Broadcasting (Amendment) Bill

On 08 April 2025, the revised General Scheme of the Broadcasting (Amendment) Bill was approved by Government and subsequently published. It was submitted to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport for pre-legislative scrutiny on May 14 2025. It built on a previous General Scheme published on 8 October 2024.

The General Scheme will enhance accountability, transparency and value-for-money in our public service media providers, RTÉ and TG4, establish a new statutory framework to support the provision of public service content by the wider sector, and protect Irish consumers of media content.

The General Scheme implements 12 of the 50 recommendations of the Report of the Future of Media Commission (FOMC) which was published in July 2022. Government accepted, in principle, 49 of the recommendations, and subsequently published the Implementation Strategy and Action Plan in January 2023. The General Scheme provides a legislative underpinning for Recommendations 6 – 1 to 6 – 7 and 8 – 5 on the conversion of the existing Broadcasting Fund to a platform-neutral Media Fund; and Recommendations 5 – 1, 5 – 3, 8 – 2, and 8 – 3 as they relate to a more effective system to assess the performance and funding of public service media.

The General Scheme was further informed by the report of the Independent Review of the Governance and Culture of RTÉ, which made 90 recommendations, 15 of which were applicable to the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport. On 07 May 2024, Government accepted, in principle, all of the review’s recommendations and on 25 June 2024, an EAC Implementation Plan was published setting out how the Department would give effect to the recommendations addressed to it. The General Scheme implements Recommendations 6.31 and 6.37 on the assignment of the Comptroller and Auditor General as auditor of RTÉ, and Recommendations 4.1, 5.1, 5.15, and 5.19 as they apply to the Board, Board Committees and Directors General of RTÉ and TG4.

The General Scheme also implements Article 5 of the EU European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), which contains measures to safeguard the independence of public service media providers. The remainder of EMFA will be implemented in Irish law through the General Scheme of the Media Regulation Bill, published on 2 July 2025.

The following are the key features of the Broadcasting (Amendment) Bill:

• to assign the Comptroller and Auditor General as auditor of RTÉ;
• to strengthen the authority, role and functions of the Boards of RTÉ and TG4;
• to reform the system of assessing the performance and funding of RTÉ and TG4;
• to give Coimisiún na Meán greater authority to identify targets, assess performance, and hold RTÉ and TG4 to account for their performance;
• to enhance the independence and authority of the Audience Councils of RTÉ and TG4;
• to regulate podcasts and web pages published by RTE and TG4 in the same way as broadcast content;
• to require RTÉ and TG4 to publish an anonymized list of employee benefits and contractor remuneration;
• to require RTÉ to spend at least 25% of its public funding on content commissioned from the independent production sector;
• to provide for greater transparency in RTÉ’s annual report on independent production account, including remuneration;
• to require the approval of the Minister and the Minister for Finance to introduce a content production levy on broadcasting providers and VOD providers (e.g. Netflix, Amazon Prime etc).

The General Scheme provides for a range of measures to reform the legislative basis for the governance of the public service media providers to enhance accountability, transparency and value-for-money while also strengthening their independence from Government. As part of these reforms the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG), who already audits TG4, will be assigned as an auditor of RTÉ. The C&AG will undertake the following activities as regards RTÉ:

• carry out an annual audit of RTÉ’s accounts under section 5 of the Comptroller and Auditor General (Amendment) Act 1993;
• carry out, where the C&AG considers it appropriate, a value-for-money (VFM) examination under section 9 of the Comptroller and Auditor General (Amendment) Act 1993;
• prepare, under section 11 of the Comptroller and Auditor General (Amendment) Act 1993:
  • on foot of its annual audit, an audit report and the annual accounts;
  • on foot of an annual audit or any VFM examination, any special report that so arises.

The RTÉ Board will retain the authority to, in addition to the mandatory annual audit by the C&AG, appoint a regulated private sector auditor.

The functions and duties of the Boards of RTÉ and TG4 will be strengthened in accordance with recommendations of the EAC. This will include a specific function to put in place arrangements for the management and accountability of the Directors General in their capacity as chief executive officers of the public service media providers.

The General Scheme provides for expanded functions, duties, accountability, appointment and dismissal of the Directors General of RTÉ and TG4. In accordance with Article 5 of EMFA, the Government will no longer have a role in consenting to the appointment of a Director General. The approval of the Minister and Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform will still be required to determine the remuneration and terms and conditions of a Director General.

The General Scheme significantly expands the role of Audience Councils of RTÉ and TG4 as independent bodies and provides for their express independence from RTÉ, TG4 and Coimisiún na Meán. The members of the Audience Council will now be appointed by Coimisiún na Meán following a public selection competition, rather than the public service media provider, and members of the Boards or staff or RTÉ or TG4 and staff members and Commissioners in Coimisiún an Meán will no longer be permitted to be members of an Audience Council.

