERNMENT’S proposal for a new broadcasting charge has had many media outlets that don’t have fadas in their name clamouring for a slice of the revenues, but one part of the market that can count itself out of contention is print.
Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte has appeared to rule out the possibility that revenues from the charge could be distributed to newspaper groups. “To include the media in its broadest definition misunderstands the function of a broadcasting charge,” the Minister said.
Broadcasters, unlike newspaper groups, he said, were bound by a set of statutory obligations, and that should be recognised.
“There is an irreducible minimum,” he said of the amount of public income given to RTÉ.
“If you compare RTÉ’s budget with the BBC’s, it is minuscule. I think throwing the kitchen sink into the new broadcasting charge would not be a good idea.”
Rabbitte was speaking after the Independent Broadcasters of Ireland conference this week at which he said he had asked the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland to look at the potential impact to RTÉ were revenues from the licence fee, or its mooted replacement, to be further diverted to the independent broadcasting sector.
The chairman of Thomas Crosbie Holdings, Alan Crosbie, has called on the Government to distribute a share of the proposed new broadcasting charge to newspapers. Crosbie said in January that newspapers were overly dependent on “fickle” advertising and that the dual-funding of RTÉ through both public and commercial income “distorts the market for everyone”.
Under the current system some 7 per cent of licence fee revenues are held back and put into the authority’s Sound and Vision scheme, which can then be accessed by independent television and radio producers who have been commissioned by an Irish broadcaster.
However, the debate over which media outlets should have access to public income has become muddied in recent years as newspaper groups have sought to diversify away from print via their digital operations, increasing their activities in online video and audio, while broadcasters such as RTÉ have become more involved in text-based media via their websites.
The National Newspapers of Ireland group has not called for newspapers to receive a share of licence fee or broadcasting charge, but is instead urging the Minister to ensure that there is “fair competition in the digital space”. It argues that all revenue from the charge should be “ring-fenced for the exclusive purpose of public service broadcasting and not divvied up among any other interested parties”.
