Screen Producers Ireland, the independents’ umbrella organisation, is not known for rocking the boat, as many members depend on RTE for their income. But last week, its broadcast committee chairman, James Hickey, did lift the lid on a subject that is lamented in private: RTE’s desire to own all it funds.
As almost the only show in town, RTE has enormous power over Irish indies. It can either grow or nullify their careers, depending on what it chooses to commission. To a layman, it may even seem obvious that if RTE pays for a programme, then it should own all the rights. But RTE’s primary function is to provide output relevant to the Irish audience. It is not being funded to market material abroad or collect intellectual copyright revenue in foreign territories, neither does it have the expertise nor the infrastructure to do so.
If RTE devises hit formats that other broadcasters are keen to copy, then it has an undisputed right to total ownership. Every idea generated by an RTE employee automatically belongs to Montrose. But one indie producer describes a typical scenario in which RTE accepted his idea, and part-funded it, then after he spent months haggling over ownership, RTE came away with a sizeable portion of the worldwide rights — to foreign broadcasting, publishing, DVD sales and so on. Now he must write Montrose a large cheque for his efforts.
The same producer then sold another idea to the BBC. All the BBC wanted was to broadcast the programme for three years in the UK, and nothing else. After his experience with RTE, the producer expressed both surprise and relief, but the BBC stated that it saw its duty as providing quality programming for the British market, end of story. The irony is that the BBC has a publishing arm, BBC Worldwide, that reaches most international markets. RTE has no equivalent, and so is insisting on clinging onto a commodity that it doesn’t even have the power to sell.
This dog-in-the-manger attitude may exist because RTE is afraid of another “Riverdance scenario”.
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Although Riverdance debuted on RTE1 — as part of the 1994 Eurovision — and the organisation went on to make €20 million out of it,
this still represented a mere 10% stake. And that is seen by some as a missed opportunity. But the flip side of that argument is that Riverdance would not have been a success without the vision, drive and financial commitment of its independent producers.
In 2003, the UK broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, ruled that the bulk of intellectual copyright should remain with the independent producer, no matter who commissions that original material.
The only way to allow the Irish sector to grow abroad would be for the Department of Communications to make similar provision for indies’ rights in the forthcoming Broadcasting Act, placing the country in line with Europe and America. Otherwise, the dead hand of monopoly will continue to drag down Irish producers.