RTÉ Audience Council
Final Report 2008
This Report is an update to the Final Report submitted to the Authority in November 2007 and was agreed by the Audience Council at its final meeting on Thursday, 13th November 2008.
The first Audience Council was appointed with effect from January 2004 to December 2007. However, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources consented to extend the term of office of the current members of the Audience Council for a further year, or such shorter period, as was necessitated by the enactment of the forthcoming Broadcasting Bill.
The Council carried out a review of its first four years of operation at the end of 2007 and prepared a comprehensive Report and Recommendations for the Future which were considered by the Authority at its meeting in November 2007 and it agreed to adopt the recommendations and implement them insofar as it was practicable.
There had been some issues which had been the cause of concern over those four years (e.g. vice-chairman, quorum, non-attendance) and at its meeting on 24th January 2008 the Council adopted new Standing Orders which had been revised to take account of these concerns. The amendments included (i) the establishment of the position of Vice-Chairperson; (ii) the quorum to be 10 or 50% of valid membership +1 whichever is the lesser and (iii) the provision that Council Members who miss 3 meetings of the Council in any one year or three consecutive meetings spread over two years shall automatically cease to be Members of the Council unless just cause be shown. This latter provision resulted in the membership of the Council reducing by 5 from 22 to 17 during 2008.
Alison McCullagh and Des Sheridan were elected to serve as Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson respectively for 2008.
During 2008 the Audience Council has had presentations on the role of the Programme Acceptance Viewer; RTÉ's coverage of the Lisbon Referendum and the procedures in place to ensure balance; a detailed briefing on the Broadcasting Bill which had been published in Spring 2008 with particular emphasis on the section dealing with the appointment of an Audience Council and RTÉ's Interculturalism Policy and a presentation on sub-titling and access services in general.
Other specific issues which arose during the year included the decision to cease transmission on Medium Wave; the decision to enter Dustin as Ireland's representative at Eurovision; promotion of the Irish language and Arts programming.
It had been agreed at a meeting between the Chairpersons of the RTÉ and BBCNI Audience Councils in Autumn 2007 that it would be beneficial if members of each Council could attend a meeting of the other's in an observer capacity. To this end, representatives from BBCNI Audience Council attended the March meeting of the RTÉ Audience Council and representatives of the RTÉ Audience Council attended a meeting of the BBCNI Council in June. There was a joint meeting of both Councils hosted by RTÉ in September 2008. One of the major issues of mutual interest to come out at this meeting was the switchover from Analogue to DTT. Another issue of common interest is engagement with the audience. There was also a suggestion that joint research projects on issues of mutual interest might be looked at e.g. the digital switchover.
There was also a suggestion that the three Audience Councils on the island of Ireland (i.e. RTÉ, BBCNI and the to be established Council for TG4 under the new legislation) might consider meeting bi-annually to share ideas.
The importance of continuity of membership on any future Council was emphasised.
13th November 2008