RTE sale of Montrose land

[Gordon Gekko]

I'm just reading an article on how RTE plan to spend the €75m "windfall" from the sale of a portion of Montrose.

Only in Ireland would we have studios and the Fair City set on what's some of the most expensive land in the country. It is utterly ridiculous.

The €75m should not be spent...it should be invested in a "culture fund", the total return from which should be spent.

However, what should actually happen is the complete sale of Montrose and it's relocation to a cheap greenfield site. This would free up a much larger capital sum to invest and fund cultural activities.

 

[Lightning]

what should actually happen is the complete sale of Montrose and it's relocation to a cheap greenfield site

Exactly. There is no need for RTE to be based in D4 on such valuable land. RTE should sell the entire site, sell 2FM, sell RTE2 and narrow their remit.

 

[MrEarl]

Hello,

The situation at RTE is completely nuts and we all need to be putting pressure on our politicians right now, to try and finally do something make it better.... before that lot out in Donnybrook pull off a master stroke ad we all get stuck with seeing more of our state assets and tax payers money put to bad use !

I agree 100% that RTE need to be moved out of Donnybrook and relocated to a cheaper location on a greenfield site, that would release significant funds (maybe €150m after relocation ?) which could be put to far better purpose than squandered by RTE.

RTE also needs to dispose of non-core and non-essential services. We do not need 2 TV channels and over half a dozen radio stations to serve the interests of the State, promote the Irish language etc. (Lets not forget, we also have the benefits of TG4 to help promote our language).

Much of what is being broadcast on RTE is bought in and available on the likes of BBC, ITV, Ch4, Sky and even Euronews (late at night). With modern technology, just about every house in Ireland can watch these UK channels via Satellite or cable, so RTE buying in their programming to rebroadcast it is madness.

UTV was sold for circa GBP£150m if memory serves correctly, so it's reasonable to expect that RTE 2 could be sold for similar, if not more than that amount.

Likewise, we don't need all of the RTE radio stations. If we look at what the likes of FM104 was sold for 7-10 years ago (c€50m), it gives an indication of what could be raised, if we sold off a few of the radio stations.

So, we sell off the surplus TV channel and radio stations, leave one RTE TV station and a couple of national radio stations and you've raised well in excess of €200m !

RTE also need to cut the payroll and I don't just mean by cuting staff numbers, I also mean cut the salaries of the Top 50 earners. There are clearly many at RTE that are grossly overpaid, based on what we have seen doing the rounds regarding the pay of their Top 10 presenters and the likelihood that the senior management of RTE have ensured that they are not left red faced when parking next to our "great" chat show hosts.

RTE should not be so commercially focused. Sure, it needs to attract viewers, to draw in advertising, but it can do that without having ten presenters on the payroll all of whom are getting a package ranging from €500k - €200k pa. There is plenty of young talent well capable of hosting a chat show, or presenting a quality current affairs programme, or reading the news, that would do a great job for €60k-€100k pa and if one of them wanted to leave RTE every few years, I'm sure we'd quickly find a replacement from the next generation coming out of college or school. As for paying people a small fortune to "Dance with the Stars", more madness and definitely something we could cut and save money on.

After all of the above, we've got a smaller broadcaster that is more fit for purpose and broadcasting from a new modern premises at a new location, and we've also got €350m or more equity released - to cover the costs of things like the redundancies, some capital investment in RTE to take it forward etc. After that, we've still got excess €200m to go towards something else productive (maybe the children's hospital, or to fund the construction of new social housing, perhaps to help fund national broadband or dare I mention it, to reduce the national debt) !

