Sir, James Hickey's comparison (June 6th), between RTE's revenue and those of UK broadcasters, is based on a logic that is fundamentally flawed.
He apparently believes that, if RTE's income were multiplied by a factor of 20 (to match the ratio of population), it would then equal the total expenditure of all UK broadcasters. That presumes that such expenditure amounts to a figure of around £3 billion.
In fact, the annual income of UK broadcasters excluding commercial radio is now closer to twice that amount. The figure he considers to be appropriate for RTE to spend on drama, therefore, needs to be reduced by a factor of 50 per cent if it is to have the meaning he claims.
But, in any case, this form of direct comparison is not only rather crude, but also, perhaps, a little naive. To have real meaning, such comparison must involve some sense of scale and proportion.
This is recognised by the European Broadcasting Union which, in its regular economic analyses of trends in European broadcasting, seeks to compare like with like.
The most recent annual figures available from the EBU indicate that the BBC produces or co-produces or commissions around five times as many drama hours as RTE.
Given that the BBC's current annual income is almost £2,000,000,000 almost 15 times RTE's annual revenue and applying James Hickey's own criteria, he should be surprised that the gap in hours of drama production is not greater. Yours, etc., Assistant Director of Television Programmes, Radio Telefis Eireann, Dublin 4.