Minister Noel Dempsey Publishes Review of TV Licence Impact on all Broadcasters

Dublin, 8th December 2004

The Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Noel Dempsey T.D. has today published the Review of the impact on all broadcasters of the television licence fee paid to RTÉ, with particular emphasis on the advertising market.

The Government decision of December 2003 to increase the cost of a television licence by €2 included a condition that the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources arrange for an external review on the impact on all broadcasters of the licence fee paid by the public to RTÉ with particular emphasis on the advertising market.

The review was carried out independently by a team of consultants headed by a London based firm Euro pe Economics and included Irish firms Curtin Dorgan Associates and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The Competition Authority had separately dealt with a complaint lodged by TV3 in relation to the impact of the licence fee on the advertising market and the consultants incorporated the outcome of that investigation in their own analysis.

The work required for the report was strongly evidence based and also involved interviews with representatives from the key industry players. The work was carried out in October and November of this year.

The review focussed in the main on the television sector. It examined the potential impact in relation to both the acquisition of programming rights and on advertising rates. The report of the review found that there was no evidence that RTÉ was using the licence fee proceeds to act in an anti-competitive manner in relation to the purchase of programming rights or in relation to the selling of advertising.

Minister Noel Dempsey T.D., brought the report to the attention of the Government on 7th December. In view of the conclusions of the Report it is not intended to take any further action.

Terms of Reference and Report

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