RTÉ's GRR Vs. The Licence Fee

Just paid the T.V. Licence. It's €160. And it stings. I paid it online. At last I can put the flat number back on the front door. I put the laptop away, put my laser card back in my wallet and prepare to settle down and enjoy one of my favourite shows on RTÉ television. I'm not quite comfortable yet. I shift around a little and realise I'm sitting on my screwdriver. That's better. I lean back, my attention monogamously on the television. Who's that? Scary music! The tension builds, I hold my breath...

Some bad editing later and before I'm entirely sure what has happened, I'm watching a commercial for an anti aging product. The preposterous phrase 're-plumper' referring to the cream's scientific properties snaps me out of my daze, my brain finally gets the message; 'You're no longer enthralled. They cut the scene. It's time to blink.' My heart rate normalises.

I had intended to write a piece about my outrage at some of the salaries earned by the big names on the State Broadcaster's roster. Pat Kenny, in excess of €800,000, Gerry Ryan, in excess of €500,00, Ryan Tubirdy earns €346,000, Marian Finucane (€455,000), Joe Duffy(€367,000), Derek Mooney (€242,000) and Mirium O'Callaghan (€221,000). But yesterday (5th November) it was announced that RTÉ is set to cut €50 million from its budget next year to avoid deficit, the Director General Cathal Goan told the Dáil Committee on Communications. The aforementioned will all be asked to take pay cuts. Though that's easier said than done, as highlighted by Gerry Ryan when quoted on Wednesday in the Irish Independent, "They can look -- I make many millions more (for them) than what they pay me." He continued, "I'd be happy to negotiate once it drops below that." That's a good question. I wonder how much Gerry Ryan Revenue (GRR) accounts for the budget total?

In 2007 the Licence fee generated revenue of €195.7 million, for the same period commercial revenue was €245.5 million. 2008 licence fee income is expected to be in the region of €199 million, due to the €2 increase from €158 to €160. That figure could go up further still if more Licence Fees were collected as RTÉ's own Annual Report 2007 states:

"The underlying level of Licence Fee evasion continues to remain high by international standards running at approximately double that of the UK. RTÉ estimates that circa 14% of all eligible households in the Republic of Ireland currently do not hold a valid television licence."

I find it disingenuous to be expected to pay the current Licence fee when the authorities are failing on such a scale to collect all potential revenues. It seems as though those of us who pay are being punished by those who pay nothing at all.

However for all the apparent injustices or inequalities, I pay the Licence fee. I pay it for the National Symphony Orchestra, I pay it for RTÉ News, for Prime Time (unrivalled topical current affairs journalism). I pay it for The View. I used to pay it for The Mystery Train. I feel like RTÉ suffers from an identity crisis. Is it a commercial entity, motivated by profit and market share? Or is it a bastion of Irish Culture, an archive of Irish life through the generations? If it's the former RTÉ should be expected to go out into the big bad world of competition and fend for itself, without my €160.

Can RTÉ offer cutting edge content driven programming (on both radio & television) when it has clearly shifted to a personality centric platform, which has driven up salaries tightening the budget, which in turn, effects the Licence fee. What influence does personality have on advertising revenues if all brand sellers care about is listener/viewership? Is personality the driving force behind ratings? I would like to know, alas on publication of this article RTÉ's GRR for the year ending 2008 is unknown.

It's none of my business

Finally the auditorium darkens, the red curtain steps aside and my anticipation begins to build. A stream of bright light whizzes above our heads and brings life to the unadorned canvas. The sound of chomping and rustling is quickly muted by the opening bars of a colourful advert for a renowned alcoholic beverage. However much I want to skip to the movie trailers and to the main feature, I cannot help but imagine the glee of the offending advertising executive, rubbing his hands together, for in this arena the potency of the message, through the clarity of sound and vastness of the images, is difficult to ignore. And though I have never given a moments consideration to which ads may be showing when choosing a film to watch and have never given my explicit consent (I have never been asked), there is, what you might call a collective acceptance, that adverts are part of the pre-feature programme. It can even be argued that decades of movie goers have given their consent, whether through docility or indifference. It may also be correct to say that as a society of consumers, advertising is a product of our desire to buy nice things.

The adverts themselves are not all bad. Some of them that night in Screen Number 1 were visual feasts. All were aurally bombastic and one was down right funny. But it is not with these particular promotional vehicles that I am vexed. It was what came after the panoramic tracking shots of the shackled mother, running in her expensive trainers (presumably towards freedom or some other intangible) that was the catalyst for this piece.