Oh and guess what, with all of the above there's absolutely no need to increase the TV license fee either (in fact, we may even be able to reduce it now we don't need to subsidise so many overpaid staff and excessive non essential content)

 

[Ceist Beag]

I have no issue with most of what you say there MrEarl but I completely disagree that we do not need 2 TV channels. Absolutely we need these imho. If we lose RTE2 we lose the guarantee of a lot of the free to air sport we currently view on RTE2. We would also lose the ability to air home produced programmes as these would definitely struggle to win air time if there was only one state funded channel available.
I also have no issue with RTE buying in programming which is available across the water. I don't see any issue with this if RTE can fund (or at least fund the majority of) the purchase from advertising revenue so I would like to see if these purchase end up paying for themselves or what the nett cost is before drawing any conclusions.
I won't argue on the number of radio channels as I don't listen to any bar RTE Radio 1 so I have no strong views on that but I definitely would argue that we should not consider selling of RTE2.
I don't disagree on the payroll argument - there is no reason we need to pay such large salaries, they are not justifiable imho.

 

[Ceist Beag]

Here's one survey I would like to see the results of. How many of those unhappy to pay the TV licence are happy to hand over at least €30 per month to Sky to watch channels, a lot of which are available free to air? I know which I prefer to pay!

 

[Purple]

Here's one survey I would like to see the results of. How many of those unhappy to pay the TV licence are happy to hand over at least €30 per month to Sky to watch channels, a lot of which are available free to air? I know which I prefer to pay!

Yea but it's not against the law not to pay Sky.

 

[Purple]

On the issue of valuable land being unused by State funded bodies, just up the road from RTE is St. John of God hospital. A private hospital which receives massive State funding. No only are they utterly useless as an institution they have acres of parkland around their hospital which served no purpose. Why is the State funding a religious body to deliver sub-standard mental health services when they are sitting on tens of millions of unused assets?

 

[Ceist Beag]

Yea but it's not against the law not to pay Sky.

It is if you are a Sky customer! If the TV licence were rebranded and treated more as a fee to contribute to the cost of state funded media would that be more acceptable? Personally I don't see any difference between paying a tv licence (and getting RTE in exchange) versus paying Sky to provide a service (again for channels many of which are free to air) except that one is funding an exclusively Irish interest and one is not.

 

[MrEarl]

I have no issue with most of what you say there MrEarl but I completely disagree that we do not need 2 TV channels. Absolutely we need these imho. If we lose RTE2 we lose the guarantee of a lot of the free to air sport we currently view on RTE2. We would also lose the ability to air home produced programmes as these would definitely struggle to win air time if there was only one state funded channel available....

Sorry, but I really don't see how you can support this position, unless I'm missing something important here.

The State broadcaster is not there to show regular free sports, no more than to show Eastenders, or Dancing with the Stars etc. Otherwise, why doesn't it show live Premier League and F1 every time there's an event, or likewise broadcast films as soon as they leave the cinema ? It cannot be subsiding fans of the GAA, while not giving equal treatment to the fans of wrestling and UFC, or English football etc.

Major sporting events that are protected would be free to air, whether or not they are shown on RTE 1, TG4 or TV3 is not the deciding factor.

Home produced programming can still be broadcast on RTE 1, TG3, TG4, RTE News (news & current affairs shows) or a selection of the other commercial channels. If it's good enough, it will be broadcast... but if it's not good enough, then it should not be paid for and shown in the first place.

RTE is a state owned service that exists to ensure that the public get basic services that would not otherwise be available to them, but considered important enough to be provided by the national broadcaster. Now with satellite and cable, the entire country can access a large selection of entertainment programming (be it sports, movies, documentaries, childrens shows etc) and just because some people may not want to pay for it, does not mean it's not available to them. That's the fundamental difference imho - RTE does not exist to be a general entertainment broadcaster established to match the likes of other commercial entertainment broadcasters, but somewhere along the line that has been forgotten.

On the rare occasion where the is a genuine need to broadcast two unrelated transmissions at the same time, we still have TG4 to cover one of the two events, assuming there is a particular reason that TG3 could not show it for example. Lets not also forget that we have other channels available on Saorview, or Satellite such as RTE News which would also remain available.

Here's one survey I would like to see the results of. How many of those unhappy to pay the TV licence are happy to hand over at least €30 per month to Sky to watch channels, a lot of which are available free to air? I know which I prefer to pay!

For what it's worth...

