THE UNDERTAKING made on Friday in the broadcasters annual accounts by director general Noel Curran that “I have committed that RTÉ will break even in 2013, and we will” is ambitious, to put it mildly. The national broadcaster is operating in a grim media environment – like this newspaper and all of its rivals – in which, with the economy in the doldrums, the prospects of revenue growth are unpromising. This year and next the only story will be cut, cut, cut. Mr Curran’s target may be achievable, but at what price to the fabric and output of this important institution?
To its credit RTÉ in the last three years has stripped some €86 million, a fifth, out of it operating costs, down to €367.7 million last year when staff numbers (including part-time and casuals) also came down a further 60 to 2,093.
Yet for 2011 it posted a loss of €16.8 million compared to a deficit of €4.7 million in the previous 12 months. The loss was attributable not so much to the economic environment but substantially to the Government’s decision to prioritise TG4 and independent production at RTÉ’s expense. The station’s licence fee revenue was cut by €12.4 million to €183.6 million.
Commercial revenue, responsible for half RTÉ’s income, also declined 5 per cent. RTÉ TV advertising revenue has plummeted, like that in newspapers, by 40 per cent since its peak in 2007 – last year by €6.3 million, representing over a third of its annual deficit.
The broadcaster proposes to meet Curran’s pledge by reducing its cost base by a further €25 million, achievable only through more voluntary redundancies and through pay cuts, and presumably not only of its well-paid star earners.
After the licence fee monies were allocated internally in shares reflecting the station’s public service remit, RTÉ One TV, alone of the broadcaster’s stations, continued to achieve a profit of €2.7 million last year. sharply down on the 2010 €9.9 million surplus. RTÉ Two’s deficit widened to €17.6 million; RTÉ Radio 1’s loss narrowed to €104,000 from €314,000 previously, but 2fm, which receives no licence fee subsidy, had a deficit of €5.4 million (€3.2 million in 2010). Newspapers competing with RTÉ directly to provide news services online, however, will again be disappointed by the lack of transparency in the accounts on the degree of cross-subsidisation and on the real cost of such services.
Spending on news and current affairs programming consumed a huge €68 million; sport, €47 million; while entertainment programming cost €35 million – it’s a spending balance that provides a wide range of social and cultural material that is not, and would not be, provided by a purely commercially-driven broadcasting system. RTÉ does provides an important indigenous bulwark against multinational media entities such as Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp. And although elements of the mix are certainly disputable – are the losses at 2fm justifiable and does the station really contribute something unique – the big picture broadly justifies RTÉ’s privileged licence-funding position.