Ireland is a country constituted by two nation-states. Northern Ireland consists of six counties of the province of Ulster and is part of the United Kingdom. The television service provided in its broadcast area is that of the BBC, Channel 4 and ITV. The local member of the ITV network is Ulster Television which acts both as a broadcaster of the ITV service and produces programs for inclusion in the local transmission of the service. Ireland, sometimes known as Eire, is an independent republic and consists of the remaining 26 counties of the country. Irish television is here considered as that television service that obtains in the republic although, as will become clear, the British service has a strong determining role on the Irish service.

Through the nineteenth and twentieth century, the Irish state--whether operating from London or Dublin--has been characterised by a high degree of authoritarian control, both coercive and ideological. The Irish Free-State, founded in 1922, resumed control of all broadcasting in the 26 counties both to head off a possible attempt by British Marconi to establish itself in the country but also to help in the ideological task of establishing a nationalist identity. Until 1960 the state, through an agency of the Department of Posts and Telegraph--Radio Eireann--provided a broadcast service through a single radio network. The service was financed through a combination of licence fee and advertising. The service was extremely conservative in its programming and was only tolerated by most of its listeners. In fact, Radio Eireann did not have an audience monopoly. Households on the east coast and near the Northern Ireland border could also receive the BBC and Radio Luxembourg.

It was this proximity to British television broadcasting in the late 1950s that partly forced the Irish government's hand so far as the inauguration of an Irish television service was concerned. The 1960 Broadcasting Act legislated the establishment of a television service which began in 1962. Like the radio service, Irish television was to be financed through a combination of licence fees and advertising revenue. The service consisting of a single national channel was put under the control of Radio Telefis Eireann (RTE). The latter was a revamped version of the radio provider, now becoming an independent public authority. This was a significant move of liberalisation, in line with the government's own moves to "modernise" Ireland to make it attractive to transnational capital investment. And indeed television has acted as a Trojan Horse so far as the liberalisation of social and cultural values in Ireland is concerned. However, this has not lessened attempts by the state to keep a tight control on the forms of political debate on Irish television. In general this has lead to poor relations between RTE and most Irish politicians. Thus, for example, in 1969, following political unrest in Northern Ireland, the government imposed direct censorship over RTE news and current affairs. When in 1972, RTE interviewed a spokesperson for the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), a paramilitary group defending Catholics in Northern Ireland, the Irish government dismissed the RTE board and appointed its own members. In 1978 the government favourably considered allowing the BBC to be relayed to those parts of the country not already picking up its signal. Instead, it had to bow to public opinion by allowing RTE to begin a second television network. The broadcaster was, however, not allowed to increase licence fees or its advertising rate so that its financial position, and therefore its capacity to produce local programs, was significantly weakened.

Meantime technological and ideological pressures were at work that would erode RTE's monopoly in Irish television. Since 1970, the authority had operated its own cable network, RTE Relay, renamed Cablelink in 1988. Cablelink is the largest cable operator in Europe and provides about two-thirds of television households in the Irish Republic with the British broadcast television service, later complemented by the European services Superchannel and Sky. By the early 1990s, Cablelink was beginning to carry advertising, thereby diminishing RTE's potential revenue. In addition there was also the possibility that Cablelink might be sold to a private operator thereby providing direct competition to RTE's broadcast service. However, the government was also interested in weakening RTE's position and saw a further opportunity to do so with moves throughout Europe to open up broadcast television to private, commercial interests. The 1988 Broadcast and Wireless Telegraphy Act formally broke the television broadcast monopoly of RTE. A new broadcast body, the Independent Radio and Television Commission, was established to oversee the introduction of privately owned radio and television stations in Ireland. Several commercial radio stations have since gone on the air. A private commercial television station, TV3, was announced in 1990 but never began broadcasting. Nevertheless the threat of commercial competition remains. Most worrying from the point of view of an Irish television service was the fact that the government was prepared to allow a private television station to collect more advertising revenue than RTE while having no specific obligations so far as local content was concerned.

The increased commercial competition as well as the low revenue generated through the licence fee has affected RTE's capacity to produce local content. In 1965, Irish programs constituted some 60% of material transmitted. This figure has fallen to around 36% by 1990. In a schedule dominated by imported programs, RTE's own programs--particularly those with mass appeal--are especially important as "flagship" programs in the schedule. These include Gay Byrne's The Late Show (Friday night), Glenroe (Sunday) and Fair City (Tuesday and Thursday). The latter two are popular soap operas in a "public-service" tradition while the former is a talk show with a strong sense of community which is not afraid to discuss social issues. RTE exists in a commercial television environment where it is no match for its principal rival, ITV. To attempt to maintain its general ratings both for its imported programs as well as its local programs, RTE is forced to engage in a scheduling strategy of parallel programming with British television, especially ITV. It buys some of the latter's most popular programs, such as Coronation Street, which it then programs against the same program on ITV.

Like many other public broadcasters in Europe, RTE finds itself in an increasingly grim situation. The Irish State has charged RTE with the task of fostering an Irish cultural identity yet has, over the past 25 years, increasingly withheld the resources that would enable to do so more effectively. Cross-natural transmission has always posed a fundamental threat to the service and recent developments in technology, ideology and financial arrangements have made that task even more difficult.

-Albert Moran