I don't have an issue with the principal of paying a "license fee" to subsidise the cost of providing required state broadcasting services and in principal, I am satisfied to keep paying at current levels, but only on condition that it's spent properly. I'd rather see it spent making a larger contribution to the running costs of a much smaller organisation (than RTE in it's current form), which provides appropriate State broadcasting services. That means giving coverage to the Irish language, politics and current affairs etc. It does not mean paying extreme amounts to chat show hosts, or funding the rebroadcast of Eastenders etc.

Actually, for the right services operated in the right manner, I'd even be willing to pay a bit more each year (but thats strictly on condition of radical change from the current set up at RTE with over paid chat show hosts (and who knows how many others), a massive excess of radio stations, unnecessary prime land, a TV channel too many etc.)

 

[Ceist Beag]

The State broadcaster is not there to show regular free sports, no more than to show Eastenders, or Dancing with the Stars etc. Otherwise, why doesn't it show live Premier League and F1 every time there's an event, or likewise broadcast films as soon as they leave the cinema ? It cannot be subsiding fans of the GAA, while not giving equal treatment to the fans of wrestling and UFC, or English football etc.

Of course it can! There is a national interest in the GAA but I don't think you can say the same for wrestling! RTE make a judgement on what sporting events they believe are worth bidding for. I don't understand why you think they should give equal treatment to fans of wrestling and fans of the GAA. But back to my point which was, with two channels they can manage to show sports (and this is just one example, I'm sure there are others besides sports that this argument can be applied to) alongside other regular shows. Take for example the Olympics coverage - if there was only one channel then they could not cover the Olympics - or at least not nearly as well as they have done in the past. Would people be happy with the 6 O'Clock news had to be postponed/cancelled because the O'Donovans were taking part in a final? You say TG4 could step in for this type of scenario but as far as I know RTE don't have any authority over TG4 scheduling.

Anyway I'm just giving my opinion here, I'm sure there are plenty who don't agree.

 

[Betsy Og]

On the issue of valuable land being unused by State funded bodies, just up the road from RTE is St. John of God hospital. A private hospital which receives massive State funding. No only are they utterly useless as an institution they have acres of parkland around their hospital which served no purpose. Why is the State funding a religious body to deliver sub-standard mental health services when they are sitting on tens of millions of unused assets?

I know someone who has been a patient there, and I've visited many times myself. Seems ok to me, are you quoting from reports or it is the experience of someone you know. When I read the hellish reports of the public mental health service it seems to me to be a good alternative.

 

[Purple]

I know someone who has been a patient there, and I've visited many times myself. Seems ok to me, are you quoting from reports or it is the experience of someone you know. When I read the hellish reports of the public mental health service it seems to me to be a good alternative.

It's from someone in my family whose care I am very much involved in. The place was fine and all that. They just did bugger all medically; one 15 minute chat with a psychiatrist in 3 a week stay at a cost of tens of thousands. They were beyond useless. A friend had similar experience with a family member.

 

[Betsy Og]

Purple, that is probably one thing I'd agree on is that they seem heavily focused on meds and not so much on talk therapy. In their defence I guess they are mainly treating acute cases where a stay is required and meds is the primarily assistance in short term/acute case - but I'm of the view that thats really only step one, and the longer term should be focused on solutions where pharmaceuticals are (probably) only a part of the solution.

That's just a personal view, I'm not a medic of any description, but seems to make sense - treating it as a purely chemical coctail issue seems to be ignoring a huge amount of what is going on.

 

[Purple]

In my experience they just didn't do the basics. They took the money and did next to nothing.

 

[MrEarl]

Of course it can! There is a national interest in the GAA but I don't think you can say the same for wrestling! RTE make a judgement on what sporting events they believe are worth bidding for. I don't understand why you think they should give equal treatment to fans of wrestling and fans of the GAA.

I just used wrestling as an example - if you want to have specific links then why not see RTE broadcast all the Irish soccer games, all the Ireland Rugby games (regardless of what competitions they are, or where the fixtures are located), all the school boy rugby etc. etc.

