The upcoming Levy on Streaming Services from the Irish Government

[Mr Daniel F. O'Leary]

I wasn't sure whether to post this on here or the Television forum, but here we are anyway.

For a while now, there has been talk by the Irish Government about putting a levy on streaming services (Netflix, Amazon Prime etc)
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/l ... 11377.html

They say they want to put it in so more Irish content could get made, but if this came to pass you probably wouldn't necessarily see more Films and Series being set in Ireland due to the fact that a fair amount of American Entertainment is partially shot and/or produced here, using Irish companies/studios. These companies and studios often get funding from the government, which means that even if you don't watch or like Blockbuster Movies or TV Shows the industry still gets your money, even if the budget is already in the hundreds of millions.

Another reason is that the funding for RTÉ is starting to dry up. No Surprises here, as RTÉ doesn't generally make much good TV that's worth paying for and has an ageing viewership, along with an awful Online player that even TG4 surpasses in quality.

I'm not a fan of the idea and I doubt anyone here is either.

[kadman]

It might make more sense to stop paying superstar wages to ordinary people instead of taxing the ordinary individual.
I would not be happy about this extra taxing.

[isha]

I think there definitely comes a point where taxation becomes an immoral imposition, and if we are not there already we are certainly close. As it is, a great deal of the money collected from us citizens is already wasted far too often. Taxation is supposed to be part of a societal contact, and I get fed up of hearing of repeated frittering of the people's money with too little accountability. I would object far less if the funds were properly spent for benefit.
They are just coming up with new ways to tax people. Send the public servants back to their drawing boards.

[PogMoThoin]

It might make more sense to stop paying superstar wages to ordinary people instead of taxing the ordinary individual.
I would not be happy about this extra taxing.

How about we cap all the rte wages at 150k, if they can get more elsewhere let them go!

[kadman]

Why are these people getting silly money, and these numbers are a couple of years old.

https://www.rte.ie/news/2021/0120/11909 ... r-earners/

In 2019 - the most recent year revealed - Ryan Tubridy again earned €495,000, with Ray D'Arcy second on €450,000 and Joe Duffy in third place with €392,494.

Fourth was Marian Finucane who earned €358,013 followed by Sean O'Rourke on €327,988.

Miriam O'Callaghan again took sixth place with earnings of €320,000, followed by Claire Byrne with €250,000, Brendan O'Connor on €220,000, Bryan Dobson again on €209,282, and Mary Wilson entered the top ten earning €196,961.

[kadman]

I could sit at a microphone and talk bollix like Joe Duffy for a lot less money.

[Del.Monte]

I could sit at a microphone and talk bollix like Joe Duffy for a lot less money.

But would you be able to read online threads (Boards, GUBU etc) about the show, search Wikipedia and Google while pretending to listen to callers? Also you need to have a voyeuristic interest in death and minute medical details.

[kadman]

But would you be able to read online threads (Boards, GUBU etc) about the show, search Wikipedia and Google while pretending to listen to callers? Also you need to have a voyeuristic interest in death and minute medical details.

I can do all of that, yep. My 2 sons can testify to the fact that I can ramble on and talk shite non stop if I have to , and can spend numerous hours
on the computer looking at rubbish, and then waffle on non stop about it.
Thats me cv, now can I have Duffy's job with a 50% wage reduction....thankyou kind sir.

[PogMoThoin]

RTE, the place where talentless opinionated arseholes steal a living

[Hairy-Joe]

I have Amazon Prime courtesy of Eir fibre broadband. It costs I think €5 a month. I use it the odd time to watch a film. If I thought the price would rise due to RTE getting a cut of it when they don't contribute, I'd give serious thought of cancelling it. As I use it for the odd film, I'd just download them and stream them via Plex on the NAS to the TV.

RTE is massively bloated from top to bottom and to be honest, I think it deserves to go broke in order to put manners on them. Mr Darcy and Mr Duffy between them work about 3 hours a day and take in almost €1M between them. That doesn't include the researchers, etc in the backroom. No I don't pay my TV licence either as I think it's a rotten organisation from top to bottom.

[Del.Monte]

Dee Forbes the Director General of RTE is on a nice little earner too - a serious 6 figure sum - and that was four years ago. https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-30851264.html

[JayZeus]

Pointless to complain without putting it in writing to your TD's.

I mean, go ahead, but write to your TD's also. And suggest others do the same.

RTE's wage-drains are such a waste of taxpayers money. I honestly cannot think of the last time I've listened to or watched a single RTE production or broadcast of any kind. It has to be at least 10 years ago at this stage. At least.

I consume many hours of current affairs broadcasts and podcasts each week during my commute and evenings. Over 50% of it is produced by Irish media entities, but not a single bit comes from the taxpayer funded pit of mediocrity we all know as RTE.

And as for broadcasting The Angelus... Turn that crap off and then we talk about levy's and tax increases, you shower of backwards thinking knuckle dragging D4-blow-in eejits.

[Del.Monte]

@ JayZeus - go on now tell us what you really think.

[kadman]

Next they will want to tax me for watching BBC

[316670]

Love it, i would guess at most 1million Netflix irish subs, the tax will raise €23m a year, so about €2 a month extra to keep RTE "stars" in the good life
I hope they put a tenner on Netflix Subs in Ireland, i'm subbed in Turkey for less than a fiver a month for top package, and i will sail the high sea's for any other content i want to watch.
The public need to be screwed harder before they say enough is enough, we have a long way to go before this happens, paddy is a glutton for punishment.