Willie O'Reilly

As RTÉ recruits a new CFO, candidates will be faced with the reality that inflation has eroded much of the organisation’s dwindling revenue for the past two decades.

The rise of YouTube signals the end of traditional broadcasters’ control over high-quality audio and video production – with the fate of newspapers providing signposts for legacy media.

For a few hundred euro, you can get your voice on air and some podcasters make a decent living. But when it comes to audience figures and commercial returns, there is mostly silence.

The majority of television watched in Ireland is imported, mostly from the UK. Public clamour for indigenous programming doesn’t match the private choices made in Irish homes.

With a new schedule finally emerging from retirements and the ashes of the pay scandal, Montrose hasn’t been this exciting since the Public Accounts Committee hearings.

It is hard to fathom the breadth and complexity of questions raised by the prospect of Irish unity. A narrow focus on broadcasting illustrates the trip wires and land mines laid across identity, institutions and public finances.

A renewed media committee quizzed the broadcaster’s equally refreshed leadership line-up one year on from the Ryan Tubridy-fronted payments controversy, but still ignored the crucial commercial aspect of its model.

The State's media regulator, Comisiun na Meán, recently allocated nearly €6 million to support local reporting. Has the newspaper business risked its independence by accepting the cash?

The billion-euro Irish advertising industry keeps growing. While online giants now dwarf legacy media, many domestic broadcasters and publishers continue to grow ad revenue – their relative slice of the pie is just smaller.

Ireland’s legislation on political adverting is no longer relevant to the 21st century. It is time for the political parties to come down from the pole.