Lets not forget Conor McGregor is Irish, so there's a big fan base following him and good argument to cover all of the UFC as a result... Burnley have a few Irish international soccer players at their club, so there's an arguement for broadcasting their Premier League and FA Cup games etc. see where this is all going ?

Bias towards GAA (for example) is simply wrong here, it's no more in the national interest than any other sport with a decent Irish connect, or simply just any other sport that Irish people are interested in.

The GAA has a significant Irish following, so there's no reason they could not partner up with someone to run either their own full time pay per view channel, or do a deal to show all of their football and hurling games with some commercial broadcaster, no reason that a loss making RTE should be carrying a GAA sport or any other specific sport.

As for "protected" events, the Olympics etc. I never said that TG4 was owned by RTE or under it's direct control, what I said was there was no reason that they could not carry some of the coverage, or likewise TV3 etc. It does not have to be RTE - the other channels are also "free to air".

... But back to my point which was, with two channels they can manage to show sports (and this is just one example, I'm sure there are others besides sports that this argument can be applied to) alongside other regular shows. Take for example the Olympics coverage - if there was only one channel then they could not cover the Olympics - or at least not nearly as well as they have done in the past. Would people be happy with the 6 O'Clock news had to be postponed/cancelled because the O'Donovans were taking part in a final? You say TG4 could step in for this type of scenario but as far as I know RTE don't have any authority over TG4 scheduling.

As mentioned above, there is no reason some of this could not be covered on TG4 or TV3, or 3E or 3B (or whatever it's called )... dare I suggest that RTE might just run their news on their 24 hour news channel, so hardly like I'm suggesting we ditch the news if RTE 1 wants to broadcast the Olympics for example ?

The key point here which does not seem to be registering with you is that we have more than just RTE 1 and RTE 2, we have other channels that are "free to air", such as TV3, TG4 and so on - all free on Saorview, so could carry some of the content you seem to feel has to go on RTE 1 or RTE 2.

Also, I'm saying that we sell RTE 2, not close it down - it's worth north of £150m if we take the price that UTV was sold for (I think that was the figure from memory btw, sorry if I'm slightly out on it) an it continues to broadcast, just not as a state owned channel. As such, whoever bought it might decide to pay for the broadcasting rights to show the GAA games, or show Eastenders etc. it would just mean our State broadcaster would not be the channel to show all of it.

 

[Delboy]

I'm sure the GAA coverage brings in plenty of euros through advertising. That side of it has to be factored in.
I'd bet Ryle Nugent moved heaven and earth to try and keep the rugby but eventually the figures didn't add up and TV3 got the gig. Ryle may never recover.

GAA has a huge following. And so gets lots of coverage. Some people don't like that for various reasons.
Even club GAA is attracting more and more media attention...eir have signed up to show 40 (I think it is) club games a year in addition to those already shown on TG4. Doubt they'd do that if it wasn't economical.

 

[Ceist Beag]

The key point here which does not seem to be registering with you is that we have more than just RTE 1 and RTE 2, we have other channels that are "free to air", such as TV3, TG4 and so on - all free on Saorview, so could carry some of the content you seem to feel has to go on RTE 1 or RTE 2.

Quite the contrary MrEarl, the key point I'm making here which you don't seem to be getting is that "we" don't have the other channels such as TV3, TG4, etc. These are not state broadcast channels. You're expecting that they would fill the gap if RTE1 was not showing something but there is no guarantee this would happen - in fact it certainly wouldn't happen unless it was commercially viable. So to go back to my Olympics example, I'm not sure the O'Donovans would have been shown live had the coverage been split between different broadcasters as, when the coverage rights were being negotiated, I'm not sure the rowing competitions would have been high on the list of "must haves". Maybe I'm wrong on that but my experience to date with state broadcast channels versus other free to air channels is that the state broadcast ones are superior in their content and I would not be happy to lose one of our two main RTE channels. That said, I will admit that the Eir Sport offering, especially on their GAA league coverage, has been quite good so things may be changing and we may be heading in that direction anyway.