The empty swing, the sad mommy-in-waiting-no-more. The emotive blackmail of the imagery. Abortions are bad. Morally corrupting and will be regretted. I was uncomfortable and my partner shared this feeling. We were not the only ones. There was an agenda and it was being rammed down our pop-corn stuffed mouths. Aren't all adverts pushing some agenda, I hear you say? To a certain extent that is true. Most ads are played out in a competitive field, jostling for position. All trying to convince you that their way is better. All trying to convince you that there is only one choice. But we know better (don't we?). Could you imagine a pro-choice segment promoting the benefits of abortion as means of contraception (as if it would). The outrage would be, understandably, deafening.

In the subsequent days I wondered why I felt so affronted watching the anti-abortion promotion and not so the 'commercials.' Obviously there is an element of acclimatisation regarding adverts selling commodities rather than morals. I wondered was it the largely impersonal nature of corporate advertising versus the poignantly private nature that decisions such as abortion are made in. Sitting in the cinema I was aware of the ironic lack of choice I had in viewing this particular piece of film.

The next day my girlfriend informed me she had sent a number of letters of complaint. Among others she sent one to the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland, who promptly responded with a letter informing her that the cinema in question is privately owned and as such falls outside their remit, but did helpfully suggest she write to the Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland (ASAI). She also sent a letter to the newly elected local Fine Gael TD, Lucinda Creighton. Weeks passed with no response and then finally, just before Christmas, we received a Fine Gael stamped envelope in our letter box. However, to our surprise it was not the response we had expected but a rather impersonal and dare I say it, cheesy Christmas greeting card.

I was indignant. Was she hoping that she would take pride of place on the mantles of Dublin-South East constituents? Hoping that this trite and hollow stunt would shift her from the realm of maneuvering politician to that of dear friend or trusted neighbour? Later I noticed every letter box in our building was stuffed with the same empty gesture. I find it bizarre that someone I have never met, lest seen in the flesh, has sent me a greeting card with her feigned beaming countenance on it. The TD to constituent ratio in Ireland is the highest in the EU. At last count, 25,541 constituents per Parliament member. This sort of mass marketing campaign might qualify as the personal touch in democracies such as Germany or America but apart from the card and a few election posters, Lucinda Creighton is not on my radar. Perhaps it is a consequence of the modern, commercial, too busy to talk Ireland that we now live in. It's a pity there are shackles that our progress can't quite break free from. We may have the Celtic Tiger, but you have to go to the zoo to see it.

Maybe I'm on shaky ground, presuming that a woman of her standing, of her education, or her generation would be as appalled as I was when viewing this pro-life agitprop. The debate on advertising in the public domain is not one that should be solely aimed at the protection of children. It affects us all. Our priorities are askew. For example the type of beer you drink is not important. Running shoes are not a lifestyle change. No matter how many times we are told it is.

Type www.asai.ie into your web browser and the first thing you may notice is the statement,

'The essence of good advertising:
All marketing communications should be legal, decent, honest and truthful.'

It would be difficult to argue that the advert was illegal, or dishonest and decency often is a subjective notion. But the next line is more interesting, it states;

'All marketing communications should be prepared with a sense of responsibility both to the consumer and to society.'

This is were the advert becomes unstuck. The sense of responsibility was only to the narrow morals of the Family and Life Organisation (www.familyandlife.org), who commissioned the piece. It must also be noted that for all practicalities abortions are illegal in this state, so this was a ballyhoo aimed at women who must leave the island to avail of what is in many of our EU partners, a woman's own right. It is not what the narrator had to say, which I think you'll agree was uncontroversial, non specific and in general, quite a positive message, that was the problem, ' Not all the choices we make are good for us...or for others. Choose the positive option. Choose life. Life is precious. But the images in the piece smacked of moral superiority, narrow mindedness, and an over simplification of what I am sure for most women, no matter what decision is reached, a complex and difficult one. It could have been a cereal ad, perhaps high in moral fibre. Or one of those weight loss spots where there's a 'before and after', sad face, happy face. Abortion, sad face. No abortion, happy face! Some cinema owners took the money and ran. Others refused to screen it, which led to to call to boycott the offending picture houses (http://www.familyandlife.org/Abortion-and-Embryo/442/8/16.html). But these are intensely personal matters and should remain private. It's none of my business. Is it any of theirs?


You can view the video at: http://www.familyandlife.org/media/Choose_Life.mpg

An Unexpected Encounter

It's been two weeks and mixed emotions. The usual stew; anger, jealousy, acceptance, compassion, etc. The usual questions. How can this sort of thing happen in a civilised society? It was a cold December morning, the kind of morning where the grass crackles underfoot, the kind of morning perfect if someone you know spots you smoking when you shouldn't be and tells your mother. The kind of morning where male genitalia behave like a tortoise, fending a predator.

When my phone rang, I was surprised. She had kissed me goodbye and ten minutes later I was ready to head out the door. He did what? By the time I put the phone down I had already imagined several gruesome scenarios, one involving the park's resident swans and many more which reminded me that television has done a half arsed job ridding me of my imaginative faculties. Whatever the method and no matter how I embellished the grim fantasy, the result was always the same.

