RTÉ - TV licence

Páid said:
The app itself is fine but some people have issues with the quality of the stream and the number of ads.
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It's far from fine. It's dreadful. Slow, buggy, slow, frequent crashes, slow, unintuitive interface. And did I mention it's slow?
That's my experience of the Android version. The version for my 2017 vintage LG Smart TV just doesn't work anymore and is unsupported.
 
Páid said:
It has nothing to do with the RTE app. Your TV is a device capable of receiving a TV signal so you must pay a licence.
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Hello,

Wasnt there mention of updating the law, so as to compel those watching on a monitor, mobile phone etc. to have to pay the licence fee, and not just those with a tuner in their TV, or Saoirview box?

As for the RTE Player, I think the quality of picture is very poor. In fact, I think that it's a very poor offering in general, it's slow, offers limited functionality etc.

Perhaps RTE should stop paying their Top 10 earners, €3m per year, and invest it in upgrading the RTE Player, instead? :)

RTE needs a radical overhaul, IMHO.

I personally don't thnk that it's fit for purpose, and certainty don't see a need for some of its radio stations, or the repeat broadcast of UK and US TV shows etc. That's not what I want from my public service broadcaster, in this era.
 
I agree with you Mr Earl,
The quality of programmes has dis-improved very much so in recent years and yes if they stopped paying silly money to the chosen few, who do not deserve such money, they might be able to buy some decent programmes..
 
Baby boomer said:
It's far from fine. It's dreadful. Slow, buggy, slow, frequent crashes, slow, unintuitive interface. And did I mention it's slow?
That's my experience of the Android version. The version for my 2017 vintage LG Smart TV just doesn't work anymore and is unsupported.
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It's actually built on a very mature streaming platform. The only thing I find annoying about it are the multiple ads. I have it running on an Android phone, Fire tablet and a modern LG TV (two years old). I have good quality broadband and don't have an issue with streaming. The app itself is designed to run on many platforms (which means most people have access to it) and it's simple and straightforward to use.

May parents have a very old Samsung TV (one of the first smart tvs) and I managed to get the app working on it. It's more a reflection on LG than RTE.

MrEarl said:
Wasnt there mention of updating the law, so as to compel those watching on a monitor, mobile phone etc. to have to pay the licence fee, and not just those with a tuner in their TV, or Saoirview box?
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There may have been but the OP has a TV capable of receiving a TV signal and is also using a Sky box to do so.

@Baby boomer @MrEarl @joer Have any of you complained to RTE about it?
 
joer said:
I agree with you Mr Earl,
The quality of programmes has dis-improved very much so in recent years and yes if they stopped paying silly money to the chosen few, who do not deserve such money, they might be able to buy some decent programmes..
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Quality? When RTE's idea of public service broadcasting amounts to Eastenders, Dancing with Stars or whatever it is very difficult to defend them. The one thing they were good at, sport, and they more or less gave it up. Personally, I only watch the News and Nationwide on RTE
 
Sadim said:
hen RTE's idea of public service broadcasting amounts to Eastenders, Dancing with Stars or whatever it is very difficult to defend them.
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I hate those programs, but with the ratings numbers they get. it's hard to argue that RTE aren't giving the people what they want. In the 5 day Christmas period, there were 95,000 streams of Eastenders on the app alone! o_O
 
Leo said:
I hate those programs, but with the ratings numbers they get. it's hard to argue that RTE aren't giving the people what they want. In the 5 day Christmas period, there were 95,000 streams of Eastenders on the app alone! o_O
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I know your pain, I am that soldier! It just galls me that a so-called public service broadcaster puts out such tosh. Yes, I get the commercial appeal for running the same tosh but I find it very hard to watch anything on RTE apart from the News, Nationwide and the odd PrimeTime Investigates which are well produced and presented.
 
MrEarl said:
Wasnt there mention of updating the law, so as to compel those watching on a monitor, mobile phone etc. to have to pay the licence fee, and not just those with a tuner in their TV, or Saoirview box?
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The introduction date for a household charge has been pushed out a few times since 2015, last I heard it's coming in 2024 in the form of a device independent broadcasting charge.
 
Páid said:
It's actually built on a very mature streaming platform. The only thing I find annoying about it are the multiple ads. I have it running on an Android phone, Fire tablet and a modern LG TV (two years old). I have good quality broadband and don't have an issue with streaming. The app itself is designed to run on many platforms (which means most people have access to it) and it's simple and straightforward to use.

