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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
54 March/April 2022
Such campaigns could end up being at least as
significant as any aid made available as a result
of the recommendations of the Commission on the
Future of Media.
The funding problems the Future of Media
Commission must address are obvious. In
addition to plummeting newspaper audiences,
RTÉ has not had an increase in its licence fee since
2008, despite increased competition from
satellite and streaming services.
Realistically RTÉ needs a significant funding
increase, and to break the link between television
sets and the licence fee. This was attempted
before, with a proposed move to a “screen tax”,
but the idea was long-fingered and eventually
dropped after water-tax protests made
introducing another household tax unpalatable.
The other issue for RTÉ is reliance on advertising
revenue.
A look across Europe shows many dierent
variations in public service broadcasting, from the
BBC’s licence only to a household and business
fee in Germany, an electricity surcharge in Greece
and Serbia, and grants paid directly from central
government in other countries.
One novel suggestion, put forward by solicitor
and writer Simon McGarr, is to allocate a share of
central funds to RTÉ. Not only that but the
proportion would be fixed as a percentage of
government revenues, and locked in for a
significant term, say a decade.
This would release RTÉ from dependence on
commercial advertising (and so help commercial
television, which could them attract more
advertising revenue), while allowing RTÉ to plan
over the medium- to long-term without having to
worry about near-bankruptcy every year. In
addition to securing its future as a news source,
the station would also be able to invest in
developing indigenous drama distinct from the
latest American or other imported programming,
some of which it might even sell on to streaming
services and other broadcasters internationally.
last autumn, and there it has sat ever since,
gathering dust. News media in Ireland have been
in crisis for over a decade, ever since the perfect
storm of a property advertising prolapse at the
same time that Apple launched the iPhone and
Facebook/Google (Meta/Alphabet?) achieved
critical mass, leading to the crumbling of both
circulation and advertising revenues.
The government seems much more excited
about the similarly named but distinct Media
Commission, which will replace the Broadcasting
Authority of Ireland and regulate not only
traditional broadcasting but streaming media,
and potentially every internet company
headquartered in Ireland. That is: the new Media
Commission may also be a New Media
Commission.
Despite what some may fear, this is unlikely to
lead to overreach by an Irish regulator possessed
of powers to rival the Great Firewall of China. This
government has no interest in upsetting the large
tech companies whose accounting practices
boost the Irish tax take. A government which went
to European courts to prove it did not have to tax
Apple is not going to interfere with their business
models.
However, both backbenchers and ministers will
seize on the opportunity to make antagonistic
noises about cyberbullying and online trolls,
while doing little in practice beyond setting up a
Commission with a commissioner whose major
power will probably be the right to nag people to
be civil online.
The new Media Commission may end up doing
old media a favour if that is the case. Given a likely
mandate to promote civil behaviour online and
discourage trolling, the media will need an
advertising budget.
Some of that will inevitably go on Facebook ads,
and on glossy online videos and audio inserts to
podcasts, but some of it will also go to
much0needed newspaper, television and radio
advertising.
L
ooking to the year ahead, it is hard to feel
optimistic about the multiple current
reviews of the media landscape in
Ireland though certain reports that the
Minister for Justice is finally to bring the
2022 review of defamation law to Cabinet and that
she will recommend abolition of juries in High
Court defamation actions and safeguards against
SLAPP orders, though hardly radical, did warm the
journalistic cockles a little in February.
Freedom of information (FOI) law is being
reviewed again, and the signals are not good.
There is a tendency for new FOI laws to be less
about opening up public information, and more
about giving civil servants new excuses to refuse
FOI requests. The last freedom of information
review grudgingly rolled back the requirement
that citizens should have to pay to obtain public
information, but not without an intense and
sustained campaign for a more open government.
During the review, one government minister
was prompted to complain about freedom of
information being abused by “two guys with a
website”. This was a reaction to a case which went
to the Supreme Court after the Information
Commissioner found that NAMA, the State’s ‘bad
bank’, was indeed subject to access to
environmental information regulations, an EU law
similar to freedom of information legislation but
covering environmental issues.
On another front, the government continues to
drag its heels in publishing the report of the
Future of Media Commission. The report was
delivered to the desk of minister Catherine Martin
The Future of Media Commission report
was delivered to the desk of minister
Catherine Martin last autumn, and there it
has sat ever since.
2022
Media
blues
Pessimism prevails
about Freedom of
Information, Future of
Media Commission and
Media Commission
By Gerard Cunningham
MEDIA
