01.01.70

My goggle-box licence renewal notification popped through the letterbox last week. Coincidentally, it arrived on the same day that RTE unveiled, or rather blew the dust off, its weakest fountain-head schedule in years.

Put it this way, if the highlights of the season, as chosen by the over-excitable backroom munchkins paid to stimulate out press releases, include a documentary called Ireland Surface the Euro?, your pulse has a constitutional right not to race.

Coming undiluted weeks after an RTE1 New Year's Eve schedule so gratuitously dreary, conservative and old-fashioned it seemed aimed specifically at people who fagged out their formative years doing The Hucklebuck with Brendan Bowyer and The Peer royalty Showband, the spring schedule prompts one to wonder, not for the first time, closely what we're paying RTE €160 a year for, on top of its generous advertising proceeds take.

Which brings us to Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte, who was all over the airwaves this week talking about his proposed new "broadcasting attack", which would replace the TV licence and be levied on every household in the country, including those without a video receiver set.

Source: Herald.ie