NewsBrands Ireland welcomes RTÉ funding announcement but highlights the absence of a level playing field as news publishers compete with publicly funded national broadcaster for advertising revenue

24 July 2024. NewsBrands Ireland, the representative body for Ireland’s national news publishers, welcomes today’s announcement that the government will provide funding for RTÉ to secure its future in providing quality public service journalism.

However, Ireland’s news publishers compete with RTÉ for audience and advertisers, and it is important to highlight that RTÉ can leverage its privileged position as a publicly funded broadcaster to compete unfairly for online advertising, at the expense of independent news publishers.  

CEO of NewsBrands Ireland, Ann Marie Lenihan, said: “At a time when news publishers are investing heavily in new online business models, the growing online offerings of the public service broadcaster are distorting the digital advertising market. It is crucial to ensure that any public funding of RTÉ is not used to further distort the market.”

“RTÉ’s ability to exploit commercial opportunities has to be seen in the context of its privileged position as a publicly funded broadcaster. If a news publisher launches a website, it has “to make it pay”. It has to generate sufficient revenues from the website – through subscriptions and advertising – to make the site viable. However, its ability to do so is severely prejudiced by the fact that the public service broadcaster does not have to turn a profit on its website. Indeed, it can avail of publicly-funded content and use it for commercial gain.  News publishers on the other hand must invest millions in content generation in order to maximize commercial opportunity without any public funding from the taxpayer.”

Like RTÉ, Irish news publishers produce a wide range of public interest journalism – from covering the Dáil and the courts, to foreign coverage, national sporting events, the arts, and countless examples of investigative journalism which are in the public interest.

Pressure on news publishers.

Advertising revenue plays a crucial role in providing independent sources of finance for news publishers. The current revenue model for Irish news publishers – print sales/online subscriptions and advertising sales – has been under huge pressure for many years.  The costs of producing quality journalism are substantial and remain with news publishers.  It is becoming increasingly difficult to meet these costs, partly because of the lower value of digital advertising compared to print, but also because of the diversion of advertising spend from publishers towards tech platforms.

Support for news publishers.

More should be done to ensure that the huge investment of publishers in developing online services is not undermined by the digital activities of RTÉ.

NewsBrands Ireland considers that the time is right to extend further support to news publishers who contribute to our distinctive way of life and provide responsible journalism during this era of misinformation and disinformation. To do so would be to recognise that the national print and online news media contribute significantly to the democratic, social and cultural needs of society in Ireland.

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For further details, please contact:

Lisa Buckley, Communications and Programmes Director, NewsBrands Ireland

0877779259