THE FUTURE OF Media Commission’s report was published this morning following a year-long delay.

The Commission was set up by the Government in 2020 to examine the future of Ireland’s broadcast, print and online media, and to consider how it can remain sustainable and deliver public service aims over the next decade.

It is chaired by Professor Brian MacCraith, former president of Dublin City University, and has nine members who were appointed by the Government on the basis of their expertise in media.

The report makes 50 recommendations, including that funding for public service media should shift from the current system of TV licence fees and Exchequer funds to one “based entirely on general Exchequer funds”.

Here are the main recommendations made by the commission.

Licence fee

The commission was asked specifically to make recommendations in relation to public service broadcaster RTÉ and how it should be funded.

The report recommends that the TV licence fee should be phased out by 2024 and replaced by funding “derived from general tax revenue, with an appropriate adjustment in taxation, if necessary, to meet this cost”.

It states that it discounted the option of reforming the TV licence model on a number of grounds, including “the great difficulty involved in reducing evasion rates, and the fact that even if compliance were dramatically improved the model would still not be effective at raising the target funding”.

It recommends that before the new funding system is set up in 2024, additional public funding should be made available on an interim basis for RTÉ “following detailed scrutiny” of it’s financial situation.

It recommends that RTÉ receive public funding of €213 million in 2022 and €214 million in 2023.

In the case of TG4, public funding should be €44.7 million in 2022, and €48.7 million in 2023, it states.

The Future of Media Commission report has been published by Government 🎤📝 The report contains a total of 50 recommendations, which in effect constitute a strategic agenda for transforming Ireland’s media sector. Learn more and read the report here: https://t.co/Vqd8Y74f0o pic.twitter.com/mWq3GlSJqb

— MerrionStreet.ie (@merrionstreet) July 12, 2022

However, the Government rejected the recommendation to abolish the TV licence fee, and will instead reform it through a technical working group that will examine how to increase the revenue yield from the licence fee.

In a statement following the report’s publication, RTÉ said it was welcome that changes to how the licence fee were now being examined.

“This is critical given how much media consumption habits have been changed by the internet in the last decade,” the statement said.

Director general Dee Forbes said that over the past decade, RTÉ has called for the “utterly broken” licence fee system to be reformed.

“The decision by Government today to align the obligation to pay the Licence Fee with how people consume media today is critical to ensure the future sustainability of the system,” she said.

“We will engage with the proposed working group as to the scope of legislative and system changes that are required, and we trust reforms will be decided upon and implemented quickly.”

‘Media Fund’

The report also recommends converting the Broadcasting Fund into a “platform-neutral” Media Fund on an administrative basis from 2022, and on a statutory basis from 2024.

Managed by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI), the Broadcasting Fund was established in 2003 to help to support the production of both television and radio programmes.

It provides funding for these productions through the Sound and Vision Scheme. The current round of the scheme, Sound and Vision 4, invites applications under the themes of Irish culture, heritage and experience, adult literacy or media literacy, global issues and Irish language.

It has supported a number of programmes, including the crime drama Darklands, the Roddy Doyle-written drama Rosie and David Brophy’s Choir of Ages.

The Media Fund will instead encompass Irish language, culture and heritage, as well as print, online and broadcast news content, history, science, education and media literacy.

“The Commission believes this is essential in order to reflect the multi-platform nature of the media industry,” the report reads.

It states that while the Commission recognises the value of the current structure of the Broadcasting Fund, “it is also clear that the Fund’s limitations need to be addressed to ensure that it can evolve to be an effective support for media into the future”.

“Pending the establishment of the new statutory basis for public funding from 2024, the Commission recommends additional public funding for the Broadcasting/Media Fund on an interim basis, with total public funding increased to €30 million in each of 2022 and 2023,” the report reads.

Local democracy reporting 

A new ‘Local Democracy Reporting Scheme’ is also recommended, which would enable more comprehensive coverage of local authority issues by local outlets.

The scheme would be available to all media platforms and allocated on the basis of local authority areas.

The Commission believes that such a scheme is essential to ensure that local media can continue to perform its vital role in reporting by skilled journalists on public institutions and authorities where issues of importance to the public are considered, such as Local Authorities, Municipal District Councils, Joint Policing Committees, and Regional Health forums.

It states that the scheme is aimed at supporting and increasing coverage of local issues, and avoiding “homogeneous coverage of local democracy”.

The scheme would be similar to the UK’s Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), which is funded by the BBC, and provides local democracy reporters to cover local reporting of local authorities and public services throughout the UK.

The reporters are employed by local news organisations, and roles are allocated across the UK according to size and density of local authority areas.

The report recommends funding of around €3 million per year, beginning this year. “This would allow for an average level of almost €100,000 per each of the 31 local
authority areas”, it adds.

Court reporting

New funding schemes are also recommended for courts reporting at local, regional and national levels. 

The report recommends that the schemes be designed on the basis of national and local jurisdiction courts and include coroner’s courts.

They should also be open to all media platforms and allocate funding on a contestable basis, with content funded under the schemes free to consume by the public.

“The Commission recognises the importance of comprehensive, professional and publicly accessible reports of court proceedings at local and national level, including Coroners courts. Accurate reporting of the Courts that complies with legal requirements requires considerable training and experience,” the report reads.

Disinformation

The report’s other recommendations include a reduced or 0% VAT rate on newspapers, greater promotion of equality and diversity within Irish media and a comprehensive review of Irish language services.

It also recommends the development of a National Counter-Disinformation Strategy to enhance trust and protect the safety of Irish users of global content platforms”.

The report carried The Journal’s ongoing FactCheck initiative as a case study of best practice for countering the rise of misinformation and disinformation.

It states that the strategy should develop effective long-term monitoring of the application of the EU Code of Practice on Disinformation and the Digital Services Act in Ireland, and be developed in consultation with all relevant stakeholders, including news organisations, civil society groups and Irish fact-checkers and disinformation researchers.

It should also incorporate a role for the public to potentially contribute to decisions that will impact media users, or complaints filed by them.

The report also recommends that a group with an independent chair should be established to implement its findings.

Besides the licence fee recommendation, the Government has decided to implement the other 49 recommendations contained in the report. 

Speaking at the launch of the report, Minister for Media Catherine Martin said that a technical group will be established and will report back to her department in November on how best to implement the agreed recommendations.

When asked about whether or not the TV licence fee could be expanded beyond just households that own a TV, Martin said that it would be examined by the technical group.

“I think that will be one of the issues that the technical group will have to look at is the households that don’t have a TV,” said Martin, adding that legislation to improve the collection of the TV licence would also be examined.