One intriguing aspect of the Future of Media Commission report is how overtly it frets about the “social contract” between audiences and public-service media (PSM) even as it suggests abolishing the main mechanism for keeping one in place.
A “general advantage” of asking citizens to make a specific payment for public media is this maintenance of “a very visible” social contract between those paying and “the PSM provider”, aka RTÉ, the commission says. It then decides this social contract is not worth the harp-headed paper it is written on and the licence fee should be replaced by direct exchequer funding — a recommendation flatly rejected by the Government.
Elsewhere in its report, however, the commission seems worried that Irish audiences do not appreciate the value of public media. Another of its recommendations is that public-service content providers should implement a strategy to “enhance the social contract between the public and media”. This would include working with the Media Commission, the statutory agency set to replace the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI), to develop “a common brand identity” for “routinely crediting and communicating the role and contribution of exchequer funding”.
A brand for public content funding — sounds simple, right? Now just imagine the frantic pitches, the terse memos, the hostile internal feedback, the enthusiastic minister on launch day, the background fuming.
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Other commission recommendations relating to RTÉ, meanwhile, take the form of obvious aspirations to have if money was no object. RTÉ should “establish itself as a powerhouse for the creation of distinctive Irish content”, is one of them. A powerhouse, eh? Sounds great. Then, in a line that could well have occupants of the Montrose boardroom slapping their palms against their foreheads and exclaiming “If only we’d have thought of that”, the report advises RTÉ to “position the promotion of Irish creativity at the heart of its activities”.
This should involve seeking to “build a wider global brand for Irish storytelling and content creation in key specialisms” and striving “to be more effective in building and exploiting intellectual property rights in international and domestic markets”. Easy.
It is four years since a more timely initiative called the Audiovisual Action Plan set out the State’s ambitions for the Irish content sector to capitalise on the global explosion in screen production, but the commission chips in that the plan’s steering group “should further advance the internationalisation of Irish content” and that this should be partly done through “co-ordinated support for the role of public-service media as a springboard for production and distribution of distinctive Irish content”.
This springboard principle is an important one. Industry representative organisations, including Screen Producers Ireland and Screen Directors Guild of Ireland, have long pointed out that a more robustly funded RTÉ would be better able to serve as a catalyst for creative careers, company expansion and job creation, typically by stumping up vital finance at the outset of a project or by filling early lines on what would otherwise be short CVs.
Conversely, if RTÉ only has only loose change left in the kitty for programme-making in high-budget genres after paying for all its other overheads, the Irish screen industry is at a disadvantage compared with international counterparts who enjoy bouncier springboards in their home markets.
But while the commission says RTÉ should place Irish creativity at its heart, it is debatable whether RTÉ is at the heart of Irish audiovisual policy the way it used to be. As far as public funding of drama and high-end documentary is concerned, the direction of travel has not been to Donnybrook.
RTÉ is not represented on the steering group of Audiovisual Action Plan, for instance, unlike Screen Ireland, the State agency formerly known as the Irish Film Board, which is now a key backer of television drama, as well as film and animation, and takes industry leadership roles that RTÉ either does not or cannot.
Of the commission’s recommendations that could directly boost RTÉ fortunes, the main one is its reckoning that if NewERA — the branch of the National Treasury Management Agency that advises on the finances of State bodies — says the public funding RTÉ needs is (or was) €219 million in 2021, €213 million this year and €214 million in 2023, then this is what its funding should be. This proposal for interim funding, which would mark an increase on the €196.1 million in licence fee receipts RTÉ actually received in 2021, has had the broadcaster looking forward to “engaging” with the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media on the subject.
But the more eye-catching recommended expansion of public funding would see the Media Commission distribute a pot of €30 million a year through a media fund contestable to some extent by all forms of media, including print and online. This is twice the size of the BAI’s existing broadcasting fund, the main element of which is the Sound and Vision scheme open to independent television and radio producers. The commission also backs the creation of another content fund through the introduction of what has been termed “the Netflix levy” — the mooted levy on the revenues of on-demand media companies envisaged under the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill.
This increasingly intricate patchwork of media supports means the concept of a single brand signifying the role of public funding could yet resonate with a Government that wants to take credit wherever it can, even if the commission’s related call for full exchequer funding is a non-starter.
So how to go about it? A harp is already stamped on the end credits of Section 481 projects. The logos of Screen Ireland and the BAI surface on the productions they back, typically taking their place among a pantheon of financiers. Does anyone care or even notice? A more conspicuous brand, like a pre-credit screen ident, could be feasible if the myriad of funding authorities can agree on one, while a prominent “badge” on print and online content paid for by the media fund seems advisable for the sake of transparency. But there is still backlash potential aplenty here.
Indeed, a quick scan of social-media reactions to RTÉ's declaration at the end of certain programmes that they are “supported by your licence fee” proves that audience awareness and audience appreciation of the origins of media funding are not always synonymous. Some social contracts may need more than new branding to survive.
