Minister denies council’s TV licence request

AFTER receiving a request from Shannon Town Council for the TV licence fee to be abolished, Minister Pat Rabbitte has written to the council and, unsurprisingly, he hasn’t a notion of complying with their request.
However, he did give an outline of his plans to change the system, replacing the existing fee with a charge to all households and businesses.

Explaining why there needs to be a charge, he stated, “The rationale for providing State funding for public service broadcasting is to provide an independent and reliable income flow that allows these corporations to attain their public service objectives while ensuring they can maintain editorial independence. This is especially important in the context of news and current affairs.

“The overall aim of public service broadcasting is to provide services and content which cater for all interests in society, while ensuring that the varied elements of Irish culture and its intrinsic values are protected. Through the obligations placed on the public service broadcasters, which are established in legislation passed by the Oireachtas, and the criteria set for the funding of content through the sound and vision scheme, the production of quality indigenous programming and the production of minority interest programming is strongly promoted.”

He claimed that the current system is out of date and will be reformed.

“Publicly funded public service broadcasting and content are now available to everyone on an ever-increasing range of platforms and devices (radio, television, smart phone, PC, laptop and many other devices) and, in fact, access is not dependent on the ownership of a device. In short, everyone benefits from the availability of theses services, regardless of how content is accessed or relayed to the public and, therefore, it is my view that the cost should be borne by society as a whole.

“The replacement of the existing funding system based on the collection of television licence fees with one based on the imposition of device-independent charge on eligible households and businesses is a complex process and much of the detail has yet to be worked out.”

He stated that his department is reviewing it and he expects to receive a recommendation by the end of this month.

“At this point, however, I can state that it is my intention that the charge, which will be device independent, will replace the current licence fee and all households and businesses will be subject to the charge, except for those that are specifically exempted.”