The Last Post

Matt Cooper: Time for the government to back up praise for the media’s work with real action

Newspapers are making the transition to digital formats and need to charge for their online content. Because of the licence fee, however, RTÉ can give it for free, which hardly seems fair

RTÉ stars Jenny Dixon, Doireann Garrihy, Eva Orsmond, Ryan Tubridy, Amy Huberman, Anna Geary, Kathryn Thomas and Laura Whitmore: the station can give out online content for free, a luxury denied to its competitors elsewhere in the Irish media. Picture: Andres Poveda

The report of the Future of Media Commission was published last Tuesday, after a needless ten-month delay because the government didn’t want to make a decision on the contentious issue of replacing the RTÉ licence fee.

It was useful in making others aware of many of the issues only too well known to most of us working in the sector. Those issues, which can be summarised as declining consumer consumption of the available products and ...