Might cuts reduce RTÉ to a newsdesk with a few commissioning editors attached?

Irish Times

18-07-2025

When the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport addressed Morning Ireland on
RTÉ
Radio 1 on Wednesday over a controversy at a State-funded body under his charge, for once it wasn't about RTÉ itself. This time it was
An Post
and the
alleged leak of confidential material
that the Minister,
Patrick O'Donovan
, had presented to Cabinet.
Inevitably, however, talk soon turned to the national broadcaster and the programme of reforms that management had signed up to in the aftermath of the 2023 scandal over payments to top talent. RTÉ is on a 'journey of transformation', the Fine Gael TD said. Asked about the pace of change at the broadcaster, O'Donovan said many of his 'responsibilities' to put the reforms into motion are contained in the Broadcasting (Amendment) Bill, currently before the Dáil.
Over a flurry of meetings in recent weeks, the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Media has been scrutinising the general scheme of the Bill. What is clear now on the eve of the summer Dáil recess is that the finalised legislation will have to feed a lot of mouths, and not everyone is going to be satiated.
Members of the committee have heard evidence from an array of executives, from RTÉ, TG4 and Virgin Media Television to domestic streaming platforms such as LOITV and GAA+, each with their particular asks and additions. Represented by
Screen Producers Ireland (SPI)
, independent or commercial television production companies – which stand to gain a lot from the legislation – have also made contributions.
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RTÉ and its funding are central to the Bill, but its reach extends far beyond Dublin 4. One of the most important and potentially transformative planks of the legislation is its transposition into law of the
Future of Media Commission
's (FOMC's) recommendation that RTÉ should be legally required to spend 25 per cent of its public funding on programming commissioned from private production companies.
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Dozens of reforms recommended to RTÉ in wake of pay controversy have been delayed
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Naturally, the sector has been full-throated in its support for this 'most welcome' measure, as SPI chief Susan Kirby told the committee last month. RTÉ itself flagged the recommendation in its transformation strategy, dubbed A New Direction, published last summer. It said it wanted to be spending 27 per cent of its public funding, about €70 million, on commissioned programming by 2027, compared to something like €40 million this year.
At best, this now appears to have been overly ambitious. In his opening submission to the committee, RTÉ director of video Steve Carson reiterated the organisation's commitment to the 25 per cent. However, he said that reaching that target is ultimately 'contingent' on completion of the broadcaster's transformation plan.
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In particular, Carson said the 'ambitious voluntary exit' scheme currently under way at Montrose – through which RTÉ wants to shed 400 jobs – is 'central' to the turnaround programme. Against that backdrop, the final legislation should give RTÉ 'sufficient latitude' for a 'transition period' of five years, he said, something the FOMC recommended in its 2022 report. In other words, the broadcaster now says it will be 2030 before it can reach the 25 per cent target.
What changed between the publication of A New Direction in the summer of 2024 and June 2025, when Carson appeared before the committee? In a statement this week, a spokesman for RTÉ said the proposed change in the timeline is due to the 'significant delay in the approval of RTÉ's voluntary exit programme'. Ministerial delays, described last year as frustrating by RTÉ director general
Kevin Bakhurst
, meant the scheme only received approval in March and then opened in April.
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Additionally, the spokesman said the level of 'agreed public funding' for the broadcaster is 'lower than funding sought by RTÉ to deliver its five-year strategy', which 'has an impact on the number of exits that RTÉ can afford to deliver each year'. RTÉ remains 'fully committed' to increasing spending on commissioned programming, he said, but the timing is contingent on the transformation strategy.
Still, television production companies are deeply concerned about this surprising development.
Asked for comment this week, Kirby of the SPI said the sector is 'very grateful' that the Minister put this FOMC recommendation into the legislation, but is aware that 'due to fixed costs and other challenges', RTÉ is seeking flexibility in the 'time frame' for adoption. She said: 'This is enormously challenging for the independent production sector to accept, given that RTÉ not reaching this 25 per cent would mean significantly reduced investment for a growing sector.'
According to SPI's estimates, 'reduced investment' in the sector could amount to between €50 million and €60 million over five years, Kirby said, if implementation is pushed out to 2030. 'For RTÉ to be successful in achieving its own strategy, 25 per cent should be maintained as the legislative requirement for it to invest in the independent production sector,' she warned.
While RTÉ management backs the move, there is a great deal of trepidation among journalists, technicians and creative workers at the broadcaster that it could be an attempt at backdoor privatisation. The committee's scrutiny of the Broadcasting Bill was book-ended by appearances from Bakhurst and other senior managers in May, and trade unions representing workers at the broadcaster last week. In a late-evening session, the organisation's trade union group (TUG) told TDs and Senators that morale is 'awful' and 'horrific' amid what they have characterised as swingeing cuts across several areas, from religious affairs programming to current affairs, that have resulted in the cancellation of Upfront with Katie Hannon and the farming out of The Late Late Show and Fair City to the private sector.
