They say change is the only constant. That has not been true at RTÉ Radio 1, where change, when it comes at all, has tended to be intermittent and painfully slow. A retirement here, an unexpected death there. So last week’s cascade of announcements – of departures, arrivals, reshuffles and reschedules – felt to some like a miniature revolution, with reports describing it as the biggest schedule change “in a generation”, or “in decades”, or even “in the station’s history”.
The departure of Ray D’Arcy after 11 years at Montrose was the spark. Almost immediately, it was confirmed that Kieran Cuddihy will succeed Joe Duffy on Liveline. In parallel, there will be a switch between the two midmorning shows, a move to D’Arcy’s old midafternoon slot for Louise Duffy, new hosts and a changed start time for Drivetime. And a new evening sports show will run from 6pm each weekday.
We will be well into 2026 before anyone can begin to judge whether any of this is successful, but it does prompt a few questions.
1. What is the difference now between RTÉ Radio 1 and Newstalk?
There has long been some blurring of lines between Ireland’s main public service radio station and its commercial rival. That now seems to have ratcheted up. Claire Byrne goes in one direction, Kieran Cuddihy in the other. When Byrne starts there, Newstalk’s two flagship presenters – with Pat Kenny at weekends – will both be old RTÉ hands. With Newstalk veterans Patricia Monahan and Mark Simpson occupying senior management roles at RTÉ Audio, you’d be increasingly hard put to discern the difference.
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Moving the Today programme, with its new host David McCullagh, to a 9am start is clearly a defensive response to the ratings threat from Byrne. But it will also contribute to the heightened sense of sameness between the two stations, both of which rely on a similar mix of broad-interest current affairs and lifestyle magazine shows to get them through the day.
If RTÉ ends up looking and sounding a little bit more like its rival, which in turn ends up looking and sounding a little bit more like RTÉ, there’s a clear loser – and it’s not Newstalk. After all, if the public service broadcaster’s personalities and tone converge even more with its commercial competitor, what then is distinctively “public service” about it?
2. Was Ray D’Arcy’s exit more a HR manoeuvre than editorial renewal?
Nobody quite knows what offer, if any, RTÉ made to D’Arcy. He was a contractor, not an employee – the preferred model for most top presenters. .
The rationale for such arrangements was that flexibility was needed in order to shuffle talent. Except the shuffling rarely, if ever, happened. D’Arcy’s exit may reflect a new, more ruthless – some might say professional – approach. It’s noteworthy that his departure, following those of Byrne and Duffy, leaves only Miriam O’Callaghan (based on the most recent available figures) on a pay grade above the new benchmark of director general Kevin Bakhurst’s €250,000 a year.
3. Could RTÉ acquire Second Captains?
One move that piques curiosity is the introduction of the new evening sports show. The announcement came with little detail, but speculation has inevitably followed. Independent producers Second Captains have built the country’s leading subscriber-funded sports podcast, and already provide a weekend show to Radio 1. Reports over the weekend suggested the new evening slot could be a prelude to a big acquisition.
[ Second Captains team each takes home almost €166,000 from podcasts last yearOpens in new window ]
Given Second Captains’ healthy revenues, the cost would be substantial, and it would probably cause ructions within the broadcaster’s own sports department. They will be relieved to hear that Second Captains have had “no discussions about the weekday schedule”. But the rumours reflect the intensity of the competition for listeners in contemporary Irish sports audio, with Mediahuis Ireland’s Indo Sport brand investing heavily in talent and marketing, and Newstalk owner Bauer Media’s Off The Ball also in the mix.
4. Is RTÉ cowering ever more to political pressure?
Speaking to Anton Savage on Newstalk (naturally) on Sunday, veteran satirist Mario Rosenstock took aim at the broader failure of nerve on display across RTÉ radio and television. Where, he demanded, is the anarchic spirit in RTÉ today? Where is the space for the unexpected, for sharp satire of the powerful, for unruly anti-establishment voices and full-on debate?
He was not the only one to deride Patrick Kielty’s claim, in the wake of the recent Jimmy Kimmel controversy, that The Late Late Show is a place where you can say “whatever the f**k you want”. The claim sat uneasily beside the stilted, over-scripted version of the show that Kielty now presents.
Rosenstock’s critique was incomplete (unsurprisingly, perhaps, he made no mention of rival impressionist Oliver Callan, one of the big winners in last week’s Radio 1 reshuffle). But his core point is indisputable. In the wake of its annus horribilis two years ago, RTÉ now finds itself reliant more than ever in its history on direct subvention from the Exchequer and therefore in thrall to the government of the day. The arm’s-length principle is essentially dead.
One gets little sense from Bakhurst, Monahan or their fellow executives at RTÉ of any creative energy or vision beyond a cautious managerialism. That shouldn’t come as a surprise; the default history of RTÉ is of an organisation run by conservative technocrats who occasionally got ambushed by brilliant mavericks.
So the problem with the vision of the future that unfolded – chaotically and rather entertainingly – on Thursday and Friday last week is not that it represents some ambitious change. The real problem is that nothing could be further from the truth.
An earlier version of this article incorrectly named Mark Simpson.