Before I knew it I was on the bus, questioning my manliness and entertaining the idea of getting off and beginning a manhunt for the perpetrator of this (probably common) unsettling episode. I also wondered why manliness is invariably measured in units of pummelling.

By the time I was anchored at my desk, my girlfriend had assured me she was well and that it was overkill to call around her home town of Strabane, to look for some out of work Provos to do some freelance work for us. So I attempted to go about my daily chores but could not refrain from dwelling on that morning's incident. Both rational and irrational thoughts tangoed about my mind. For example I did bare a momentary grudging respect, especially considering the windchill. But that quickly passed as the stupidity of such a thought poked me in the eye and I began re-evaluating some of my more reactionary notions. The use of the word normal, relative to society, is usually a term that is shy of me, though in recognising that the majority of ideas occupying the public consciousness are useless and dumb, that elusive (inane) feeling of belonging, is one which I am largely comfortable with. However, in this instance, it is sufficiently broad enough to encompass the vast majority of us. The gentleman in question is obviously one that falls outside such categorisation.

I wondered how can this happen in a civilised society such as ours? And in retrospect perhaps it happens as a result of the nature of our civilised society. Our sexualised, unequal and often uncaring society. With so little room to move and so little chance of being heard above the din of modernity, people get left behind or worse still trampled on. I'm sure most people have felt or will feel like getting off and just standing still. I know I have. I've even considered jumping, not knowing the dangers. I tried to think of what sort of person would behave like this. I concluded, any sort of person. Though on this occasion, this particular individual's behaviour diminishes the compassion I am capable of feeling, it does not eradicate it. I wonder how qualified or objective we are to label ourselves civilised. And if our Saturday night interactions are civilised, I shudder at the cruelties capable in a society lacking our collective sense of right and wrong. From an unexpected encounter I find this an unexpected reaction.

RBS Six Nations Launch

Yesterday marked the launch of this years Six Nations Championships and with that comes the hope of absolution. The stain of the World Cup has been hard to shift and the return of the national team's bread and butter competition is most welcome. The sense of familiarity is soothing in the wake of the great World Cup disappointment. Perhaps it is the familiar February weather, or the renewed promise of a rousing Amhrán na bhFiann. Though the players publicly (most recently Girvan Dempsey in the Irish Times) state their need to look forward and bury the memory of France, I find it inconceivable that they do not view this as an opportunity to re-establish themselves as a team of dogged heart and exemplary skill sets.

(It's January. Two weeks until the Italians visit for the first game of our campaign. This feeling. Deja-vu. I think we'll be there or thereabouts.)

This morning Brian O'Driscoll has declared that he feels the team has underachieved. Maybe they have. A bounce of a ball here or there may have altered that hindsight. As a devote supporter of our National team I find it somewhat disconcerting to hear O'Driscoll stating:

'The players have a point to prove only to themselves. You will always have hype and speculation but you can't control those things.'

I think they have a point to prove to their supporters, who felt the disappointment of the World Cup exit keenly. Not merely the failure to reach the quarter finals but the manner of the elimination. They are a professional outfit at the pinnacle of their powers and can bounce back. If you're sceptical refer to the form of Ronan O'Gara, Donnacha O'Callaghan, Peter Stringer, Denis Leamy et al for Munster in the Heineken Cup and although poor at Welford Road, in the home fixture against Toulouse, Leinster put in their performance of the season with many international stars back on the front foot.

'What you can control are your own performances. We are capable of great performances, we just need to produce them.' BOD

Exactly.

However, the impetus for this meandering was not the utterances of the Irish Team Captain but those of the Head Coach. Yesterday at the launch, held at The Hurlingham Club, London, Eddie O'Sullivan responded to questions relating to the security of his job and the forthcoming Six Nations campaign:

'There's more pressure on me now because we've come off the back of a World Cup that wasn't as successful as we'd hoped it would be," said O'Sullivan.

'I believe I got selection right during the World Cup because if I'd changed the team around would it have transformed our performance?' he said.

Perhaps he is being rhetorical. But if O'Sullivan really wanted to find out if a change of team selection would have altered our fortunes, maybe he should have changed his team selection (Logic is one of my great gifts). But because he resisted that temptation we can never know, or can we....?

'The answer to that is no because our performance at the World Cup wasn't based on poor selection, it was based on the fact we didn't play well as a unit.'

'Changing the unit around wouldn't have made any difference.

So where does that leave the team now? We will have to wait and see. But lets don our scarves and hats and cheer and sing and clap (or shout at the television). This is our 'golden generation' of players. Luke Fitzgerald, Jonathan Sexton and others, in time may fill those big shoes. But the time to perform is now. And if against Italy we find our feet, who knows? But that's part of the fun.

Emmett Quanne
January 2008