RTÉ will get its bailout, but the terms and conditions will be painful

The omnishambles at RTÉ has moved past the Gogglebox stage to the grim reality of an impending financial crisis. Two things seem clear: firstly, there will be a taxpayer-funded bailout of the station at some stage; secondly, that bailout will not be as extensive as RTÉ might wish, and it will be extremely painful. The terms and conditions will be exacting, requiring significant change and widespread discomfort at the broadcaster. I am afraid that a hard rain’s a-gonna fall at Montrose.

The task for RTÉ and the Government is to preserve genuine public service broadcasting and journalism in a world where it is more than ever threatened, and more than ever needed. To achieve that together, they will have to overcome the significant mutual incomprehension that exists between them. So as a service to RTÉ, here are some things people in Government are thinking about the issue.

Firstly, you must realise that what politicians say in public about RTÉ is quite different from what they say in private. For every public endorsement of the importance of RTE’s public service output, I have heard 10 private complaints. This is something that long predates the current controversies and confirms the wisdom of Tony O’Reilly’s observation about politicians when he was the owner of the Independent group: all governments feel persecuted by the media, and all oppositions feel ignored by them.

This Government is no different. There is a willingness to help RTÉ, both in the short and the long-term. There is also clear-eyed resolve that RTÉ will not determine the terms of this. There will be significant reform and cost-cutting at the station, and the measures will need to go much further than the recruitment freeze announced by Kevin Bakhurst, to the apparent consternation of staff, this week. One Minister observed drily that there used to be recruitment freezes in the HSE all the time. If anyone thinks this will only affect the stars, they are much mistaken.

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Oireachtas Media Committee chairwoman Niamh Smyth summarised this view succinctly on Wednesday: “Not one red cent” should be given to RTÉ, she said, until it had answered the committee’s questions.

Bakhurst is probably the best thing RTÉ has going for it right now, but someone needs to explain the ways of homo politicus hibernicus to him, and quickly

In fact, the questions about what RTÉ should do in the future are a good deal more important than the ones about what happened in the past. But as an expression of general political impatience with RTÉ in Government circles, Smyth’s comments are on the money. One senior figure in Government summarises his view of RTÉ’s approach as: “Give us money. And shut up.”

There are a few other things that RTÉ needs to realise. These are views that I hear repeatedly across Government. They are what many politicians and influential people around Government actually think (as opposed to say) about RTÉ.

[ RTÉ facing months of cost-cutting as it struggles with looming €28m deficit ]

One is that RTÉ is as not as much a special case as it seems to think. Lots of groups pester Government for money. Many are deserving, some less so; all believe they should be prioritised. For weeks, the Department of Public Expenditure has been bombarded with pre-budget submissions, appeals for funding and demands for resources from colleagues, NGOs, lobby groups and so on.

RTÉ should know this, because many of the same lobby groups are given lots of airtime to make their case for more funding. A common complaint by government politicians is that the budgetary context and broader picture are rarely given much of an airing. Too often, they complain, such groups are never asked the sort of hard questions politicians are. It often sounds like advocacy.

It would be a mistake for RTÉ to produce a list of cuts it knows are politically unacceptable, as has been the practice in the past

They accuse the station of being cowed by Sinn Féin. Mind you, many in Sinn Féin regard RTÉ as part of a partitionist, anti-Shinner establishment. But RTÉ doesn’t quite know how to deal with Sinn Féin’s willingness to resort to legal actions against the station. It is curious that the station has not interviewed Aoife Moore, whose recent book about Sinn Féin is not hostile to the party, but certainly contains uncomfortable questions for it and its leader.

RTÉ should think about its tactics as well as its strategy. Bakhurst’s casual mention that the station might not be able to cover political conferences in future was a blunder; rest assured that the very definition of public service broadcasting for many politicians is when they are featured on television. Bakhurst is probably the best thing RTÉ has going for it right now, but someone needs to explain the ways of homo politicus hibernicus to him, and quickly. It would be a mistake for RTÉ to produce a list of cuts it knows are politically unacceptable, as has been the practice in the past.

There is a realisation at the top of Government that help for RTÉ will have to be provided, and that the ability to do public service journalism and broadcasting should be protected. One of the Government hawks on the issue told me on Thursday that he feared the situation at RTÉ, and the non-payment of the licence fee, was “getting out of control”. Another cited a round of canvassing recently where he heard for the first time declarations of non-payment.

It’s a while off yet, but some senior figures now see the collection by the Revenue Commissioners of a new, inevitably lower, levy as inevitable. But RTÉ is kidding itself if it thinks that this will result in a funding boost. There is no going back to the way things were. There is no escaping the hard rain.