{"id":575650,"date":"2026-07-08T19:57:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T19:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/575650\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T19:57:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T19:57:13","slug":"rtes-tv-licence-sales-decline-by-almost-200000-in-past-four-years-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/575650\/","title":{"rendered":"RT\u00c9\u2019s TV licence sales decline by almost 200,000 in past four years \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

RT\u00c9<\/a> will receive fees from almost 200,000 fewer TV licences this year than it did in 2022, the year before the broadcaster became embroiled in its payments scandal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Figures for TV licence sales by An Post<\/a> for the first six months of 2026 show 358,000 were sold. That is about 20,000 fewer than in the same six-month period last year and almost 100,000 fewer than in the first half of 2022.<\/p>\n

If that trend continues for the remainder of the year, the total number of licences sold in 2026 is likely to be about 750,000. That compares with 947,000 in 2022, a fall of almost 200,000.<\/p>\n

With each licence costing \u20ac160, the decline represents a shortfall of approximately \u20ac32 million compared to 2022. <\/p>\n

The collection of TV licence fees has long been marked by a high level of evasion, and RT\u00c9 has campaigned for many years to change the system so it is collected from households in a similar way to a tax. <\/p>\n

A licence is only required for homes that have a television set. However, it is estimated that more than one in five households no longer have one, relying instead on monitors, laptops and other devices to access television and subscription streaming services. That has prompted calls for a broader media services charge.<\/p>\n

While overall licence numbers have been declining over the past decade, sales remained relatively strong in 2022 and during the first half of 2023. <\/p>\n

However, when controversy emerged following revelations about undisclosed payments to broadcaster Ryan Tubridy<\/a>, licence sales fell sharply. Fewer than 400,000 were sold in the second half of 2023 compared with almost 500,000 during the same period in 2022.<\/p>\n

Since then the numbers have continued to decline. In 2024, there was a further drop of about 30,000, bringing the annual total to 792,000. That was followed by another reduction of about 25,000 last year, when 768,000 licences were sold.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0RT\u00c9 spends almost \u20ac57,000 on team sent to cover World Cup qualifier in PragueOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The pattern has continued during the first six months of 2026. Based on current trends, the annual total is expected to be between 740,000 and 750,000, representing another substantial fall.<\/p>\n

Senior executives from the broadcaster, including director general Kevin Bakhurst, will appear before the Public Accounts Committee<\/a> (Pac) on Thursday. <\/p>\n

While the broadcaster is expected to remain within the spending limits of \u20ac240 million set by the Government, the continuing shortfall in licence fee income means it will require \u20ac54 million in direct exchequer funding this year.<\/p>\n

Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers said on Thursday that the TV licence system needs to be reformed in light of the continuing decline in fees. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RT\u00c9 will receive fees from almost 200,000 fewer TV licences this year than it did in 2022, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":575651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[265],"tags":[13803,18,117,19,17,1181,144397,26666,128],"class_list":["post-575650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-an-post","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-rte","tag-rte-pay-controversy","tag-ryan-tubridy","tag-tv"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}