 

[Leo]

Also, I'm saying that we sell RTE 2, not close it down - it's worth north of £150m if we take the price that UTV was sold for (I think that was the figure from memory btw, sorry if I'm slightly out on it) an it continues to broadcast, just not as a state owned channel.

It was £100M, but that sale included significant assets in terms of real estate, TV & radio studios, and broadcasting infrastructure. I doubt a sale of RTE2 would include much in the way of physical assets rather than just a transfer of the broadcast licence.

 

[MrEarl]

It was £100M, but that sale included significant assets in terms of real estate, TV & radio studios, and broadcasting infrastructure. I doubt a sale of RTE2 would include much in the way of physical assets rather than just a transfer of the broadcast licence.

Hello Leo,

Having done a quick search I stand corrected on the sale price (thank you for that, not sure why I had £150m in mind but clearly it was incorrect).

Point to note though is that RTE2 would have coverage over a potentially much larger viewing audience than UTV so that would assist in raising a higher price in the event of a sale.

 

[MrEarl]

Quite the contrary MrEarl, the key point I'm making here which you don't seem to be getting is that "we" don't have the other channels such as TV3, TG4, etc. These are not state broadcast channels. You're expecting that they would fill the gap if RTE1 was not showing something but there is no guarantee this would happen - in fact it certainly wouldn't happen unless it was commercially viable.

Hello,

We do have the other channels and can watch them just like we watch RTE 1. Just because the state may not own every broadcaster, does not mean we don't have them. From the viewers point of view, the channels can be received across 100% of the country thanks to Saorview or Satellite technology, so there is no question of content not being available to all and hence I argue that we do have them.

When RTE wants to show live rowing and it clashes with the Six One News, then no issue - because anyone wanting to see the news at 6pm can see it on the RTE News channel (or someone wanting their children to see children's programing in the morning time, can watch RTEjr - it does not have to be broadcast on RTE1 or RTE 2).

TG4 is not an RTE owned channel, but it is a Public Service Broadcaster (see here) so also has an interest and obligation in providing content for benefit of the people of the state etc. Hence, I argue that it could share the burden of broadcasting certain public interest events, or agree with RTE to split certain extensive coverage such as (lets say) the Olympics. Why would you not be satisfied with TG4 providing some of the public service broadcasting obligation alongside RTE 1 - that would give two channels to cover events that you seem concerned could not be covered by RTE 1 alone ?

We agree on the point about programming needing to be commercially viable. If there are sufficient viewers, then the commercial stations will broadcast the programming in the knowledge that it will bring in sponsorship and it seems to me (and others here) that the GAA for example would draw significant viewers and sponsorship. So, that is not a reason for RTE to have to broadcast GAA sports and in my mind, actually supports a very clear reason why they do not have to ever carry such programming (because it's not a necessary public service). I'm not just picking on the GAA here by the way, it just happens that GAA sports coverage is the example we have been using.

If content will not attract significant viewers to make it commercially viable, then you have to ask what is the justification for RTE having to show it (at a loss) ? ... if it is of clear benefit to the population then sure, I'm in favor and hence I want to keep one RTE TV station to serve such a purpose. If we insist on RTE carrying loss making services just because a minority want to watch them, then equal coverage has to be given to wrestling, sea fishing, various religions and so on - the list is endless and the costs too. It is wrong to expect the people of the state to fund all of these minority interests - let the minorities who want to view them, pay for them through the private sector.

With regards to the specifics around how things like how the rights to broadcast the Olympics are sold, neither of us know for sure so we won't get bogged down on this one. My personal belief is that coverage is sold as a "package" whereby a broadcaster buys the rights to broadcast all of the Olympic events once every four years and then show as much or as little of the content as you wish.

Thereafter, it's down to the commercial stations - some of which are "free to air" and funded by tv adverts (i.e. TV3) while others are pay per view (Eir Sports). There is plenty of competition, technology permits the entire country to access the channels etc. so no need for the state to step in, no more than there was need for the State to continue to own an airline when competition ensured that air transport was available in and out of Ireland.