I thank the Chairman for the invitation to appear before the Joint Committee on Transport and Communications today. I am delighted and indeed honoured to have been asked by the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Alex White, and the Government to become chairperson of RTE.
One of the reasons I was attracted to the role was the way in which my experience as a former chair and a member of a range of boards, as a creative producer, as a business director and entrepreneur, as a developer of new work across all media, and, most of all, as an avid RTE consumer now reflects the range of skills necessary to be useful in the broadcast space.
It is no longer sufficient to think of the various aspects of the media industries - radio, television and digital - as separate, because now each piece of the media jigsaw is closely connected to the others in a kind of ecology where changes to one will have an immediate impact on the others. This is the media landscape that the rise of digital technology has brought us and all media must now consider how they are to filter and be filtered through the online space. This also means that, more than ever, RTE must remain central to Irish life and public discourse. Precisely because it holds such a unique position, what it does, how it does it and the framing of its future are important to all of us.
As per the committee's invitation, I am happy to discuss how I plan to approach my role and to set out my initial thoughts on the key challenges facing RTE. I will also outline some thoughts on the broader creative and cultural sector of which RTE is a key part, both as one of its largest employers of creative talent and as an important commissioner and producer of creative output.
The Broadcasting Act 2009 sets out across a number of articles the role of the RTE Board. As one would expect, the board has a key oversight role in approving strategy and budgets. It has a role in respect of the quality of output, performance commitments and ensuring efficiency and effectiveness. The board must safeguard the independence of the organisation from State, political and commercial interests. Perhaps most crucially of all, its role is to represent the interests of the audience. Possibly more than any other organisation, RTE plays a key role in helping to shape the Irish public's perception of their place in the world. As the national broadcaster, RTE must first and foremost aim to connect with, be relevant to and be trusted by the Irish people.
As the committee knows, the new board is not yet complete. The committee's nominees have not yet joined, but will do so in February. Overall, we have the mix and range of exceptional experience and skill sets among the new board members - those already appointed and those who will join shortly - to be highly effective. I am conscious that RTE engages in a broad range of activities in pursuit of its public service objects. The board must and will consider the whole of what RTE does and its overarching responsibilities as it considers changes, strategies and initiatives from management. I am convinced that the role of the board is at all times to provide guidance and support to management where possible and to challenge when appropriate.
Central to all of our deliberations and engagements will be audiences. Representing the interests of viewers and listeners is our first responsibility. In the committee's work, members will have seen that audiences and audience behaviour are changing rapidly. Enabled by new technology and much faster connectivity, people can access programming and content from anywhere in the world on their telephones, tablets, computers and televisions.
Audiences are not uniform, though. People of different ages and in different locations are doing different things. Some are adapting to new technologies quickly whereas others are moving at a much slower pace. Audience habits also vary significantly by genre, with live consumption of radio and television programming such as news, sport and major entertainment shows remaining the dominant trend. The role of the board is to represent the interests of all of these audience types. The board already has an example of how we are doing this with the decision before Christmas to slow down the speed of the transition of RTE Radio 1 from long wave radio transmission to digital services.
Understanding changes in audience behaviour and making use of a variety of data sources on how audiences are changing are essential for any media organisation today. It is perhaps even more important for public service media, which is obliged to meet the needs of all audiences across the range of its services. This does not mean programming being driven solely by statistical numbers and audience ratings. RTE's mission is much broader than that. However, it does mean making decisions informed by an analysis of the patterns in audience and industry trends. The sophisticated use of data in this way allows a body like RTE to illustrate clearly the impact it is having on economic and social capital.
Just as new digital technology is changing audience habits, so too is it challenging the business models and strategies of traditional media companies. My initial observation is that RTE, through the launch of numerous digital services in recent years, has largely managed to keep pace with changing technology. In some regards, such as the recently launched GAAGO product or RTE News Now, RTE has been a real innovator in the market.
