MEDIA MARKETING:TG4, THE Irish language television station, is nervously awaiting the forthcoming budget and hoping the Government will not reduce its funding any further in 2011. Industry sources however suggest more cuts are on the way as well as a possible change in how the broadcaster is funded.

State funding for TG4 increased from €10 million in 2001 to €36 million last year. This year, TG4’s subsidy runs to €32 million and, in the view of some observers, that’s still too much.

The Bord Snip report led by Colm McCarthy recommended that, in future years, TG4 should be financed from the television licence fee.

“TG4 and RTÉ should identify and implement cost savings, including potential for sharing facilities. The subvention to TG4 should be reduced to achieve savings to the exchequer of at least € 10 million.”

TG4’s director general Pól Ó Gallchóir counters: “It doesn’t really make any difference to us where the money comes from, whether it’s commercial revenue, the licence fee or direct State aid, as long as we have adequate resources. We are aware of what is happening internationally and nationally. We all have to make cuts and TG4 isn’t immune, but we can’t cut internally any more.

“All our staff took a 9 per cent voluntary pay cut and we are paying less for the programmes we buy from the independent sector.”

Now 14 years on air, TG4’s aim is to be a mainstream channel for a niche audience. Its audience share in October was 4 per cent and the most-watched programme on TG4 last month was its screening of the two International Rules games. In fact, three of its top five programmes were sporting events.

Due to its small market share, TG4’s commercial income is small too. Airtime and sponsorship sales income amounted to a net €1.85 million last year, down by a third on 2008. This commercial revenue just about covered the station’s advertising and marketing budget of €1.4 million, never mind another €11 million in staff and other overheads.

Two-thirds of TG4’s expenditure is on bought-in programming. In effect, TG4 is a State employment scheme for hundreds of jobs in the independent programme production sector.

TG4’s spend on commissioned programmes amounts to €18 million a year and another €5 million is channelled to Irish-language programme makers though the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (funded out of the licence fee) and from the Northern Ireland Irish Language Broadcasting Fund.

According to Ó Gallchóir: “The independent production sector is unable to bear further price reductions from TG4. It is due to already operating at 2002 equivalent budget levels and absorbing up to 10 per cent price reductions from TG4 in 2009.

“Further reductions will simply result in job cuts and a knock-on impact on the Irish production sector and on the economy overall.”

His argument has some merit. The stone walls that decorate the Connemara landscape are a legacy of public works programmes from another century. Although the walls will endure longer than Hector i gCeanada, the skills development that the State funds through TG4 is more relevant to a knowledge economy than masonry.

The bottom line for TG4 is that it needs to try harder to produce programming that people want to watch. Ó Gallchóir insists the station’s output is becoming more mainstream. “Even though we are mainly an Irish language station, nobody will watch a station purely because it’s in Irish. We have to provide quality programming on a par with other stations.

“We now have a lot of emphasis on music programmes where the spoken word isn’t that important. We also broadcast many sporting events where the spoken word isn’t that important either. We are trying to make all our programming as user-friendly as possible.”

Still, not a few sceptics view the TG4 project as a costly white elephant; two successive cuts in the station’s exchequer funding signals that political enthusiasm for the station may be waning.

A system for funding TG4 on a long-term basis has never been worked out and the station’s year-to-year existence is on a political grace and favour basis.

Says Ó Gallchóir: “Lack of certainty regarding annual funding levels makes it difficult for TG4 to plan our longer-term development.”