Publication
Thematic Dialogue #4 - 19 March 2021
From The Future of Media Commission
Published on
Last updated on
From The Future of Media Commission
Published on
Last updated on
Theme:
How should the media be funded and regulated to meet the needs of the public in the years ahead?
Friday 19 March 2021, 14:30 - 17:15 GMT
14:30 Introductions. Prof. Brian MacCraith, Chair, Future of Media Commission
14:35 - 15:15 Panel 1 - How should public service media and public service content be paid for - what’s the best model for ensuring the sustainability, adequacy, consistency and independence of that funding? What regulatory and governance frameworks are required to underpin this? What opportunities exist to develop and implement business model and organisational improvements within the public service media and public service content providers?
Contributions by panellists, followed by questions and answers.
15:15 - 15:55 Panel 2 - How should public funding for PSM and PSC be allocated? What should such funding preserve, where should it require innovation, how can it advance public service principles such as equality, diversity and inclusion and support for the Irish language and Irish culture? How should the performance of funding recipients be assessed?
Contributions by panellists, followed by questions and answers.
15:55 - 16:35 Panel 3 - What can independent media do to evolve toward long-term sustainable models that avoid or reduce dependency on public funding? Does the answer lie in innovation investment, advertising, subscription models or elsewhere?
Contributions by panellists, followed by questions and answers.
16:35 - 17:15 Panel 4 - What regulatory changes at EU or international level might impact on the media in the period ahead? What should the Irish regulatory framework seek to achieve in terms of plurality, competition, innovation, quality, and public service in the media market?
Contributions by panellists, followed by questions and answers.
17:15 Conclusion
14:35 - 15:15
How should public service media and public service content be paid for - what’s the best model for ensuring the sustainability, adequacy, consistency and independence of that funding? What regulatory and governance frameworks are required to underpin this? What opportunities exist to develop and implement business model and organisational improvements within the public service media and public service content providers?
Panel Chair: Nuala O’Connor, Documentary Filmmaker
Panellists:
Nuala O’Connor is a documentary film maker in the area of music and arts documentaries. She has also worked as a television researcher and radio producer in RTE. She was the researcher and writer on 'Bringing It All Back Home', a documentary series for BBC and RTE television. In 1994 she won an Emmy award for writing 'Bringing It All Back Home' for the Disney television channel in the US.
She has written and directed documentaries for TV including ‘Moment To Moment’ on the Gloaming, has co-written a tv history series ‘The Limits Of Liberty’ and the feature documentary film ‘Keepers Of The Flame’ with Diarmaid Ferriter, and directed many other documentaries. She co-curates the conference series ‘Ireland's Edge' which accompanies the Other Voices event. She is a Board member of the Irish Traditional Music Archive and served on the UCC Governing Body from 2011 -2017.
Rory Coveney has been with RTÉ since 2007 in a variety of roles. Since 2011, as Strategic Advisor to the Director-General, Rory has been at the centre of strategic planning for the organisation. Appointed Director of Strategy in 2019, he leads RTÉ's strategy function encompassing corporate strategy, new ventures and innovation, public affairs, and strategic risk management.
John Purcell, Chairman of Independent Broadcasters of Ireland, is also a founding shareholder and director of KCLR 96fm where he is Chief Executive and presents a weekly business programme. Past radio experience includes chairing the application for the original license for NewsTalk in 1999 and being a founding investor in and director of Beat 102 103. He holds a BA in Politics and History from UCD and a MA in Communications from DCU. Outside radio, he is a Director of Kilkenny Civic Trust and Kilkenny Employment for Youth and is a former Chair of Kilkenny Arts Festival and Kilkenny Chamber of Commerce. He is a father of four and lives in Kilkenny city.
An engaging, and active creative industries leader, Susan Kirby has over 20 years of experience in the sector at senior management level. As CEO of Screen Producers Ireland, Susan represents the interests of independent film, TV, animation and digital production companies all over the island of Ireland. Susan was previously CEO of the national St. Patrick’s Festival and Director of Communications & Marketing at The Gaiety Theatre. Through-out the course of her career Susan has built a high-level network focused on the promotion of Ireland and its creative industries nationally and worldwide. Susan is known for her passion for the creative industries and believes strongly that a small island in the Atlantic can lead globally through the expression of its potent cultural life.
