Before progress was reported, I was pointing out that the Commission estimated an annual cost of £350,000 a year. They made no subdivision of that £350,000 as between live programmes and filmed programmes.
Committee on Finance. - Broadcasting Authority Bill, 1959 [Seanad]—Money Resolution (Resumed).
But they did. They said 25 per cent. live.
I am talking of the cost. It is understood that the cost would be £600 an hour for live programmes and about £100 an hour for films or telerecorded programmes. The cost of the service will depend on the amount of Irish-produced programmes the Authority will use. In this connection, it is well to note that the B.B.C. and other large organisation who engage top stars pay fabulous fees to the people who come along to their service.
I feel we can provide a television service with less expensive features than the British Television service without sacrificing good quality or reducing the appeal of our programmes to the Irish public. It is true that in the past we have heard a good deal of criticism of our sound broadcasting service. I have great respect for the opinion expressed by the Director of that service who recently tendered his resignation, Mr. Maurice Gorham. My attention has been drawn to that fact by one of the speakers in this debate. His expressed doubts on the financial success of the television service have also been brought to my notice. In presenting this case to the House, I have taken cognisance of Mr. Gorham's opinion.
When one is tendered an opinion, one must go further than that when one is the Minister charged with the responsibility of introducing this service, a service in which we have not any practical experience. I realise my responsibility in initiating this service. I keep in mind my responsibility in regard to the possibility of this service becoming a charge on the Exchequer. I am convinced that that will not be so. I am convinced this service can be maintained and operated without becoming an ultimate charge on the Exchequer. I am convinced the service can be made pay for itself.
Reference was made to confidential documents supplied by contracting firms or groups when it was originally understood that the television service here would be operated by a private group and not by the method envisaged in this Bill. These documents were submitted on a confidential basis. The originators of the documents pointed out that their tenders were confidential and should not be made known to the public. I must respect that contractual obligation. Nevertheless, several of them were satisfied—people with practical experience in this field—that they could operate a television service in Ireland without a licence fee.
If people in private enterprise could operate an Irish television service without a licence fee, a public authority, set up by the authority of this Oireachtas, must be capable of operating a television service here when they will be in receipt of the licence fee, which is no small amount.
Furthermore, I know that the public authority will not be in the same position as a private group to make a television service more remunerative to themselves or to the State. Nevertheless, even though they have certain national obligations imposed on them in this measure, with the income from the licence fee and the income which we hope they will get from their commercial advertising, the Authority will be enabled to make the service pay its way and redeem the capital invested in it.
I do not know if there were any other points raised in this debate to which it is necessary for me to reply at the moment. I think I have covered the questions I was asked. In so far as the question in regard to superannuation addresed to me by Deputy Dillon is concerned, the amendment to Section 15, I do not think that matter comes up for any amendment on this money Resolution. I have high hopes that we shall be able to get an agreed scheme. As I indicated to the Deputy, in that event, I shall be putting down an amendment to Section 15 myself.
In the meantime, the Minister might consider accepting my amendment.
We shall deal with the amendment when we come to Section 15.
Are we not in Committee?
I understood that the Minister was called upon to conclude.
We had a very short discussion and while the Leas-Comhairle may have said that, I did not hear him.
This is the Money Resolution.
We are in Committee on the Money Resolution.
The note I have is that the Minister was called on to conclude.
I want to get some elucidation from the Minister. I do not know whether he feels he can answer this or not. Can he tell us how many proposals came to him from people who were satisfied to operate an Irish television service without licence fee and without getting money anywhere else?
There were at least three.
I thought there were two.
I stand subject to correction.
There was at least one service that was going to get money somewhere else. There was another proposal which was, in my view, not a proposal for any purpose except looking ahead to shut a back door on a raid on British commercial television rates, if I may put it that way; otherwise, if they had not got control, the British commercial rate receipts might be tempted away. Those are the only two I know of. There may be a third. That is the type of information that could have been given without any disclosure of confidence. The Minister must keep anything that was put to him confidentially in confidence. I know something about some of those.
I am completely bemused by his figures. I understand that the figures he gave us now are the same as those in paragraph 43 of the main Report. I think they are based on £600 an hour. As an average cost, the estimates in paragraph 43 of the main report are £600 an hour. Unless I misheard, that is what the Minister said. If they run to £600 an hour, how does the Minister propose that by and large one week with another over the whole year a £600 an hour programme will compete with a £1,800 an hour programme?
It can only be for one of two reasons: that people will look at the Irish programme, no matter what it is, just because it is the Irish programme—and I do not accept that— or that the British are throwing away £1,200 an hour on their programmes. I do not think that is likely, either. They may be slightly more lavish than they need but they are certainly not going to be lavish to that extent. These are the only two reasons. If the Minister was right in saying that this estimate is based on an average— I think it is; I think his calculations from what one heard were correct— then it seems to me that the comparison is quite nonsensical.
