RTÉ plan ‘not about ripping the heart out’ of broadcaster, staff told, but Montrose mood is bleak

Kevin Bakhurst’s “town hall” meeting with RTÉ employees in Studio 4, the set of The Late Late Show, began with an apology. Leaks from the director general’s 29-page strategic plan, titled A New Direction for RTÉ, were “unfortunate” and “not helpful”, he said.

There was some not-terrible news: with the Government confirming it will give the broadcaster an additional €56 million in funding between now and the end of 2024, RTÉ will not run out of cash next year, barring unforeseen circumstances, while the broadcaster will invest more in digital services and in an “expanded production centre” in Cork.

Otherwise, there was not much to be upbeat about. Some 40 voluntary redundancies will be immediately sought out of a total of 400 departures between now and 2028, while targeted savings of €10 million in 2024 alone mean there will be both cuts to content and delays to some long-planned projects.

For those present at the meeting, the clearest direction appeared to be backwards: whittling down a workforce of more than 1,900 by 400 people is a 20 per cent headcount cut. Bakhurst admitted upfront that 400 was a “big number” and that the need to make RTÉ 20 per cent smaller would be a concern for many employees with mortgages, rents and other costs-of-living pressing upon them.

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He stressed again that no job losses would be compulsory, indicating that the small number of people who work for the digital radio stations earmarked for closure – Radio 1 Extra, 2XM, Pulse and RTÉjr Radio – would be offered other opportunities in RTÉ. The broadcaster will still be a “substantial” organisation, he added: the flipside of 20 per cent of the workforce leaving is that 80 per cent will stay.

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Will enough employees apply for the scheme? It can be assumed that there will be at least some interest judging from the 2021 exit scheme, to which 184 applications were made, but only 25 people were “released”. Jobs that RTÉ then opted not to suppress may well be suppressed this time around. Meanwhile, more than 150 people are due to retire over the next few years anyway and this will be included in the 400 total.

Bakhurst valiantly tried to convey the idea to staff that talented people who were “ambitious” and wanted to stay at RTÉ would find it “a great place to work”.

The director general, who returned to RTÉ in the top job in July this year after a previous stint as its news and current affairs boss, spoke to employees for about 30 minutes before opening the meeting up to questions.

The prevailing mood was not especially fractious, but one of bleak resignation to what many feel is a hollowing out of public service media, rather than a smart restructuring appropriate for the digital age.

As one staff member contended that RTÉ was sending the wrong message by keeping RTÉ Gold, a station that plays “the greatest hits of all time”, but jettisoning some stations aimed at younger audiences, Bakhurst pointed to plans to increase investment in the RTÉ Player as well as new audio and news apps.

A member of the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, which uses RTÉ Radio Centre for rehearsal space, was concerned that the centre – one of the listed buildings on campus – might be sold if RTÉ looks to put another portion of land at Montrose on the market. But plans to shrink the Donnybrook footprint appear to be in their infancy, with Bakhurst’s main message being that it would make “no sense” to sell the entire site, freshly valued at just €100 million.

RTÉ also has no plans to sell 2FM, while Lyric FM is a “really important part of what we do”, he said. He distanced himself from the approach of predecessor Dee Forbes, who floated closing Lyric FM’s Limerick studio in 2019, noting that he was not going to announce moves “to shut stuff that we’re not going to be able to shut”.

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Applause rang out in the studio when one staff member asked why production employees should take the hit for the mistakes of the former management. Bakhurst said it was the failure of successive governments to address licence fee reform in an era of runaway inflation that was the underlying cause of the crisis, not an issue with “one presenter” – this is indisputably true.

The director general did his best to say that RTÉ will aim to reduce the number of staff paid over €100,000 and to assure that no presenter in future will earn more than he does. RTÉ, from 2025 onwards, will not be in the throes of perpetual cuts, he ventured.

His conclusion that the plan is about strategic investment and “not about ripping the heart out of RTÉ”, however, is unlikely to be shared by all.