TV3 and the Independent Radio and Television Commission (IRTC) signed a `conditional' contract last Friday. This clears the way for TV3 to go on air in September 1998. The contract is conditional in that the promoters of TV3 must put in place the remaining 35 per cent portion of its equity structure by offering it to the public.
The equity position at present is that CanWest Global holds 45 per cent; Windmill Lane Pictures, U2 manager Paul McGuinness and accountant Ossie Kilkenny hold between them 20 per cent.
The contract is also conditional on agreement about the details of TV3's programme schedule, the names of its directors, the chief executive and senior staff, including the controller of programmes. These important details have yet to be approved by the IRTC.
In a well-argued presentation of its programming policy as part of the conditional contract, TV3 says that its strength will be in the scheduling of programmes for a young audience "who are particularly open to the appeal of non-indigenous channels."
TV3 intends to broadcast 12 hours a day, with longer transmission periods at weekends. Other than the information that the promoters of TV3 have spent £7 million on programming acquisitions, not much is known about the nature of its programming schedule. The promoters regard this information as sensitive and do not wish to arm their competitor (RTE) with advance plans.
TV3's last major informational activity was its announcement in September 1995 that UTV was coming on board, which excited the Irish market because of that station's high standing in the management of its financial resources.
Since then, UTV has both withdrawn from the TV3 consortium and has been the subject of `dawn raids' on its shares, from Scottish sources in particular. Indeed the Scottish interests in Irish broadcasting are interesting both in relation to Radio Ireland and Downtown Radio, Northern Ireland.
The UTV place in the TV3 consortium has been taken by the Canadian company CanWest Global, which also has considerable television interests in Australia and New Zealand. CanWest appears to have a reputation of brooking little, if any, interference from national regulatory bodies and in that regard its relationships with the IRTC will be interesting.
Whatever about the terms of the IRTC contract, under the terms of the 1988 Radio and Television Act TV3 will be required to follow generally the obligations of the national broadcaster (RTE) as defined in the Broadcasting Acts 1960:1979, which broadly require that TV3 be responsive to the interests and concerns of the Irish viewer and be fair in its news and current affairs to all the interests involved.
In that regard, TV3 will be required to include `a reasonable proportion of news and current affairs programmes' in its schedules and to ensure that a `reasonable' proportion of its programming is produced in Ireland or another member-state of the EU and further to ensure that a reasonable proportion of the programming be original material produced "by persons other than TV3, its `subsidiary', its `parent' company or `existing broadcasting organisations' ".
In other words, the promoters of TV3 are required under the Act to provide (a) a reasonable proportion of programming produced within the European Community (b) a reasonable proportion of original programme material from the independent sector and (c) a reasonable proportion of news and current affairs.
The bottom line rests on the definition of reasonable proportion. I presume that this adjudication is a matter for the IRTC and will emerge in the final programme contract.
The Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, Ms de Valera, touched on the TV3 arrival in her policy document for Fianna Fail when in opposition last December.
In particular, she noted: "The new station will offer further choice to the Irish viewer and hopefully will add to our cultural life and identity as a nation in the global information world. However, it must be stressed that it is being established for commercial reasons and will not have the same obligations as RTE in relation to public service broadcasting and catering for minority interests. The schedule will have mass appeal."
In a reference to RTE in the TV3 context, the Minister said that "RTE must not respond unfairly to this new domestic competition by using its financial resources in a scheduling war. It must fulfil its obligations to its public service remit." Programming in Irish, for instance, would not seem to be a requirement for TV3.
Mr James Morris, chairman of TV3, laid out the programme stall in 1995, which included:
A national dedicated news and current affairs service, both domestic and international. It is intended that news be produced in house.
A level of home-produced programmes exclusive to TV3. This will account for 15 per cent of total output and grow to 25 per cent plus by year five.
A varied schedule of acquired material selected to appeal to Irish viewers.
