POPULAR RTE programming could be "devastated" if a proposal to fund TG4 from the licence fee goes ahead. That's according to Screen Producers Ireland (SPI), the organisation representing independent producers. It points out that independently made programmes on RTE have included The Road to Croker, Cracking Crime, Raw, Class Act, Operation Transformation, Eden and Ryan Confidential.

RTE's own news and current affairs output will be hit by the proposed move. Mary Curtin, secretary of the RTE group of unions, said that RTE employees are angry and worried that the government may be about to pocket money that staff who agreed to salary cuts believed was intended to pay for programming.

Ms Curtin warned last week that if the plan goes ahead, then she will be saying to other public service employees, "Do not take cuts. You will be giving up money for nothing".

RTE staff recently voted by just 633 votes to 484 to accept pay cuts that will save the station €10m. But Colm McCar-thy's 'An Bord Snip' has now proposed taking that same amount from RTE and giving it to TG4 to replace direct government funding at the partly Irish-language station.

TG4 already receives one in every €5 of public money spent on television in the Republic of Ireland. This is despite the fact that it is watched on average by only one in every 16 viewers who watch TG4 or RTE.

When all the channels are taken into account, RTE attracts 15 in every 50 television viewers at any given time, whereas TG4 attracts just one.

McCarthy's proposal highlights severe financial problems facing Irish broadcasters. The most popular TV programmes are Irish-made but these are likely to suffer in the recession. TV3 boss David McRedmond said last week that there needs to be "a very fundamental review of how Irish broadcasting is funded".

A system for funding TG4 long-term has never been worked out by ministers. The station exists on a political grace-and-favour basis, with the government deciding each year how much to grant it. This has serious implications for editorial independence.

TG4 got €35m direct from the government last year, up from €23m in 2005. TG4 also gets from RTE a so-called 'free' hour of television each day. RTE must pay for this out of its own income. The hour each day includes all of the news output on TG4. Given the high cost of television production generally, this hour each day is now costing RTE €11m every year.

An Bord Snip has suggested a change in funding at TG4, but only by diverting to TG4 some of the licence fee that each householder pays annually. This would mean, says McCarthy, "reciprocal savings in the Exchequer subvention to TG4". In other words, the money from RTE would simply replace a part of what the government already gives TG4. McCarthy recommended no cuts at TG4 itself.

An Bord Snip says also that it "does not recommend an increase in the TV licence", which now stands at €160 for each household. Some families regard the annual fee as a burden, although it is not high by EU standards.

Mary Curtin believes that if the Government now takes money from RTE, this will be "no encouragement to the employees of any other publicly owned company to step up to the plate and take pay cuts". RTE faces a deficit this year and has already engaged in a cost-saving exercise that went beyond just pay cuts.

Changes already made at RTE include the closure of its Chinese office, from where reporter Margaret Ward had filed many excellent stories. If Ireland wants to function as an independent state, then it needs to be able to fund some overseas journalism in order to understand major countries such as China.

Ms Curtin said that a number of RTE employees have found it "extremely difficult" to cope with the pay cuts, and this proposal "leaves a very bad taste in our mouths".

At TV3, chief executive David McRedmond is more concerned about the commercial market than about who gets the licence fee. He thinks that trends in Europe suggest that advertising on RTE should be further restricted, even if this means spending more public money on public service programming.

Mr McRedmond said, "I am not attacking RTE. RTE needs to be funded. Having a strong RTE is very important to Irish society. But RTE will benefit from strong competition". He called for "a very fundamental review of how Irish broadcasting is funded".

Sean Stokes of Screen Producers Ireland said that RTE's expenditure on independent production was already likely to be down by 30 per cent this year. He said he feared that the McCarthy proposal will now mean RTE's programme budget "being reduced by a further €10m, which would have a devastating effect".

Stokes claimed that: "It is also illogical to stop making the programmes that people, the licence fee payer, want to watch and therefore the programmes that attract advertising revenue, especially in an environment of a downturn in TV advertising."

RTE has done itself few favours by awarding its top staff and stars very generous bonuses and contracts in recent years. Last week, one RTE union representative who did not wish to be named asked, "Do you think that some competitor is going to take Gerry Ryan and pay him more than we do at present?" With privately-owned stations such as Newstalk and Today FM last week cutting their employees' pay, it is clear that the advertising slump is hurting all broadcasters.

Yet RTE continues to dish out hospitality to advertisers that its competitors cannot afford. During the recent U2 concerts, it had a box at Croke Park where selected RTE staff shared fingerfood and drinks with 98 privileged guests. The cost for fingerfood and drink alone was more than €60 per guest.

The station has strongly denied tabloid reports that the total real cost of the box at Croke Park for the U2 concert ran to tens of thousands of euros, claiming that this was "inaccurate and untrue". But it still refused to give a full break-down of figures, which it claimed were "commercially sensitive".

For its part, TV3 does not have a box at Croke Park. David McRedmond, TV3's chief executive, said last week that, "I went to U2 but I paid for my own tickets".

Professor Colum Kenny teaches television policy at Dublin City University

- COLUM KENNY