leinster4life13 wrote:Dave Cahill wrote:leinster4life13 wrote:
This^^, anyone who thinks its the presenters that draws people to the monopoly that is RTE has been drinking the RTE spin doctor Kool-Aid. RTE could have fowl clucking over the mike and they would still post the highest listenership/viewers due to them being RTE, Hook, Pat Kenny et all get blasted out of it on the ratings as will anyone going up against the RTE monopoly, due to RTE being a virtual monopoly and the people who listen to radio watch RTE being innately conservative. Its high time we privatised RTE and let the market decide what those goons deserve to be paid.
How is RTE a monopoly? You can prove yourself wrong by going to RTE2 on your telly and pressing the CH+ button. In point of fact, this thread proves you wrong - where is the 2015 RWC being broadcast?
RTE is a virtual monopoly as they are the only station in receipt of public funds in a controlled market.
Well a virtual monopoly isn't a monopoly, but anyways. They are in receipt of public funds, but unlike other channels have a number of legal requirements in terms of programming. They have to provide more news content than the privately owned channels and unlike them aren't allow include 'celebrity news' as part of the quota. They are also required to provide a range of programmes than aren't necessarily commercially viable or that engage mass popularity, like Arts programming, religious programming, educational programming, coverage of special events like state visits or funerals, programming for minority groups, or even, increasingly as legislation on advertising becomes more strict, childrens programming. Some of these, like arts shows can be cheap to make, but some, like Natural history programming are very expensive (even buying them in is expensive due to the increased reliance of the BBC and NatGeo on DVD etc sales). They also have to run two (formerly three) special interest radio stations and are required to provide nearly 400 hours of programming free of charge to TG4.
They were also, until recently, responsible for running the infrastructure that all terrestrial TV in the republic operates on and this has proved to be a greater expense than anyone envisaged due to political interference and the failure of BCI to sell the commercial licences