15:15 - 15:55
How should public funding for PSM and PSC be allocated? What should such funding preserve, where should it require innovation, how can it advance public service principles such as equality, diversity and inclusion and support for the Irish language and Irish culture? How should the performance of funding recipients be assessed?
Panel Chair: Stephen McNamara, Director of Communications at the Irish Rugby Football Union
Panellists:
Stephen McNamara has been Director of Communications at the Irish Rugby Football Union since 2013, where he has helped transform the organization’s communication across multiple platforms. The IRFU is now one of Ireland’s most respected organisations with digital reach and engagement levels fitting of one of the countries strongest brands. In his previous role with Ryanair, Stephen helped the ambitious airline grow its share of voice in the ultra-competitive aviation market across Europe. With no budget and an insatiable appetite for publicity, Stephen worked with the airline’s charismatic CEO to maximize exposure across media globally. During his time with Ryanair Stephen developed a strong symbiotic relationship with media.
A qualified tax consultant, Stephen’s media career began by penning ‘how to’ responses to financial queries for readers of a Sunday newspaper. An MA in Public Relations from DIT assisted in a successful career change into the world of media and communications.
Trevor Birney is an award-winning producer, director, journalist and founder of Fine Point Films. Most recently Trevor produced The Go-Go’s, directed by Alison Ellwood which premiered at Sundance in January 2020. His production work in 2019 included Gaza, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival, Killing Patient Zero and BOJAYÁ: Caught in the Crossfire, which both premiered at HotDocs and Behind the Blood, which premiered at IDFA. His production slate also includes Emmy-nominated No Stone Unturned, directed by Academy Award-winning Alex Gibney, Emmy-nominated Elián, directed by Ross McDonnell and Tim Golden for CNN Films, Bobby Sands: 66 Days directed by Brendan J. Byrne, Netflix Originals Mercury 13, directed by Heather Walsh and David Singleton, and Wave Goodbye To Dinosaurs, directed by Eimhear O’Neill in collaboration with Fork Films for PBS series Women, War and Peace. He is also the founder of the television production company Below the Radar and the multi-award-winning investigative journalism website The Detail.
Vincent Crowley has had extensive executive and non-executive experience primarily in media. A chartered accountant, he worked in KPMG and Arthur Andersen before joining Independent News & Media PLC (“INM”) in 1990. He held a variety of roles in INM, including CFO and CEO of APN News & Media (an associated Australian PLC), chief executive of the Irish division of INM and COO and CEO of INM. He retired from INM in May 2014 and as a non-executive director of APN in May 2015. He is currently chairman of Newsbrands Ireland, non-executive director of C&C Group PLC and Grafton Group PLC, Chairman of Altas Investments PLC and a non-executive director of Inner City Enterprise and the Irish Australian Chamber of Commerce.
Áine Ní Chaoindealbháin is Director of Operations at Virgin Media Television, Ireland’s number one commercial broadcaster offering three free-to-air channels: Virgin Media One, Virgin Media Two, and Virgin Media Three, and the Virgin Media Player. Áine is responsible for Virgin Media Television’s technical and operational activities. During her twenty five year career she has held senior roles across a range of broadcasters. Prior to joining Virgin Media in 2017 she has held senior roles in UTV Ireland, Setanta Sports and Sky Ireland, with previous experience in the independent sector and RTÉ. Áine is passionate about content creation and innovation in the broadcasting sector.
15:55 - 16:35
What can independent media do to evolve toward long-term sustainable models that avoid or reduce dependency on public funding? Does the answer lie in innovation investment, advertising, subscription models or elsewhere?
Panel Chair: Sinéad Burke, Director and Founder of Tilting the Lens
Panellists:
Sinéad Burke is the Director and Founder of Tilting the Lens, a consultancy company working to accelerate systemic and cultural change across design and innovation in every business sector. Leveraging her expertise as an educator and disability rights advocate, Sinéad supports clients to activate the breadth of business and creative opportunities to be gained by a focus on accessibility and inclusion. Her work facilitates an organisation’s approach to designing an inclusive future and does not just ask the question ‘Who is not in the room?’, but constructs pathways to ensure that equity is embedded in the growth trajectory of both the organisation, and the wider world.
Linda O'Reilly is the Editor of The Anglo-Celt newspaper in County Cavan – part of the Celtic Media Group. A graduate of journalism in DCU, Linda has worked in media for more than 20 years in both newspapers and radio, national and local. She joined The Anglo-Celt in 2008 as news editor. Just a year later she made history by becoming the youngest female editor in Irish local newspapers at the age of 29.
