Comments on: RTÉ turn down my FOI request about RTE.ie

By: lydia

lydia — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:24:24 +0000

The BBC uses licence payers’ money to fund their own ads. They were actually worried about airing the latest ones featuring Radio 1 dj’s such as Fearne Cotton, in case the public (rightly) questioned this mis-appropriateness of funds. These individual ads cost over 300,000 euro to produce. You decide.

By: mick dillon

mick dillon — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:17:39 +0000

This dual funding model starves other websites of advertising revenues , RTE.ie have dropped CPM rates drastically in recent months to hover up what bit of advertising is out there and this is putting competitor websites which don’t have the luxury of a license fee to rely on under server pressure. Personally I think our tv license money would be better spent on rolling out a decent broadband infrastructure across the country. This will also force RTE to face the same commercial realities as everybody else when competing for advertising.

By: Robert Synnott

Robert Synnott — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:53:46 +0000

(I should clarify that BBC only have ads for non-UK users)

By: Robert Synnott

Robert Synnott — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:53:15 +0000

“Would prefer the BBC model to be applied to RTE, no adverts.”

BBC have ads now.

I’m not actually surprised that they’re being so cautious about talking about it. Google tends to prefer that its publishers don’t go into much detail.

By: Antoin O Lachtnain

Antoin O Lachtnain — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:58:04 +0000

You should get some idea of revenues, etc. for RTE enterprises from the filings in the companies registration office. This might also give you some idea of the license fee.

I think that RTE would have a tough time keeping details of its dealings with its own subsidiary confidential if you appealed to the end of the FOI line.

One particular area is news. I think RTE would be under pressure to disclose the financial workings of its news.

Even if you didn’t get the money amounts, it would be interesting to know something about the terms.

irish rail is not an FOI-able body, so you are unlikely to have much luck with that.

By: Barry

Barry — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:41:41 +0000

If I get some time I’ll have a look at estimates on revenue based on the figures on their website and some knowledge of the market.

Regarding the “BBC Model” – The website is only ad free in UK and I think on the UK editions, worldwide it carries advertising – probably because the content is referenced worldwide and has a global readership that it makes sense to monetise the traffic.

Is it possible to request the same stats for irishrail.ie ?

By: UnaRocks

UnaRocks — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:26:44 +0000

RTE always turn down those kind of revenue requests. There’s lots of information out there RE: money in Montrose (salaries, budgets, programming costs etc) but anything to do with generating revenue, be it advertising online or off is generally marked as confidential.

I’m sure you could probably make a reasoned estimate at the amount of revenue generated by finding out what the traffic on both websites was.

By: Antoin O Lachtnain

Antoin O Lachtnain — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 20:24:13 +0000

Interesting thing would be to find out what licence fee RTE enterprises has agreed to pay RTE proper for use of their content. This should be foi-able.

There are really big questions to be asked about the public service remit in relation to 2FM. It is very hard to know exactly what they are supposed to be providing over and above what the commercial stations provide.

By: Damien Mulley

Damien Mulley — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 16:21:01 +0000

The 2fm website cost 230k and the idea of the shockingly shit redesign was to sell songs. It is within the public interest to see if they have made a crap job of it or not because the websites even if commercial would not exist without the content created by taxpayer money. While the websites might not be paid for by taxpayers directly, the content and work done by taxpayer’s money that enables the websites to exist and make money is. The websites provide some unique content but most is a result of work done on Radio1, 2FM and so forth. I’d like to know are 2FM and RTE Publishing doing their job correctly, the same way I’d like to know if companies funded by Enterprise Ireland are using taxpayers money correctly. I’ve not seen anywhere where RTE.ie has licenced content from RTÉ. I’ve also not seen any ability by a third party to be able to run the RTE websites or tender for their running. We can get access to Gerry Ryan’s salary yet we don’t see 2FM saying that it hampers their commercial negotiations with sponsors if people know how much his show costs to run.

By: eru

eru — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 15:57:48 +0000

I know. I’ve to pay a TV license this month and I pay tax. What I’m saying is that RTÉ’s response is a reasoned response. In essence they are protecting our Tax input (public interest) by not giving out information that other commercial entities in the same business don’t have to give out either (maintain a competitive position in the market). Makes sense to me.

It would be nice to know the information but it’s not essential.

I’m probably wrong but Mulley seems to be trying to make a story out of nothing here.