The future belongs to whoever shows up as Mark Steyn wrote.
Demographics.
Fertility and Productivity are not even across all cohorts. Sometimes these are inversely correlated and if you are in a minority relying on a pension within an unproductive, indebted majority you will be poorer. Much poorer.
Watch this. From fifteen years ago. Very prescient.
Minister warned that RTÉ’s finances ‘not sustainable’ - as broadcaster reveals 122 staff are paid more than €100,000
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Newly published figures show that, of the 122, 24 earned between €150,000 and €250,000 with the remaining 98 earning in the €100,000 to €150,000 bracket.Crucially, the figures don’t include RTÉ’s top earners, such as Ryan Tubridy, Joe Duffy and Ray D’Arcy, as they are independent contractors and paid through their own companies.
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RTÉ’s financial future is under ‘immediate threat’, officials warn Minister
Briefing note says TV licence subscription compliance is at ‘unacceptable level’
The financial future of RTÉ is under “immediate threat”, according to a department briefing note given to the new Green Party Minister for Media, Tourism and Sport Catherine Martin.
The document also warns that RTÉ’s assets are “fully stretched” in terms of collateral against loans and “its capacity to borrow more is therefore limited.”
Ms Martin was also warned that TV licence subscription compliance was at an “unacceptable level” and that sports cannot be economically run “on the basis of the indoors and outdoors limits on mass gatherings” set out by the Government.
Actually, the Angelus is probably the least offensive broadcast on RTE.
It’s nothing but a harmless throwback to old Ireland.
RTE is dead.
Has been for years now.
Their entire business model went obsolete a decade or two ago.
Think about how the entire entertainment industry has been upended over the last 20 years.
Now think at how little RTE has changed over the same time period.
There are now Irish youtubers who, from their bedroom or garden shed, consistently obtain a higher viewership than the annual Late Late Toy Show (RTE’s highest rater).
We all know there exists a mutually beneficial relationship between RTE and whatever government is in power.
It only benefits them.
But you’ll be jailed for not paying for it.
The ironic thing about RTE broadcasting the Angelus is that it reminds me of how equally irrelevant both have become.
The RTE version of it certainly has – I remember as a kid it used to be accompanied by devotional pictures. Then they stuck those “mindfulness” videos over it, must be at least thirty years ago. Presumably someone’s grand idea of how not to offend the D4 set and the rural audience. Ended up looking like a video of the zombie apocalypse.
Contrast today with the theocracy we lived in back then, or earlier when McQuaid insisted RTE run a live microphone to the bells, it was our equivalent to the Muslim call to prayer. Good riddance.
will they force the Govt into finally bringing in that Broadcasting charge to replace tv license?
Lads, stop the car and have a chat about it
He’s in his own bizarre little world where he is King. I think I caught 30 seconds of today’s show in which he recommended cleansing your social media feed of anyone who disagreed with Covid restrictions. Yet in person he says he wants them to have a chat. He’s a walking, chirping, smug advertisement against the licence fee
I’ve been threatening for years to stop paying the licence fee. I can’t even receive RTE. Not being allowed to own any kind of TV tuner is a bit of a blocker though. Last year the gubmint said we were in a five year countdown to the introduction of the new broadcasting charge (seven years after they first started talking about it). Great! – that’s a five year guarantee and, as far as I know, they haven’t actually pressed the start button.
So I have some Amazon price alerts set up for a giant 4K monitor, 4K-capable entertainment PC, and a Surfshark VPN subscription. I reckon five years of no licence fee will almost cover it. Looking forward to showing it off to the TV licence inspector if / when I don’t renew in Feb. 
Nearly two out of three Britons believe the current BBC licence fee should be scrapped, a major poll has found, as leading Tory MPs called for a root-and-branch review of the corporation’s funding.
Fifty-nine per cent of Britons say the TV licence fee cannot continue in its current form, according to the survey of 2,274 people aged 18 or over. It gives a two-to-one majority in favour of reform with just 32 per cent backing the status quo, according to the poll by Savanta ComRes.
More than a third are also unhappy with the way their licence fee money is spent amid rows over pay packages of presenters like Gary Lineker and Zoe Ball, the two highest earners with £1.75 million and £1.36 million respectively. Thirty-four per cent said the way it spent funds was “unreasonable”.
An even larger proportion – 43 per cent – felt the BBC did not reflect “British values” amid accusations that it has pursued a left-wing, Remain and “woke” agenda (an approach that Tim Davie, the BBC Director General, has sought to challenge).
The Brits get a world-renowned non-commercial public broadcaster while we pay a similar annual fee but get a station which has singularly failed to achieve international impact and is full of overpaid “names” who had the brass balls to claim they earned the big bucks by attracting advertisers.
Let that thought sink in because it is at the rotten heart of RTÉ, a broadcaster which was created to provide a service to the Irish people but during the Celtic Tiger years it became a commercial station pandering to its advertisers. Have you ever heard a Prime Time investigation into a business that advertises heavily?
Now its business model is broken beyond repair, like many traditional broadcasters, and it hopes the taxpayers will bail them out. Shifting the NSO of the books was a neat move. Love your orchestras!
A sharp drop in the purchase of TV licences is expected in 2020, with a year-on-year decrease of 50,000 registered to the end of September. The number of licences bought in 2019 was already down more than 13,000 on the previous year.
Ireland currently has one of the highest evasion rates in Europe, with an estimated one in eight households owning a TV set but not a licence. RTE, which receives the bulk of the revenue, has repeatedly called for the system to be reformed.
