RTE, which looks set to miss its financial targets by as much as €25m this year, is spending a fortune on expensive imported series which are being broadcast in the dead of night or "warehoused" to prevent them going to rival stations.

The national broadcaster, which has a revenue well in excess of €400m, including €200m from the taxpayer through the licence fee, has a programme inventory packed with US series, which many stations across Europe broadcast at prime time.

Now TV3 are understood to be monitoring how RTE is using its licence fee financial muscle to outbid the smaller commercial channels, such as themselves, Channel 6 and TG4, for a large number of blue chip programmes, which they are then showing in the early hours of the morning.

Some of the series which RTE television are broadcasting between midnight and 5am in the morning cost as much as €100,000 per series to buy in, industry sources claim. And distributors have told the Sunday Independent that RTE could be spending more than €1m per quarter on its post-midnight schedule.

It comes at a time when RTE have told the Department of Communications that revenues could be off target by up to €25m, after TV and radio advertising growth slumped during the summer. Television advertising has been particularly hard hit by the economic downturn, and radio advertising is also off target -- though to a lesser extent.

At the same time, RTE1 and RTE 2 television schedules are packed with imported US, Canadian and Australian series.

They include ABC's popular Dirty Sexy Money, shown at 12.30 am on Friday mornings on RTE, and Medium, the drama series inspired by the real-life story of research medium Allison DuBois and starring Emmy winner Patricia Arquette.

Da Vinci's Inquest, a crime drama critically acclaimed as the best television series in Canada after winning the Gemini Award for Best Dramatic Series for five of its first six seasons, is broadcast even later on RTE 1, at 5.45 am.

Other imported RTE series being shown during the night include: Intelligence (2.40am); City Homicide (2.15am); The Dead Zone (2.45am); Traveller (3.20am); The Secret Life of Us (2.55am); Daybreak (3.05am); In Plain Sight (4.25am) and What about Brian (4.05am). Other shows being shown in the "dead zone" include Eli Stone, which is shown at 2.20 am, and Whistler, a Canadian television drama centring on the aftermath of the mysterious death of a local snowboard legend, which RTE broadcasts after 2am.

The licence fee is now €160 and the national broadcaster posted net profits of €26.4m for 2007 -- an increase of 45 per cent on the 2006 figure of €17.9m.

RTE was also boosted by the number of new homes, which pushed up revenue from the licence fee to €195m, and there were commercial earnings of €245m.

TV 3 chief executive David McRedmond is on record as saying that legislators needed to take more action to ring-fence RTE's licence fee income so that it was used only for public service broadcasting projects. He also accused RTE of stockpiling US imports and making it difficult for commercial rivals like TV3, who survive on advertising revenue alone, to buy material.

''However, we try not to whine, and we do want to show what we can do with the resources we have," he said in an interview.

''We take a very real contemporary view of Ireland, and that is a clear point of difference for us. We need to make sure we maintain that," Mr McRedmond added.

However, it is understood that TV3 was infuriated when RTE used the launch of new programmes to show a video lampooning their independent competitor.

And there is also anger that RTE have allegedly copied programme ideas from their smaller competitor.