In line with the recommendations of the FOMC, the provisions of EMFA regarding the transparency and independence of funding recommendations for public service media providers, and the need to improve accountability, transparency and value-for-money in RTÉ and TG4, the General Scheme provides for a reformed system for assessing the performance and funding of RTÉ and TG4:

• The review of the adequacy of public funding of RTÉ and TG4 will be prepared by Coimisiún na Meán every 3 years (instead of every 5) and carried out in accordance with a methodology published by Coimisiún na Meán.
• Coimisiún na Meán will set out the performance commitments and outputs and associated indicators and metrics of RTÉ and TG4 for a 3-year period, on the basis of a submission made by RTÉ and TG4 in accordance with the review methodology.
• Coimisiún na Meán will make a recommendation to the Minister on the appropriate public funding level for RTÉ and TG4 for each year of the 3-year period.
• The statements of strategy prepared by RTÉ and TG4 will now be every 3 years (instead of every 5).
• The existing annual review of performance and public funding will be submitted to the Minister (and subsequently laid before the Oireachtas) by Coimisiún na Meán in two parts:
  • the first part, to be submitted by 30 June in each year, will, inter alia, review whether, in the context of 3-yearly review, RTÉ and TG4 met its performance commitments in the previous year and recommend a level of public funding for RTÉ and TG4 for the current and coming financial years;
  • the second part, to be submitted by 31 October in each year, will review compliance of the funding of RTÉ and TG4 with specific State aid-related rules set out in the Broadcasting Act 2009.

To align with the multi-annual public funding commitment agreed by Government in July 2024 the new assessment cycle will take full effect from 2028. Subject to enactment in 2025, elements of the new system will be phased in as follows:

• The first 3-yearly review of the adequacy of public funding for the period 2028 – 2030 will be delivered to the Minister by June 2027 and will contain performance commitments for RTÉ and TG4 for the period.
• The current TG4 strategy runs from 2023 – 2027 and the current RTÉ strategy runs from 2025 – 2029. Following the completion of the 3-year review of public funding in 2027, both RTÉ and TG4 will be required to prepare new 3-year statements of strategy for the years 2028 – 2030 to align with the new assessment cycle.
• From 2026, Coimisiún na Meán will prepare the reformed annual review of performance and public funding in respect of the year 2025 and every year thereafter. The revised General Scheme requires RTÉ and TG4 to take account of Coimisiún na Meán’s findings.

The General Scheme provides for a new framework to support the production, distribution and archiving of public service content to be made available on public service content providers. The General Scheme sets out definitions of public service content and public service content provider:

Definitions

• Public service content is defined as content which informs, educates or entertains and which relates to a wide range of categories such as Irish culture, music, language, history, heritage, society and sport and other matters inherent to Ireland and the people of the island of Ireland. To qualify as public service content, the content must be:
  • a sound or audiovisual programme, which may be broadcast or made available in a video-on-demand service (i.e. the RTÉ Player) or other type of catalogue (such as a podcast series made available on a newspapers website or other service);
  • anything published in a newspaper or magazine (whether online or offline); or
  • content which is made available on an online service (such as a video-sharing platform service) by a public service content provider (i.e. short videos shared by a newspaper).
• A public service content provider may include publishers of newspaper and magazine (whether online or offline), providers of broadcasting services, providers of video-on-demand services and providers of ‘podcasts’. To qualify under this definition, providers must be subject to regulatory requirements and oversight by a regulatory authority (e.g. Coimisiún na Meán in the Irish context) or adhere to codes or standards set by a widely recognised self-regulatory body (such as the Press Council).
• The General Scheme also sets out a definition of ‘under-served audiences’ to provide for the needs of communities who may be under-served in respect of public service content relevant to their community.

Framework

The new framework set out in the General Scheme is composed of three key elements:

• A review of the provision of public service content by public service content providers in the State to be carried out by Coimisiún na Meán every three years, which will be submitted to the Minister and published.
• This review will provide the basis for Coimisiún na Meán to assess gaps in public service content provision and to recommend measures to address those gaps, in particular the making of funding schemes.
• The General Scheme provides that Coimisiún na Meán may appoint a Public Service Content Review Committee, composed of experts and key stakeholders, to advise it in conducting the review.
• The existing statutory Broadcasting Fund will be converted to a Media Fund, administered by Coimisiún na Meán. The Fund will continue to be funded on an annual basis by 7% of net television licence fee receipts and an Exchequer allocation. In the medium and longer-term, it is expected that the review of the provision of public service content will provide guidance as to the requisite level of Exchequer funding required to fund existing and further schemes.
• Funded public service content will be required to be made available to the public free of charge, to be accessible, insofar as it is practicable, to the people of the island of Ireland and to under-served audiences.
• The new framework allows Coimisiún na Meán the flexibility to tailor schemes as appropriate to take account of the needs of audiences and of public service content providers.
• The General Scheme will provide the single over-arching legislative basis for the making of all media funding schemes. In particular, the existing Sound and Vision Scheme will continue to operate until an expanded scheme (to include provision for funding of news and current affairs content) has been cleared for State aid purposes.

General Scheme of the Broadcasting Amendment Bill

General Scheme of the Broadcasting Amendment Bill