We are competing with very heavily funded global players in this space.Ĭrucially, she said: “We have made some provision in the future for some of this but if funding does not come our way then this cannot come to a place where it can be up there in that world-class space.” It is something that we have been looking at over the past number of years. “The honest answer is it will cost millions,” she said. “We have to be at the table in this space,” she said, adding that, assuming the funding were not an issue, improving the player would be “top of our agenda”.Ī week later, before the media committee, Ms Forbes got a little bit more specific. She acknowledged that in the current media world, having an efficient player is a given. “It is significantly more than we are spending now or have been spending for a number of years,” she said. Last month, the broadcaster appeared before both the Oireachtas public accounts and media committees to discuss its finances, and the player came up repeatedly.īefore the PAC, Ms Forbes said, in terms of what it will cost to bring the player up to standard, that she didn’t “have that number to hand”. It’s indicative of a wider financial malaise in Montrose. But the need for that relatively small technological bailout seems symptomatic of an institution which has to constantly fight the appearance of always having the begging bowl out. In that respect, the money needed to upskill the RTÉ Player may equate to a drop in the ocean.
Lastly, RTÉ’s ongoing, seemingly never-ending financial plight isn’t exactly a secret at this stage.
So it is very much in RTÉ’s interests for the player to be performing well. File picture: Maxwell Photographyīut if we’re to move to a broadcasting charge, the State’s preeminent media player would need to be in good nick. RTÉ estimates the revenue it’s losing out on due to the “utterly broken” (to quote director general Dee Forbes) licence fee model is over €65m per annum.ĭee Forbes, director general, RTÉ. Such a charge is designed to account for the money lost by the broadcaster to licence fee evaders and ineligible ‘no-tv’ households (an estimated 15% of homes). Secondly, for RTÉ specifically, the move towards a blanket household broadcasting charge is fundamental to its future. The world has moved further towards streaming, with live television becoming less of a priority in the era of on-demand content. So why does this matter? Is the player that big a deal?įirstly, yes, a fully functioning multimedia player is a prerequisite for any modern media platform. That’s a long time to not manage to get it right.
That’s not a great record when you consider the player was first launched just under 13 years ago. The player wasn’t fit for purpose then, and while some performance improvement has been noted in the interim, it still isn’t exactly up to scratch now, something acknowledged by RTÉ repeatedly at recent Oireachtas committee hearings. The following 90 minutes was among the most frustrating viewing experiences imaginable - the stream hung constantly, each time it did we got put through the same four ads on repeat, each instance lasting about two minutes (the fact the ads are the only thing that seems to work on the player has become something of a niche 2020s' Irish joke, one people probably won’t understand the relevance of in 40 years’ time). You can probably guess where this is going. I needed pre-Christmas cheer in the form of the GAA’s footballing showpiece, which is one of my annual highlights.
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