The Government's decision to increase the RTÉ licence fee to €150 a year will result in a loss for TV3 in 2003, the chief executive of the private broadcaster has claimed.
Mr Rick Hetherington, said RTÉ would be able to use the increased revenue to out-bid TV3 for major programming rights. He said RTÉ would also be able to use the money to drop its advertising rates, thereby suppressing revenue for the whole television sector. He claimed the licence fee decision would be the biggest factor affecting TV3's profitability in 2003.
Mr Hetherington was appearing before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Communications, Marine and Natural Resources. He accused RTÉ of "choking off revenue by arbitrarily and contrary to market pressures suppressing advertising rates".
Mr Hetherington said TV3 had hoped to make a pre-tax profit of €100,000 by August 31st, 2003, when its financial year ended. However, he said it would now make a loss.
He told the committee that unless the Government changed its attitude towards State aid to RTÉ, there would be no meaningful investment in private sector television in Ireland. "We would like to increase our investment but cannot do so when the focus has to be survival, not investment," he said.
The meeting was at times heated, with Labour Party spokesman Mr Tommy Broughan accusing TV3 of "whinging".
He said the station should be going "head-to-head" with RTÉ in areas such as the Friday night chat show. Asked whether the broadcaster Eamon Dunphy was going to be presenting a new show on Friday nights, Mr Hetherington said: "I have nothing to say."
The issue of how much TV3 pays for use of RTÉ's transmission network took up a considerable part of the meeting.
Mr Hetherington said the station was paying four times the charge levied on TG4. Mr David McMunn, director of government, regulatory and legal affairs for the station, said under EU law RTÉ must supply such a service to all broadcasters at the same rate, even if one of them, TG4, was a subsidiary. However the committee's chairman Mr Noel O'Flynn said TV3 had agreed to the contract back in 1997.