Workers are 'blue in the face' asking for consultations with management, said Sorcha Vaughan, secretary of the TUG, which comprises the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), Siptu, Connect and Unite. Vaughan added that the 25 per cent mandate is being used as a battering ram of sorts for cuts at the broadcaster, with workers being told 'we need to become smaller, the shows will be going'.
It's worth noting that RTÉ at least has secure and predictable funding until 2027, under the multiannual funding agreement reached with the Government last year - the first such arrangement of its type
Trevor Keegan, co-chair of the union group, also raised questions about the broadcaster's plans for studio space in Montrose. Much of this appears to have hit home with committee members, one of whom said this week they were concerned that RTÉ will turn into a newsdesk, with a few commissioning editors attached to it.
Overarching all of this is a much bigger question about whether the legislation creates the type of certainty around funding for RTÉ that the broadcaster, its workers and the independent production sector all want. The Broadcasting Bill is, among other things, the Government's effort to establish the European Media Freedom Act in Irish law. The European Act says that member states should make sure that all funding procedures for public service media platforms are based on 'transparent and objective criteria laid down in advance'.
Public service media organisations should also have 'adequate, sustainable and predictable financial resources corresponding to the fulfilment of and the capacity to develop within their public service remit'. However, having baulked at the FOMC's recommendations around funding, the Coalition's Bill stops well short of scrapping the licence fee and funding RTÉ from the exchequer on a multiyear basis.
Instead, it proposes to reform the
Coimisiún na Meán
-led review processes for public service media provision, which will now take place every three rather than every five years. There will also be half-yearly rather than annual reviews. Based on these processes, the regulator will make recommendations to the Minister about funding levels for RTÉ and TG4.
RTÉ commended the strengthening of the regulator's role but told the committee that the general scheme of the Bill does not set out a timeline for the Government's response to the recommendations. This 'puts the viability of the contingent deliverables at risk', the broadcaster's director of video Steve Carson said in June. It's worth noting that RTÉ at least has secure and predictable funding until 2027, under the multiannual funding agreement reached with the Government last year – the first such arrangement of its type. Meanwhile, TG4 has no such certainty, an issue raised by the broadcaster's chief executive Deirdre Ní Choistín and others at the committee in recent weeks.
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SPI put a finer point on the matter in its submission. The industry body queried whether this aspect of the Bill actually meets the requirements of the European Media Freedom Act around the predictability of funding. Simply, it said there is 'no obligation' on the Minister's part to accept Coimisiún na Meán's recommendations. In other words, funding for RTÉ and public service media more broadly will remain a political football. Government officials, however, are confident the new system will represent a sea change in the funding of public service broadcasting.
If there is a certain degree of scepticism about this aspect of the legislation, it has been at least somewhat influenced by O'Donovan's decision to effectively scrap the so-called Netflix levy. Recommended by Coimisiún na Meán and supported by the broadcasters and screen producers, the levy was supposed to raise funds for independent productions and Irish language programming.
The levy is now in limbo after the Minister said in April that the Government would not introduce it without his approval, citing concerns around the additional cost burden on Irish subscribers. With the Trump administration heavily criticising foreign countries for putting up trade barriers to large US multinationals, some in Ireland believe the Coalition's change of tack on the levy is at least partially a case of not wanting to poke the bear.
Still, not everyone is enamoured of the idea. Last week, representatives of the
League of Ireland
's streaming platform LOITV and GAA+ expressed concern that the levy could massively heighten their operating costs. They asked that any levy be progressively tiered, taking in more from larger streamers than smaller ones. LOITV operates on a 'break-even basis', League of Ireland director Mark Scanlon told the committee last week, and all of the revenues from subscriptions are ploughed back into the participating clubs. 'So all the costs are being covered at this moment in time, production costs and then also costs [of hiring] commentators. Any levy would impact our ability to deliver the service.'
Those concerns may be moot if the levy is the dead letter that many believe it to be. Asked for comment this week, a spokesman for the Minister said his position on the charge has 'not changed' in recent months. However, he said: 'The Minister recognises the detailed scrutiny of the general scheme is being undertaken by the committee and will review any recommendations made by the committee in the context of the pre-legislative scrutiny report that will be submitted to him.'
Scrutiny of the Bill is set to continue when the Dáil sits again after the summer recess, after the committee requested additional time, and industry stakeholders will be closely following the remainder of the process and the committee's report. In the meantime, after an avalanche of headlines related to his brief in recent weeks, the break is coming at a good time for O'Donovan and his department.