Sir, – Your headline reads: "The battle for political supremacy in the newsroom" (Fifty Years of Irish TV, Life & Culture, January 3rd). But there is not a single reference to the newsroom in the body of the article by Mick Heaney. Today Tonight, which is mentioned, did not come under the aegis of the News Division in RTÉ. I can confirm there was never a battle for political supremacy in the newsroom by the Workers' Party or any other party. — Yours, etc,
Sir, – RTÉ is supposed to be showing the best of the past 50 years’ television shows in 2012? It’s only January 2nd and we’ve already seen excerpts from Quicksilver on three separate occasions. It could be a very long year; perhaps RTÉ could stop the lights? — yours, etc,
Sir, – In your article on the future of public service television (Life & Culture, January 2nd), I am quoted as referring to “the revenue grant of €10 million” that TG4 receives.
This ought to have read “the revenue grant, the €10 million”, as otherwise two relevant factors are compressed. These are the revenue grant that TG4 receives from the Exchequer (€33.5 million in 2011) and the amount now diverted annually from the licence fee to TG4 away from RTÉ (between €9 and €10 million).
The latter is additional to the hour per day of programming that RTÉ provides to TG4 at a cost to RTÉ of about €9 million. I have always believed that Irish language programming should be funded in accordance with precise objectives. – Yours, etc,