There is another point which the Minister has not taken into account in the figures he gave us in relation to the Authority as a whole, that is, that it is undeniable and it is accepted in both the Majority and Minority Reports that the establishment of an Irish commercial television service is going to draw some revenue away from sound broadcasting in Radio Éireann. Will the Authority have to meet that drain? I see the Minister shaking his head but it is accepted in the Report that it is inevitable. Whether it can be filled up in another way is another question.
The Minister said a second ago that when he came to this House he gave some figures in respect of the finances in that regard. I have here his speech on 24th February. There is no detailed break-down at all to show why he maintains that a £600 an hour performance will be able to compete day in day out, week in week out, and month in month out with a £1,800 an hour performance. It may be that is so—I do not know—but there must be some very special reason why it is able to do so. I think the House should be taken into the confidence of the Minister. It should be told what is this great secret which enables one to compete with something which costs three times as much.
If we were to accept the argument now advanced by Deputy Sweetman, we would not attempt anything in this country because we are a small country and because we are not in the same financial position to provide television programmes as the BBC or ITV.
You can do it another way.
This Authority will provide a service that will compare favourably—and, perhaps, more than favourably—with the programmes provided by similar services in other parts of the world. In other small countries, the native service is quite capable of providing a programme for its people which is in keeping with the traditions of the people. I think that the public authority envisaged in this Bill will be in a position, within its resources, to provide an Irish service.
The more expensive features, as I have pointed out, provided in a British programme may not be provided here. We could not afford to provide them. We could not afford to pay the fees the B.B.C. pay for top artists and for studio equipment and such factors which go to make their spectacular shows. Nevertheless, we can provide a live show which will be looked at and listened to by our people.
In regard to the forecast made by Deputy Sweetman that this service will have a detrimental effect on sound broadcasting and on the income which that service is already obtaining from the fees paid to it by commercial firms for broadcasting time, I want to point out to Deputy Sweetman, and to the House, that Radio Éireann up to now have been restricted to Irish firms only in regard to the people they could permit to broadcast on their service. That restriction is being removed now.
I beg the Minister's pardon?
That restriction is being removed now.
It was restricted to Irish advertisers?
Yes.
And that is now gone?
That will be removed when the Bill becomes law and the new Authority will be free to accept fees for advertising from firms outside the country as well as other firms inside the country who up to now were not permitted to broadcast on the service.
Is that because the Hospital Sweepstakes have withdrawn?
No, it has nothing at all to do with the withdrawal of the Hospital Sweeps. It has nothing at all to do with that matter. It is a decision taken long before the Hospital Sweeps terminated their contract with Radio Éireann. There is at the moment a waiting list of such people seeking broadcasting time on our sound broadcasting system and I feel that the sound broadcasting system will improve rather than deteriorate under the new broadcasting Authority.
The Minister stated that this service would be reasonable. I recall, and every Deputy will recall, another service and we know what it is costing the country at the moment. I am referring to the health services.
Have I correctly taken up the Minister as saying that the estimate of £350,000 running cost is based on an average of £600 an hour? The Minority Report suggests something entirely different. The Minority Report suggests that three of the proposals were for very much smaller figures and that is why I suggested that they were merely blocking the back doors, if these figures are correct. I do not want to misquote the Minister I only want to get the position clear.
I know that. What I said was that a live, Irish-produced programme would cost £600 an hour and the tape recorded or filmed programme would cost £100 an hour.
Therefore, it comes to a question of the proportion which one has to the other, but the basis of the Majority Report of the Commission is on a basis of 25 per cent. live material. Therefore, I presume that means on the Minister's figure of £600, or for 25 per cent. of the programme £100 and something else for the remaining 75 per cent. Is that right?
We shall have to wait until the programme is in operation before we know what percentage of the programme will be live.
I shall not argue but I shall give the Minister that, not to limit him, instead of 25 per cent. say 50 per cent——
Say 70 per cent.
Will the Minister accept 50 per cent. as costing at this stage £600 and 50 per cent. at £100 an hour? I think it would work out at every two hours broadcasting costing £350 an hour. Would that not be the mathematical difference? How are we to have programmes which cost only £350 an hour competing with programmes which are received here, costing £1,800 an hour? That is an average for the B.B.C.; it is not a maximum. It is an average B.B.C. figure. Why, in those circumstances, will people look at it for the whole time? Unless they look at it for the whole time, the commercial results will be disastrous. Why would they look at it? The answer is quite simple, that we are taking on, in this way, more than we can chew. What we should do is to make certain that sufficient income will go into the Authority from the beginning, to give the Authority the chance of producing programmes that will compete and then it will get the commercial receipts because it will have the viewers. But in this way the Authority are going into the ring to fight for viewers with their hands tied behind their backs. When we are sending them in that way, the result, in the last analysis, will be that the Minister for Finance of the day will have to make good the difference.
There were other suggestions which the Minister has thought fit not to accept. That is his responsibility, but as surely as we are considering this today, it will not be possible to get commercial advertisers, hard-headed commercial advertisers, to accept the programme of the type we are considering and vie with the other one. You will get them for peak times, say, between 6.30 and 7, or 10 and 10.30, whatever the best times are for the average person—I am not an average person; I look at it perhaps at queer times—but you will not get them at the other periods.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolution reported and agreed to.