I just renewed my television licence.
What a rip-off.
€160. For what?
OK. There’s RTE 1 and it gives us 24 hours of broadcasting and regular news bulletins and current affairs programmes and investigations and great sports coverage and the Late Late Show and Nationwide and stuff like that.
And I suppose RTE 2 does a different kind of job aimed a bit lower.
And there’s TG4 which, apart from helping to keep the language alive produces some brilliant documentaries and music programmes not to mention its sports coverage – rugby in particular.
And fair enough, you might point to RTE Radio 1 and Radio 2 and RTE Gold and Lyric and Radio na Gaeltachta and various other bits and bobs on the internet.
Oh. And the Den. Just because everyone is delighted it’s back doesn’t mean it’s worth 43c.
In fact, is RTE worth 43c a day?
You know, if I didn’t pay the licence for just over a month, I could save the money and buy a packet of fags. Or I could save for 12 days and get a pint of stout – if the pubs were open. Mind you, I’d have to save for a lot longer to get that pint in Temple Bar.
Do you what?
A bad part of me wishes that the licence was abolished and everyone got to keep their 43c a day and then the only tv we got would be coming from the UK or Britain.
There’d be no local news. No local acts getting a breakthrough by appearing on an RTE show, there’d be no club GAA ever and we’d be left listening to BBC or worse still, some version of Fox News to find out what was going on,
It’s amazing that people who routinely fork out €3 or more for a cup of coffee give out about paying 43c a day for a national broadcasting service.
You’re not supposed to like everything on it. Not everything on it is for you!!
And even if you’re one of the people who says “I never watch RTE” (if you do say that, I don’t believe you) what’s your problem with paying 43c a day for the massive number of people who do?
Honest to God.
There are plenty of things to complain about.
But RTE isn’t in the Top Ten.
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