On Sunday, I found myself walking past an image of Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman beaming out from an advertising panel in his Dublin West constituency. The message I took from this is we have moved from the “speculation is intensifying” phase of the pre-election period to the “stick your face on a bus shelter immediately” stage.
Journalists love to hate and hate to love elections, which is why so many seem keener on November than February as the date for the next one. Those end-of-year reviews aren’t going to fill themselves.
In the meantime, next Tuesday’s budget, the first to be delivered by millennial Minister for Finance Jack Chambers, is poised to be a greater than usual focal point for the media industry.
That’s largely because the Government’s guarantee of €725 million in funding for RTÉ over the next three years has galvanised every media organisation that isn’t RTÉ to remind Chambers (another sitting Dublin West TD) and his Coalition colleagues that a. they exist and b. they want more than just an audience spike out of October 1st.
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Indeed, the RTÉ precedent has reframed the nature of budget “asks” beyond the media, with other public sectors reasonably wondering why if a multiyear agreement was available to Montrose that same logic couldn’t apply to them too.
Within the media itself, an orderly queue has formed, headed by TG4. The Irish language broadcaster, which was awarded public funding of €57 million for this year, has requested additional funding of €26 million for 2025 in its pre-budget submission, saying it would use about half of this increase to set up a news operation that is independent of RTÉ.
If TG4 is granted the sum it is seeking, it would bring its annual funding to €83 million next year, though TG4 director general Alan Esslemont argues that TG4′s public funding should ultimately reach 50 per cent of the level awarded to RTÉ – if this was applied in 2025, its funding would be €112.5 million.
But as far as Budget 2025 goes, the experience of last year’s process – when TG4′s funding increase was a lower-than-anticipated €4.8 million – suggests this sort of ratio is a long way off.
Speaking of long shots, Virgin Media Television sought €30 million earlier this year to fund its news service. Predictably, the company – owned by telecoms group Virgin Media, which is part of billionaire John Malone’s multinational cable giant Liberty Global – got nowhere with this, leading to a strongly worded statement from the broadcaster’s managing director, Áine Ní Chaoindealbháin, in the wake of RTÉ's July deal.
It is tough to see how anything might have changed for Virgin since then, but if there are any budget measures that help it in a more roundabout way, then we’ll know that its threat to “review all options including our position with regards to our existing public service broadcasting commitments” reached the right ears.
The Government’s announcement of its multiyear agreement with RTÉ gave little mention to the rest of the media, except to say that the minimum public funds to be distributed by the regulator, Coimisiún na Meán, next year will be no less than €22.2 million.
The RTÉ precedent has reframed the nature of budget ‘asks’ beyond the media, with other public sectors reasonably wondering why if a multiyear agreement was available to Montrose that same logic couldn’t apply to them too
This total includes €10 million for its new funding schemes, up from €6 million. Although it is not clear how this money will be divvied up in future, this year they are limited to two schemes designed to fund local democracy and courts reporting under contracts of 12 months or less.
They are still at the application stage, so we don’t yet know the winners and losers, but on paper the likely beneficiaries will be, well, papers. The schemes seem to cater in the main for local newspapers – plus larger national media groups that contain local titles within their portfolio. Even within this struggling sector, the jury on these schemes is out.
For commercial radio stations, however, the writing is on the regulator’s wall. According to Independent Broadcasters of Ireland (IBI), the group that represents 34 non-RTÉ stations, the schemes are “misdirected and impractical” because they rule out support for core news and current affairs – there’s a bit in their rules about only paying for “additional” coverage – and are “totally unsuitable for radio”.
Its members can’t see a way of making them work, it says. Oh yes, and they risk having the unintended consequence of promoting precarious employment anyway.
The IBI has sought a modest €6.1 million in interim funding – or an average sum of €179,000 per station – to keep its news and current affairs coverage going, it says, while a scheme more appropriate for radio needs can be worked out.
Industry tax credits are likely to get a mention or two next week, meanwhile. The State’s 32 per cent section 481 tax credit for film and television production has been looking a touch uncompetitive ever since the UK introduced 40 per cent relief for productions budgeted up to £15 million (€18 million) earlier this year.
Audiovisual Ireland is now calling for the Government to match this rate for projects under €20 million. The fear in the industry is that the UK measure could trigger a loss of international business and perhaps even prompt some Irish-produced projects that would have filmed here to up sticks to the UK.
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While the issue of a replacement for the expired regional uplift to the tax credit remains a recurring theme of section 481 discussions, the measure that is closer to seeing the light of day is a new tax credit for unscripted productions, which was first referenced by Paschal Donohoe in his budget speech two years ago.
As Budget 2025 nears, the starting-gun vibe is increasingly difficult to ignore. The cold dark nights will be great for television debate ratings. But it is a reflection of the financial vulnerability of the media business that the finer details of next Tuesday’s speeches carry their own intrigue – and could bring disappointment too.
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