The findings of last Saturday’s Irish Times/Ipsos opinion poll that 40 per cent of the public will not pay their TV licence fee are not surprising, given the recent revelations of mismanagement by a small number of senior RTÉ executives and board members. But they are also not surprising given that few people welcome paying taxes.
The licence fee is, in essence, a form of taxation. It applies to everyone, even to those who don’t avail – or don’t recognise that they avail – of the services RTÉ provides. Taxation funds lots of services individuals don’t use: it funds our health services, even if some fortunate taxpayers do not require medical treatment; it funds our educational system even though the majority of people are not in education; it funds our social services, even if the majority of taxpayers do not need jobseekers’ allowances or housing assistance or pensions; it funds arts events, galleries and museums although many people do not ever go near the ‘arts’.
Taxation is about providing resources which the public good requires. Public service broadcasting is part of the public good, the TV licence funds services which the commercial market does not fund. Revenue from the licence fee funds news and current affairs, children’s programmes, documentaries, dramas, series on environmental issues, farming issues, Irish language broadcasting, traditional music, arts programming and programming commissioned from the independent sector. Without these programmes and services the public space in Ireland would be poorer.
Of course critics of the licence fee can argue that programming in the public good is not exclusive to RTÉ. This is absolutely true – commercial broadcasting in Ireland, at national and local level, provides some excellent programming that serves the public good. But the scale of resources which public service broadcasting requires cannot be funded by commercial revenue. The Irish market is too small and in any case a high percentage of potential advertising revenue ends up in social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter.
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If public service broadcasting is to be funded exclusively by either subscription or commercial revenue many of the existing programmes will not survive. There will be little or no investigative journalism, less authoritative news, little Irish language programming (RnaG carries no advertising, TG4′s advertising provides only a small portion of its funding, the same is true for Lyric FM), and children’s programmes will be scarce.
So what are the alternatives to the licence fee if a fully commercially funded system won’t deliver the resources necessary? An alternative is a media tax charge on all citizens. This proposal has been around for many years. But this is still a form of compulsory taxation which is likely to be unpopular and resented. Many would argue that it is simply a change of name for the TV licence.
The other possibility is direct Government funding through general taxation sources. This is highly contentious. It would mean a huge loss of independence for public service broadcasting as it would give direct control of funding to politicians, who are inevitably conflicted by their dependence on public service broadcasting as a means of communications with the public. TG4 receives direct public funding, but its role in public life, especially for non-Irish speakers, is much less influential. Direct public funding would inevitably also mean that in lean years, when taxation revenue reduces, the funding of public service broadcasting would, understandably, be cut in a similar manner to the cuts applied in previous recessionary periods to all Government-funded services.
Whatever the outcome of the various reviews of RTÉ that are taking place it is highly likely that RTÉ will continue to carry advertising. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has already indicated that he favours a solution which includes advertising revenue.
Some of the criticism voiced about RTÉ at the Oireachtas Committees meetings revolved around the method by which RTÉ sought commercial revenue. RTÉ management’s defence was that the way commercial interest in RTÉ programming was encouraged was simply a reflection of how the commercial advertising market operates, and that all RTÉ was doing was precisely the same as what other broadcasters do. The unease at these activities (including potential and actual advertisers by wining and dining and giving away gifts) was compounded by the lack of clarity about the nature of what programming was public service and what was commercial.
The new director general, when he completes his proposals for reforming RTÉ, will have to address the interface between public service and commercial activities. The lack of clarity on this issue resulted in the tolerance of practices which many supporters of public service broadcasting found uncomfortable and, indeed, indefensible.
As income from the licence fee has remained largely static for years, not surprisingly, RTÉ put greater efforts into trying to increase commercial revenue. This inevitably resulted in an obscuring of the distinction between public service and commercial programming.
So what are possible ways forward? RTÉ management needs to get its house in order, recognise that good governance and accountability are required and that public funding should always be carefully and conscientiously spent. This is necessary if public trust between RTÉ and the public is to be rebuilt. It is worth noting that none of the criticism which has been voiced about RTÉ in recent months has been about editorial matters, it has been about mismanagement.
Secondly, the definition of public service broadcasting needs to be debated and refined. The distinction between RTÉ's public funding activities and its commercial activities needs to be made much clearer and should be fairer to competing commercially funded broadcasters.
A role for an annual independent audit of RTÉ's activities, commercial and editorial, also needs to be considered. Finally the collection of the licence fee must be more efficient. Moving the collection of the fee from An Post to Revenue seems an obvious possibility.
There can be little doubt that many of those polled in last week’s survey who said that they would not buy a licence in the future are hoping or expecting that the licence will be abolished. If it is made clear that compulsory support for public service broadcasting is to remain, many of those saying they will not purchase a licence are unlikely to want to break the law and would, however reluctantly, purchase a licence.
Peter Feeney is former Head of Broadcasting Compliance in RTÉ and former Press Ombudsman