The information made available at last Friday's contract signing has not materially altered the stated programming policy intentions of TV3 other than a sensitivity to the need for `local' programming. So we have in prospect a third television channel which will be competitive because it is commercial, and which will have a varied acquired programming content, of which a reasonable proportion must be of EU origin (British for language reasons).
The TV3 programme policy suggests 35 per cent EU (non-Irish) content and 15 per cent content of independently home-produced programming and a dedicated news and current affairs output. This last forms part of the 15 per cent homeproduced content. The percentage of home-produced programming calculated in actual hours depends, of course, on the extent of the hours broadcast on TV3 daily. The service, in the view of the Minister, should not have to carry the full public service remit which is supposedly that programming area which RTE carries.
By the year 2003 and five years after TV3 commences broadcasting, the Irish-originated content of the schedule will be one-quarter of the entire output. TV3 plans a 12-hour scheduled day of which, in five years' time, three hours will be home-produced inclusive of news.
However excellent the acquisition policy of TV3, I think there are difficulties in store for it in the matter of its home-produced percentage. It is clear that those television services throughout Europe which are strongholds in their countries - that is they command at least one-third of the audience - are those whose home-produced and culturally related programming content occupies large-scale prime-time positions. This is particularly applicable to television in Ireland and Britain.
It is true, of course, that generally throughout Europe public channels have lost ground to private or commercial channels, but this is not the case in the United Kingdom and it may not be the case in Ireland either, because of the extent to which home-produced and indigenous programming is part of the public service remit and because of audience size and income to the public broadcaster. A sizeable percentage of home-produced programming would seem to be the reason for public broadcasting's strength.
If TV3 is to be commercially successful, it must not only make money for its promoters and shareholders in time, but also cover the costs of its programming output and in particular the cost of its homeproduced programming.
The average production cost of an hour of television is £20,000. Quality documentaries cost £1,000 per minute transmitted and an hour of drama fiction about £250,000. Its home-produced programming will be the axis on which the rest of the schedule is constructed and the reason TV3 will attract an audience.
The mathematics of television programme costs are clear enough. With two hours of home-produced programming per day in the first year of the TV3 schedule and 10 acquired programming hours (£2,000 per hour) per day, those costs with news come to £80,000 per day, £500,000 a week or £26 million a year. Of course, series and back-toback bulk programming, such as game shows, can reduce the unit cost considerably in those areas. These costs do not take into account overheads, staff and buildings, copyright and music rights, legal and insurance costs.
The test for survival at TV3 will be that which distinguishes its output from RTE and makes it different and attractive to the viewer. The core of that test is within the range and quality of TV3's home-commissioned programming. Two hours of home-produced programming per day, including news, is simply not enough to bring a new channel audience into being and to attract and sustain that audience in Irish multichannel context.
There is, as is obvious, a considerable financial resourcing necessary to sustain home-produced programming. With the choice available throughout the country from six terrestrial channels and satellite services, TV3's acquisitions policy, however brilliant it might be, will not be the cause of its success.
The arguments about home-produced percentages on TV3 are to my mind somewhat similar to the ratio of music to speech on Radio Ireland and with the potential for future unhappiness. I believe that the arrival of an alternative television service with its own news and current affairs programmes will add a considerable strand to the fabric of broadcasting, further the cause of pluralism and hopefully enrich our lives, as Ms de Valera would have it. However, with the predicament in which Radio Ireland finds itself, it is important to stare the facts in the face.
The financial capacity to marshal home-produced programming is the test for TV3. Can the £20 million that will be required yearly for home-produced programming be raised from advertising in the Irish market?
RTE's income from advertising is somewhere in the £70 million area. UTV takes £6 million from within the State.
The RTE figure is realised on the basis of an expenditure on homeproduced programming which runs at a news programme cost ratio of 16:1 against acquired programmes; current affairs at a ratio of 22:1 against acquired programming; and drama and fiction at a ratio close to 100:1 against acquired programming.
Spending money on programming of that order is the challenge facing TV3.
Muiris Mac Conghail lectures in communications at the Dublin Insti- tute of Technology and was formerly controller of programmes at RTE Television
