Outsourcing the production of programmes currently made by RTÉ to the commercial sector will do nothing to change the landscape of Irish broadcasting or improve already “awful” morale among workers at the broadcaster, a Dáil committee has heard.
Representatives from the RTÉ Trade Union Group (TUG) told the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Arts, Communications and Media that unions were not informed before recent cuts to programming were announced.
Workers are “blue in the face” asking for consultations with management, said Sorcha Vaughan, secretary of the TUG, which comprises the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), Siptu, Connect and Unite.
Ms Vaughan, who said morale at the broadcaster is “awful”, said there was no consultation with workers when management announced the effective closure of the religious affairs programming department in May or in advance of the recent cancellation of RTÉ’s Upfront with Katie Hannon programme.
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The committee is scrutinising the general scheme of the Government’s Broadcasting (Amendment) Bill, which will, among other things, require RTÉ to spend at least 25 per cent of its public funding on programmes commissioned from the private sector.
Ms Vaughan said workers are being told “we need to become smaller, the shows will be going” because of this provision in the Bill.
Seamus Dooley, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), said many of the decisions being made about RTÉ are merely a “reaction” to the previous management’s failures.
“As a consequence of that, [RTÉ management is] introducing all these changes without any great vision, being blunt about it,” he said.
Mr Dooley said the “concept of asking forgiveness [instead of] permission was brought to a whole new level” with management’s decision to shelve the religious affairs programming department.
Trevor Keegan, co-chair of the RTÉ TUG, said the outsourcing of programming such as Fair City and The Late Late Show, which was first mooted last summer, will do “nothing to enhance the cultural life of the nation” or improve already “horrific” morale among workers at the broadcaster.
Earlier on Tuesday, League of Ireland director Mark Scanlon told the Media committee that the so-called “Netflix levy” provided for in the Bill would raise operating costs for the league’s streaming site, LOITV.
The site operates on a “break-even basis” and all of the revenues from subscriptions are ploughed back into the participating clubs, he told committee members.
“So all the costs are being covered at this moment in time, production costs and then also costs [of hiring] commentators,” Mr Scanlon said. “Any levy would impact our ability to deliver the service.”
Noel Quinn, head of marketing at the GAA and its streaming platform GAA+, also told the committee that the levy would increase its production costs.
Earlier this year, RTÉ agreed to sell its 50 per cent stake in GAAGo, the GAA’s streaming service for the diaspora, back to the GAA for an undisclosed sum. Asked by Fianna Fáil TD Malcolm Byrne how much the GAA paid to buy out the national broadcaster’s share in the venture, Mr Quinn said he did not have the figures to hand but would give an answer in writing to the committee.
He said the GAA had initiated the conversation about acquiring the stake from RTÉ.
Mr Quinn said the Coalition should give “careful consideration” to how any levy is imposed, bearing in mind the “disparity of ethos and resourcing between indigenous, self-perpetuating organisations like the GAA and global content behemoths”.
