Sir, - RTE wants Irish families to fork out yet another monster increase in licence fee to fund its misguided and indulgent ambitions to dominate the Irish television market when it ought to be filling the role of an Irish public service broadcaster, reflecting an Irish view on the world and all things wonderful about Irish culture.
Surely it is about time for RTE to be restructured, weeded of its bloated staff numbers, and given a completely fresh mandate.
In an Ireland where the overwhelming majority have or will shortly have access to dozens of television channels of all kinds, why is RTE spending millions of licence-payers' money empire-building and duplicating what is on these channels?
When RTE's Gerry Ryan asserts (Sunday World, September 17th) that if we want to have our own identity through our own television station then we must pay for it, I agree wholeheartedly. But that is not what RTE is delivering. How is it reflecting Irish identity to broadcast hours and hours of the same US comedies and drama series we already see on BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky? How is it benefiting Irish licence-payers to watch series after series of British dramas a few weeks or months after they have already been broadcast on UK channels?
Every year or so we see RTE bidding for coverage of the World Cup, the Olympics and European soccer matches, yet these events already receive blanket coverage on UK and satellite channels. Is it for our benefit or for the prestige of RTE and its top brass?
We need a new RTE that will receive our licence money with responsibility, and spend it on programming that we cannot watch on other channels: on Irish drama, music and arts as well as current events and news coverage from an Irish perspective. Goodness knows, there is also excellent potential for overseas sales for such cultural programming. When has there ever been a time when all things Irish have been so popular all over the world?
Where digital television is concerned, the infrastructure and delivery systems should be totally independent of RTE and indeed all broadcasters, and they should not be able to waste yet more money on their desire to gain total control of this key technology for the future of all media in this country.
RTE should focus on giving a voice to Irish culture, not on mimicking, regurgitating and duplicating other channels. For that I believe Irish licence-payers are willing to pay. - Yours, etc.,
Howard Brittain, Abberley, Killiney, Co Dublin.