The staff of RTÉ will be given a newly revised version of the broadcasting company’s five-year plan, in a meeting with director general Kevin Bakhurst on Tuesday afternoon. This invitation for the ‘townhall’ meeting has been extended to all employees, who can attend physically or virtually, despite some incredulity surrounding the proceedings at Montrose. Anticipation is rife that undisclosed aspects of the updated plan will be made public, after its presentation to the Cabinet earlier in the morning or during the staff briefing.
In the previous month, RTÉ unveiled the preliminary version of the strategy, encompassing fields such as financial management, public service, and production, spread across 10 key areas. The scheme, having undergone an intramural consultation, suggested a job cuts by 20 per cent, correlating to around 400 staff, along with a 50 per cent hike in independent productions expenditure, and a shift towards more production in provincial centres, including Cork, Galway, and Limerick. The plan aimed to achieve forty redundancies this year, while the redundancy component was set to amount to €40 million.
On Tuesday, RTÉ’s announcement stated that the updated five-year plan is a development of their 10-point strategic vision revealed last November, complemented by subsequent consultations with RTÉ employees, the general public, and other parties involved. This plan will be officially released in the afternoon, post its discussion with the Cabinet.
Potential insights on the Government’s future funding plans for RTÉ might be shared during the Cabinet discussion, given the considerable slump in revenue from licence fees following governance issues involving the broadcaster. These issues came to light when the company’s highest paid host then, Ryan Tubridy, was revealed to have a salary higher than what was officially declared.
Several members of the board and senior management team, including former chair Siún Ní Raghallaigh, faced gruelling sessions before numerous Oireachtas committees followed by their subsequent resignations. This came in the wake of statements made by the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, which Ní Raghallaigh perceived as an explicit lack of faith in her leadership.
There has been talk of enhancing transparency as a part of planned administrative reforms within the organisation; particularly in relation to the salaries of the highest-earning managers and leading presenters.
The robust financial rewards given to outgoing senior executives, notably former CFOs Brenda O’Keeffe, Richard Collins and Rory Coveney – each of whom received six-figure amounts on exiting their roles – have been a flashpoint of controversy within RTÉ in the previous year.
A fresh set of rules regulating outside commercial activity by employees were issued, suspected to have prompted the exodus of numerous high-profile radio hosts, especially from station 2FM. Recently, the station confirmed that Jennifer Zamparelli and the 2 Johnnies would be parting ways, with reports surfacing on Tuesday that Donncha O’Callaghan, a breakfast show presenter, is set to leave his post by month’s end. RTÉ has yet to respond to these report.