RTÉ crisis: no staff on more than €250,000 under new plan, with some presenters facing cuts

No one in RTÉ will be paid a salary exceeding €250,000, a staff meeting on the broadcaster’s new strategy has heard.

The new cap on salaries will mean that nobody at RTÉ can make more than its director general Kevin Bakhurst.

Joe Duffy, Claire Byrne and Miriam O’Callaghan will face salary reductions under the new cap as they negotiate new contracts, with the latest figures showing Duffy on €351,000, Byrne on €280,000 and O’Callaghan on €263,500.

The organisation’s new strategic vision says pay cuts will be delivered “as contracts expire and as we hire new people ... and by reviewing and reducing allowances”.

Mr Bakhurst told reporters on Tuesday evening that he has not yet spoken to the “handful” of people at the broadcaster earning more than €250,000. He would not be drawn on exactly how many people, including off-screen employees, at the broadcaster currently earn over €250,000.

In a briefing on the plan with RTÉ staff on Thursday, Mr Bakhurst said that the broadcaster would make an estimated €100 million from the sale of the Dublin 4 campus, far lower than the €300 million to €500 million estimate that some politicians have said it could be worth.

The net cost of moving RTÉ from the Donnybrook campus would be between €100 million and €200 million, he told RTÉ staff at a town hall meeting at Montrose.

He told employees it made “no sense” to sell the campus, but that RTÉ would look later at options to put a further portion of the land on the market.

Mr Bakhurst said that about 150 people were due to retire over the coming four years, which would cover part of the reduction of the staff numbers by 400 targeted under the plan.

Having secured €56 million in interim funding from the Government, Mr Bakhurst underlined the role of the Government in the realisation of the new strategic plan.

“The whole strategic plan is based on the premise that the Government has said they will address public funding for the future. They said they’ll do that as a matter of urgency. And this plan is deliverable if that public funding is addressed, and is at the level that’s recommended by the Future of Media Commission,” he said.

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Staff raised concerns with Mr Bakhurst at the meeting that the broadcaster was sending the wrong message by keeping RTÉ Gold, a radio station aimed at an older audience, but closing RTÉjr Radio, RTÉ XFM and dance music station RTÉ Pulse, which all target younger people.

Mr Bakhurst signalled that RTÉ would continue to try to reach younger audiences by increasing its investment in the RTÉ Player, as well as new audio and news apps.

Mr Bakhurst said the broadcaster would become smaller as a result of a turnaround plan published on Tuesday, but that its “public service ambition” would remain undiminished.

The report highlights cost savings, including a 20 per cent reduction in headcount by 2028, as well as an increased spend on outside commissioning, decentralisation of operations outside Dublin and a range of financial and governance reforms, including an anonymised register of the top 100 earners.

The New Direction report, outlining Mr Bakhurst’s plan to turn the broadcaster around, was published on Tuesday afternoon.

It includes a ten-point plan with headings focused on public service, value for money, nationwide production, digital transformation and governance structures.

In a statement accompanying the document, Mr Bakhurst said the broadcaster would become “more agile” and provide “better value for money”, signalling that 2024 will be a “challenging year”.

“My hope, however, is that we will enter 2025 armed with a robust strategy that makes the best use of the money available to fund our national media service, money we will invest as wisely and strategically as possible to improve the invaluable contribution of public service media to life in Ireland,” he said.

Earlier, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said that the Cabinet had approved interim funding for RTÉ until the end of next year.

This is understood to include €16 million in interim funding along with €40 million next year.

Mr Varadkar has said that he intends for the Government to make a decision on a long term funding model for public service broadcasting within the next few months which will not just address funding in RTÉ but also local media and the independent sector.

Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe said the further €40 million for 2024 will be “conditional on the delivery of the reform agenda” at the broadcaster.

Mr Donohoe said: “The Government believes that we need to both back the future of public service broadcasting in our country, but also back to changes that are needed now to allow RTÉ to regain the faith of the taxpayer and ... of the country after the many damaging controversies of earlier in the year.”

The proposed cutting of up to 400 jobs was “the same old story”, said Emma O Kelly, chairwoman of the National Union of Journalists‘ Dublin broadcasting branch.

“It’s like cut, cut, cut. But we’re not seeing any vision.”