She has led her team through numerous changes, including the transformation of the Celt from a broadsheet to a modern, new compact edition newspaper.
Linda has also driven the delivery of multi-platform digital news across web and social media channels, while reinforcing the Celt’s core journalism values.
Bob Hughes is Executive Director of Local Ireland, the association which represents 42 paid-for weekly newspapers around the country.
He has worked in weekly and daily journalism in the UK, was a sub-editor with the Press Association in Fleet Street, a producer with Channel 4 News at ITN, a programme editor with Reuters and Sky, an editor at Radio Ireland/Today FM, Deputy Director of News at TV3 Ireland for 16 years and a consultant in strategic management and media, working in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He was a Special Adviser across two departments in the last Government.
Susan Daly is Managing Editor of Journal Media, and a former Fellow of the Sulzberger Executive Leadership Program at Columbia University, New York. Her career in journalism and news spans two decades, moving from national newspapers to the digital world in 2010 when she took over as Editor of TheJournal.ie. In a decade, she has grown the news site from start-up to market leader with over 550,000 daily users today and currently leads editorial and distribution projects across Journal Media publications. She founded TheJournal FactCheck in 2016, currently Ireland's only IFCN-verified factchecking outlet, and launched community-sourced investigative platform Noteworthy.ie in 2018.
Blindboy is also an academic, having completed a masters degree in 2015 in creative practice and the social environment. He draws upon this to democratise topics such as art, psychology, politics, science and music, offering a unique and humorous insights into issues which are perceived to be complex.
Mental health is a frequent topic on the Blindboy podcast. Blindboy is a longtime mental health activist and has always used his platform to speak about his own struggles with anxiety and depression. He uses the podcast to investigate theories of psychotherapy such as CBT, and Transactional analysis, and how to apply them in a simple way to our own lives.
From Toronto, to London, to Sydney to Galway, Blindboy's live podcasts are consistently sold out affairs where he captivates his audiences in an quietened intimate atmosphere. Drawing from his years of live performance experience, Blindboy can make a crowd of 1200 feel as though they are in a small room with only a handful of others.
His book “Boulevard wren and other stories” was a bestseller. He released his TV series “Blindboy undestroys the world” on BBC. As well as the continued and thundering success of the blindly podcast with online and as a live show.
16:35 - 17:15
What regulatory changes at EU or international level might impact on the media in the period ahead? What should the Irish regulatory framework seek to achieve in terms of plurality, competition, innovation, quality, and public service in the media market?
Panel Chair: Mark Little, CEO and co-founder of Kinzen
Panellists:
Mark Little is the CEO and co-founder of Kinzen, an Irish start-up which protects online communities from the threat of disinformation. Mark is a former foreign correspondent and TV presenter for RTE. He founded the world’s first social media news agency, Storyful, which pioneered digital verification techniques and developed newswires for YouTube and Facebook. He was also a VP for Media Partnerships at Twitter, and MD of the company’s international HQ.
Una Fitzpatrick is the Director of Technology Ireland, the Ibec group that represents the technology sector. Technology Ireland is the largest and most influential tech sector representative group in Ireland. Una is a Dublin City University STEM graduate with a Master’s in Management from Smurfit Business School. She has spent the last 16 years working in the knowledge economy, specifically the last seven years being spent with Technology Ireland. Una is an executive board member of DIGITALEUROPE the leading trade association representing digitally transforming industries in Europe.
Marco Giorello has been the Head of Unit for Copyright in the European Commission (DG CONNECT) since 2017. He has been working in Copyright since 2011. Italian and lawyer by training, he has worked for the European Commission for more than 20 years, covering numerous areas of the European Internal Market policy. He has been directly involved in the planning and negotiations of the Copyright reform, including the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. Prior to joining the European Commission, he worked for an Italian law firm and lectured on EU Law. He holds an LLM in European Law awarded by the College of Europe in Bruges (1998).
Dr Rasmus Nielsen is Director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and Professor of Political Communication at the University of Oxford. He was previously Director of Research at the Reuters Institute and Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Press/Politics. His work focuses on changes in the news media, on political communication, and the role of digital technologies in both. He has done extensive research on journalism, American politics, and various forms of activism, and a significant amount of comparative work in Western Europe and beyond.