May parents have a very old Samsung TV (one of the first smart tvs) and I managed to get the app working on it. It's more a reflection on LG than RTE.


There may have been but the OP has a TV capable of receiving a TV signal and is also using a Sky box to do so.
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Correct, but if the legislation was never changed, then I think those with monitors (without TV tuner /receivers), watching RTE via an app for example, seem to have been able to avoid paying the TV licence fee.

Páid said:
@Baby boomer @MrEarl @joer Have any of you complained to RTE about it?
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Yes, I have.

I was fobbed off.... So I have since raised my concerns about RTE, with my local politicans, and will press them to seek change, through legislation etc. I would encourage everyone else to do the same, as its our broadcaster!
 
I don't have a television and the licence inspector has called a couple of times. He had also inspected one of my neighbours who has a satellite dish, decoder and large monitor but does require a licence.
The Irish legislation is outdated unlike the UK where if you're viewing BBC content on any device you a licence is required
 
A broadcasting charge was extremely politically sensitive considering its universal impact.
In 2013 Minister for Communications Pat Rabbite's ''We don't have cavemen here' comment resulted in it being dropped.
However, it'd probably be easier to introduce now considering how we've conditioned in to being mindlessly compliant with state laws for the last year.
 
Páid said:
That's not true. There are hundreds of programmes from all types of genre available here and a lot of them are home produced - https://www.rte.ie/player/all-programmes/a-z
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Right, let's see what's in some of those genres then. Sport, for example. Surely that's an open goal. Must be thousands of matches of all sorts available, not to mention sports documentaries and news roundups from Gaa, rugby, soccer and many others. The hardest bit, you'd think, would be wading through the huge selection to find the one you want. But never fear, RTE has solved that problem for you! The sport genre has, count 'em, FIVE programmes available to watch. Yes, five whole programmes. One Laochra Gael, a cycling program, a showjumping event, a documentary about a young lad who meets Davy Fitzgerald and something called Zozimus. Zozimus? No, I don't know either and I didn't really feel like investing 90 seconds hoping it might load.

Ok, let's try science and nature. Ah, things are improving. SEVEN programs to choose from. Oh wait, one is the farming weather forecast. Ah well, six isn't bad I suppose. Except all six are John Creedon pottering around Ireland and being, well, John Creedon. John bloody Creedon. Is this seriously RTE's best science offering? A scientist he ain't.

Need I go on? This drivel is an insult to viewers and licence payers.
 
ATC110 said:
However, it'd probably be easier to introduce now considering how we've conditioned in to being mindlessly compliant with state laws for the last year.
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Surely all the evidence from this year would suggest the opposite!
 
I've had a lot of issues with RTE player, particularly videos stopping to load over and over again. This has improved a lot since I discovered the settings cog in the corner of the screen, where I can adjust the quality of the program being streamed from HD to non-HD to different qualities. By reducing the so called quality by two or 3 steps, the actual quality becomes significantly better.

It is annoying that I have to do this every time but it really makes the site usable for me which is a big improvement. I don't know if you can do this for live streams or for all device types but it might be worth seeing if this works for you if you are having trouble.

I would also suggest that we are not comparing like with like when looking at our national broadcasters' internet offerings to that of the UK. This is because:

1. In the UK they can charge a household the TV licence for merely streaming their broadcasts, no matter what type of device is used. Whereas here you only get charged when you have a TV set in the household.

This, I would think, reduces the incentive to invest in the internet offering in Ireland as it doesn't necessarily serve the TV licence paying residents as much as non-TV licence paying residents. - I know the original poster is an exception to this theory so I would be interested to know how many TV licence holders only stream online vs how many that stream online do not pay a TV licence. -

It also reduces the amount of people required to pay the TV licence in Ireland in comparison with the setup in the UK.

2. We are comparing a service in a place with 66 or 67 million people to that in a place with approximately 5 million people. That is a vastly different amount of tv licence income to be invested.
 
Miseméféin said:
1. In the UK they can charge a household the TV licence for merely streaming their broadcasts, no matter what type of device is used. Whereas here you only get charged when you have a TV set in the household.
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Plus - TV licence UK: £157.50, Ireland: €160. Number of UK households ~28 million, Ireland: 1.7 million
 
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