Anyone who has worked for a media company in the last 20 years will be familiar with the tone and content of the circular sent by RTÉ director general Kevin Bakhurst to his staff on Wednesday.
Broadcasters and newspapers alike, confronted with the collapse of their traditional business models in the face of the disruptions of new technologies, have been forced to implement successive waves of restructuring and downsizing as they scramble to adjust to the harsh realities of the modern digital marketplace.
At the same time, they have had to implement sometimes painful cultural changes to reach their audiences where they are now.
RTÉ is no different, although it has been slower than some to grasp the nettle.
The nine biggest TV shows of 2025 so far: Why you should watch them, and where you can catch them
‘I was seven in 1975 when I committed myself to Leeds United, then I watched a great team fall apart’
Look inside: Light-filled redbrick with ‘iceberg’ extension in Portobello for €1.4m
How can investors manage in the world according to Trump?
Certainly, this is not the national broadcaster’s first attempt to reduce its headcount. But some of its previous efforts had only a marginal impact, with the overall number of employees creeping back up again in the years that followed.
This time will probably be different. There’s a certain steeliness to Bakhurst’s warning that future voluntary parting packages may well be less attractive than what is currently on offer.
And also a clear sense that, after what he has previously acknowledged was a betrayal of trust over how RTÉ handled its own governance and finances, the Government will now be keeping it on a much tighter leash, with the Comptroller and Auditor General now returned to its oversight role.
Last summer’s announcement of a guaranteed State support package of €725 million over the next three years means there will be zero tolerance for any slippages. So Minister for Media Patrick O’Donovan and Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers have made clear that if the target of a staff reduction of 100 this year at a cost of €15 million is not met, then the €47 million for further redundancies over the following three years will not be forthcoming.
On one level, this seems sensible housekeeping; on another it speaks to an open mistrust in Government circles towards RTÉ’s senior managers and a scepticism about their ability to deliver.
Among the many embarrassments of RTÉ’s polycrisis in the summer of 2023 was the revelation that very senior members of management had been permitted to avail of packages in the past, despite the fact that their positions were clearly not going to be made redundant.
This time, Bakhurst makes clear, the scheme will not be open to members of the current leadership team.
In truth, Bakhurst shouldn’t find it too difficult to find his first 100 candidates for the exit door. The word from the corridors of Montrose is that morale is at rock bottom.
There is talk of demoralised departments, a failure to invest in infrastructure and a widespread cynicism about the future.
Given the relatively attractive nature of the packages on offer – which compare very favourably with their equivalents in the private sector – there’s every chance the scheme will be oversubscribed in its first year, at least.
But brute numbers are not the whole story. Potential pitfalls lie ahead. There’s the running sore of the scandal over bogus self-employment at RTÉ, which in many cases remains unresolved. How will length of service be calculated for those individuals if they wish to apply to leave?
And there’s the more profound and but still opaque question of what RTÉ should look like at the end of all this. Even in the best-case scenario, stretching redundancies out over four years will mean a painfully extended period of disruption.
Alongside that, presumably, comes the implementation of a more streamlined, fit-for-purpose organisational structure.
Some hints of what that might mean have come with proposals to shift flagship productions such as Fair City and The Late Late Show off-site, and implicitly to outsource them to independent companies at some point in the future.
That has given rise to speculation that a future model might see RTÉ keeping only core functions such as news and current affairs in-house and commissioning pretty much everything else from the independent sector.
That is a model which has been successful elsewhere but it would mark a significant fork in the road for RTÉ and for Irish broadcasting. However, it’s unclear whether it would lead to a better service or better value for money.
And it would not necessarily address the central problem which RTÉ and all traditional broadcasters face: an ageing audience for its linear video and audio services, and a mass defection to streaming and social-media platforms by younger viewers.
Both in terms of the content it produces and the quality of its own digital platforms, RTÉ lags painfully far behind. Without investment in creativity, technology and younger talent, the current project has little chance of success.
But there is little sign so far that this is understood by the broadcaster’s political paymasters or that it has been factored into plans for the next four years.