I am conscious that, regarding news in particular, changing technology is having the greatest impact of all. While television bulletins continue to retain large audiences, particularly in the evening, people are increasingly getting their news on mobile devices from digital news services. News is one of the key pillars in the creation of a national identity and the board must ensure that a full overview of the events central to Irish life, locally and globally, is freely available to all at key moments in the day. The drive to an online presence has two key components, namely, the provision of anywhere, anytime access for the audience and the creation of high-quality, platform-neutral content that can be adapted to suit the relevant broadcast medium.
Given the explosion in services and providers in the past ten years and the apparent dominance of externally produced content, particularly from the USA, the role of RTE in framing and representing the culture of Ireland becomes even more important. This does not mean developing a representation of Irish culture that is essentialist or monolithic. The cultural framing offered by RTE should reflect the diversity of our national identity and strive to place Ireland in a global context. It does not involve seeing externally created programmes as some form of cultural imperialism, but viewing the best of it as a marker for the creation of RTE programming and content that can compete and represent Ireland on external platforms across the globe.
This is a field in which I have some experience. All good cultural content comes through a process of appropriation of the best. This will involve collaboration with willing partners in other states. If RTE does not do this, no one else will. "Love/Hate" illustrates what is possible, as indeed does Radio 1's "Documentary on One", which is recognised as one the best radio documentary strands anywhere in the world.
Although I worked inside RTE for a period, for the past 20 years or so I have been a producer in the cultural and media area. In that time, I have had the opportunity to observe RTE from the outside. Like many people in the creative sector, I have had my frustrations with RTE, but more than anything I came to understand the importance of the relationship between it and the wider creative industries. While much public debate often revolves around RTE's news and current affairs programming, within the creative sector RTE's role is essential. In the global economy's most difficult years, the creative industries have comprised one of the few growth areas, showing at 10% three times the growth of any other industry and, in the UK context, creating £8.8 million per hour for the economy. In the Irish context, the growth rate has been averaging at approximately 3% each year since 2003.
RTE is the sector's largest direct employer as well as commissioner of independent television productions. It provides crucial opportunities for actors, writers and other creative professionals to supplement their work in theatre and film. It is also the country's largest employer of musicians. When RTE focuses on and supports cultural events, for example, culture night, the national ploughing championships or the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition, it helps to drive audiences, enthusiasm and energy to those events.
The creative sector in Ireland has critical co-dependencies. For example, RTE needs a thriving independent production sector if it is to produce creative, challenging and high-quality programming. The independent sector needs RTE as the key commissioner, funder and broadcaster of Irish-made programming.
One way into this debate is through a report produced for the UK Government by Mr. Will Hutton of the Work Foundation, entitled "Staying Ahead: The economic performance of the UK's creative industries". Even though this was produced in 2007, it is still relevant.
This seminal document outlines the importance of the creative industries to the economy while examining the most successful creative industries and companies. It illustrates the stages by which creative expression becomes economic product, a process at which RTE must be the centre.
As with many other sectors, the recession has been hugely damaging to the whole creative sector in Ireland. Public funding and commercial income in the cultural sector has fallen substantially over the past five years. RTE's funding position, and subsequent capacity to invest in the broader creative sector, has been hugely diminished. While RTE has reduced its costs to adjust for huge falls in commercial income and public funding, these cost reductions have rippled through the entire creative sector. RTE's investment in the independent television sector, for example, has reduced from over €75 million in 2008 to under €40 million in 2013, mirroring similar large reductions in inhouse production. In television drama, a key area of employment in the sector, RTE's total spend has halved over the same period.
RTE has the capacity to be a key engine for growth in the Irish creative sector. To achieve this potential RTE needs much more certainty on its funding, public funding in particular. By way of starting a dialogue there are questions we both need to ask, such as what is happening with the public service media charge? Why has Ireland one of the most inefficient and ineffective licence fee systems of anywhere in western Europe? Why is it acceptable that over €30 million is lost every year to licence fee evasion when the sector as a whole is crying out for investment, and our culture is increasingly being diluted with more and more UK and US programming?
I hope that over the course of my time as chair of RTE some of these questions can be addressed. I thank the Chairman for the time and I am more than happy to answer any questions the committee may have.