RTÉ Director General, Kevin Bakhurst

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

The Hard Shoulder, with Ciara Kelly and Shane Colman. On Newstalk, with Ciara.

Shane Coleman (0:10)

Now, Kevin Bakhurst, RTÉ's Director General, has joined us in studio. Kevin, RTÉ is developing its statement of strategy. As part of that, you're inviting members of the public to share their views on RTÉ's role, RTÉ's priorities, RTÉ's future. What do you hope to achieve from this process?

Kevin Bakhurst (0:28)

Look, it's really important for us to hear the voices of the audience about what they think RTÉ is doing well and things they think we could be doing better.

And it's a direct way of them telling us. And the essential strategy for RTÉ is not going to change the new direction strategy, but we're developing it. This is the next phase of it and we want to hear from people whatever views they have about RTÉ and what they'd like us to be doing in a different way.

Shane Coleman (0:51)

And it's an interesting survey. I took part in it myself. I do have to put it to you. There's another way that people can tell you what they think about RTÉ and that's paying the licence fee or not paying the licence fee and people in their droves are not paying the licence fee. Out of 2 million households, 715,000 households are paying the licence fee. Now, there are, of course, over half a million free TV licences as well. But licence fees, payments have fallen off a cliff for you and people are voting with their wallets when it comes to RTÉ.

Kevin Bakhurst (1:22)

Yeah, I'm not sure that's an exactly fair characterisation of it. I mean, licence fee sales have been falling consistently for many years. And it's not just a characteristic in Ireland. It's happening in the UK and around Europe. And, you know, it is very much, I think, about the fact that it's quite an old-fashioned system to fund broadcasting. And, of course, everyone's looking at other different ways of doing it.

You know, it's called the TV licence fee, but obviously it pays for radio and online as well. And many people are using online more than TV these days. And I didn't think there's a lot of people who say there are no TV households. So, you know, it's a bigger issue than just that.

Shane Coleman (1:59)

It is undoubtedly, although there's no doubt that the number has dropped dramatically after the crisis that you went through.

Kevin Bakhurst (2:07)

And I wasn't surprised to see that to some extent because, you know, when an organisation like RTÉ shows that it's not managing finances properly and correctly, it's hard to persuade people to carry on funding it. But, you know, hopefully we've made big progress in the last couple of years about the way we run RTÉ, the financial state of RTÉ, the transparency we run it with. So, you know, I'm hoping, you know, we try and persuade people. We're grateful people do pay their licence fees. They get a lot for 44 cents a day, I think.

Shane Coleman (2:37)

Just lastly on the licence fee, are you frustrated by the government's failure to reform the licence fee system? I think going back to Pat Rabbit's time as Minister for Communications that was talked about reforming it, does that really frustrate you that maybe there isn't a better way of collecting it?

Kevin Bakhurst (2:51)

I'm not sure it's frustrating and I'm not sure it's fair to pin it on government. I mean, you look around Europe, there's no perfect answer to it.

Shane Coleman (2:58)

You could get the revenue commissioners to collect it.

Kevin Bakhurst (3:00)

Well, you could get the revenue commissioners to collect it. That might be one thing. I know I'm possibly looking at, you know, improving the technology and the database and so on, but there isn't a perfect way. And, you know, I know there's been a lot of talk about direct funding, you know, the whole of the funding coming directly from government. But, you know, that carries its own risk as well. So I don't see a perfect solution anywhere, anywhere around Europe, to be honest with you.

Shane Coleman (3:25)

Okay.

The day of the budget, you said to, I think you told TG Cahir that you had never got an explanation from the department or from Patrick O'Donovan as to why he cost your funding by 20 million euro. Have you got that explanation from the minister or from the department since then and what was the explanation?

Kevin Bakhurst (3:44)

Yeah, look, we had a, the chair and I had a very constructive meeting, as I said, with the minister a couple of days after the budget. Look, he explained that basically he didn't feel the, well, that his department didn't get enough money itself to fund everything that he needed to fund across arts, culture and sports. So, you know, RTÉ was a part of that decision.