A Television Service for Ireland?
By JACK WHITE AFEW days ago I drove round a corner near Westland Row Station and saw three televi- sion aerials on the skyline in front of me. There is nothing new about television aerials; they have been a commonplace along the east coast of Ire- land for five or six years, and in the Dublin suburbs they decorate every other house. What was different about these aerials was that they were on a block of Corporation flits. They were an indication that in Ireland, as in England, TV has ceased to be the recreation only of the well- off middle classes and is becoming popular enter- tainment.
There are somewhere around 30,000 television sets in use in the Republic of Ireland, according to the best estimates. The viewers are grouped thickly around Dublin and along the coast to the north, and straggle on round the Border into Donegal, their , distribution determined by the effective radius of the Belfast and Derry trans- mitters. A few viewers in the south-east receive the signal from Wales. At least two manufacturers are turning out television sets. They are good sets : they have to be, for they must give 'ultimate fringe' reception—the average viewer in the Republic is 100 miles from the transmitter he depends on. Considering everything, the viewers get a pretty good service. And they pay only 17s. 6d. licence fee—the ordinary radio licence— because there is no Irish television service.* Up to six months ago, government policy on television was, broadly, that it would be very nice but we couldn't afford it. Last November there was a change, though a cautious one. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs announced that the Govern- ment accepted in principle the idea of an Irish tele- vision service, and that it was ready to consider proposals for a commercial service provided it involved no charge on the Exchequer. At least three plans, it is understood, were presented; and last month the Minister set up a Commission under Mr. Justice Murnaghan to examine the whole question.
The Commission's terms of reference may be taken as marking the bounds of government policy to date. It is to report on the establishment of a television service that will involve no charge on the Exchequer; on arrangements to ensure that the system will be owned by the State, either at the outset or after an interval; on the proposals submitted by various interests; and on the powers, duties and constitution of a public television authority which must exercise 'effective control' of programmes. It is also to consider the special • arrangements that should be made to provide for the use of the Irish language, and for the adequate reflection of the national outlook and culture, and to govern the presentation of information and news in the service.
Mr. Kevin Boland, acting for the Minister at the Commission's opening session, filled in the score a bit further : We have a fair idea of what we would like to * In practice, every household that has television also has a radio; and, since one 17s. 6d. licence will cover all the sets in a household, no fee is paid on the TV set. have and what we would desire to avoid. The question is what we can get. What we would like is a television service Irish in origin and charac- ter, that will enrich the lives of our people . . . especially those who are far from the big centres, and keep them vividly in touch with whatever is happening in our own country and in the world at large. What we would like to avoid is a tele- vision service which would be Irish in name only.
This, then, is the tune the Government wants to hear. What it wants to know is how it can get the manufacturers of soapflakes and cigarettes to pay the piper. It has been accepted, at any rate, that there is a demand for an Irish television ser- vice. Where exactly is that demand coming from?
Least of all, so far as one can judge, from the established viewers. They bought their sets to get the BBC programmes via Divis; they have hopes of ITV from Belfast within the next year; their entertainment is hitched to the vastly greater re- sources of Britain, and they like it that way. So far as the demand is a real one, it seems to come first from the people who expect to make money Out of TV—those who want to supply the service, the sets, the advertising. Secondly, it comes from those enthusiasts who are alarmed, on cultural or religious grounds, about the penetration of British programmes, and want to hitch television to the stubborn wheel of the Gaelic revival. Thirdly, it comes from those who believe that a native service, which could be received all over the country, would make rural life more tolerable and reduce the temptation to escape to the bright lights of Birmingham.
No doubt the businessmen might be disposed to make concessions to the idealists at the outset, in the confidence that, once the service was under way, economics would have to outweigh ideals. But issues of policy are raised by the very first question : which system is to be adopted? Con- tinental and American systems give a finer defini- tion than Britain's 405-line systems, and are con- sidered technically superior. Moreover, a different system might please the Gaelic enthusiasts, for it would `keep out' British programmes. But the existing 30,000 viewers cannot be written off; nor would an exclusively Irish service be likely to sell enough sets to satisfy the advertisers. So the British system it must be.
, Yet, if most viewers have the choice of ITV, BBC and Irish programmes, what proportion of them will choose the Irish? Will the audience be large enough to bring in the ads? According to one advertising man, only 10 per cent. of Irish radio listeners habitually tune in to Radio Eireann. If a native TV service could not com- mand a much higher proportion of the audience than this, the soap makers would hardly be likely to foot the bill. The money is really the root of the whole thing. There are about 477,000 licensed radios in the Republic. Nobody, even the most optimistic, expects that there will ever be more than 200,000 television sets, and 100,000 is a more realistic figure on which to base immediate calculations. On this basis the cinema trade—which, under- standably, is fighting TV tooth and nail—has calculated that the service could not possibly be a commercial proposition. The national income is lower in Ireland than in Britain, and advertising outlay forms a much smaller . proportion of it (1 per cent., against 2, per cent, in Britain). At the most favourable estimates, the cinema-men say that the Irish station could not provide more than a three-hour programme each day, at a cost of £1,000 an hour. (The BBC's costs average around £1,300.) Eventually, they say, the Government would find itself obliged to contribute from the Exchequer—while at the same time losing £750,000 a year in, entertainment tax, owing to lower attendances at the cinemas.
Against this one must set the conviction of at least three contenders for the concession that they can make money out of it. Pye (Ireland) Ltd., who were first ,in the field, have published their pro- posals in detail. They offer to build and equip a station to serve the Dublin area; to extend the ser- vice within a couple of years to Cork and other centres; to supply a fully operational studio in Dublin, a basic Outside Broadcasting unit, and apparatus for showing film—all without cost to the State. In return they want an exclusive licence to run commercial programmes. Dr. Dillon Digby, a director of Pye, thinks that comparisons with British TV are misleading; Ireland should look to countries with an economy more like her own, and to areas of the US and South America, where scores of small stations are operating on shoe-string budgets. Naturally, his plans depend on cutting programme costs far below the BBC figure. Quiz programmes, discussions, plays from the Abbey and other theatres could be produced in the Dublin studio at reasonable cost, !once every- body concerned got rid of the idea that as soon as you get into television you make your for- tune.' Sporting events suitable for the 'camera are available in great variety within a few miles of Dublin. But basically the service would have to depend on recorded material from other sources—British, American and Continental.
So you come down to it in the end : can you reconcile I Love Lucy with the national outlook and culture? And if you can't, what are the odds that Lucy will win? `It has to come,' people are inclined to say, ending the argument. Well, we are prepared in one way, anyhow : in appointing the Commission the Government has established that the correct Irish word for television is teilifise.
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