RTÉ plans to reduce staff numbers by 400 and outsource more content to stem financial crisis

RTÉ has told the Government it will reduce staff numbers by 20 per cent, or 400 people, sharply increase spending on independent productions, cut some services and examine the sale of part of the Donnybrook campus.

A new strategic plan for the broadcaster also acknowledges that RTÉ must “progressively reduce costs and overheads” to overcome the financial crisis that has engulfed it since the revelations of additional payments to its former star presenter Ryan Tubridy earlier this year.

The plan pledges to reduce costs by a further €10 million in 2024, to institute a new approach to financial management, to begin the process of reducing headcount by 20 per cent and to vacate part of the Donnybrook campus with a view to exploring a sale or other commercial use.

It rules out as uneconomic a sale of the entire campus and a move elsewhere for the station, but says that it will begin the process of moving some production from Dublin to Cork, and later to expand in Limerick and Galway. It aims to have increased production in Limerick, Cork and Galway by 2025.

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Reductions in staff numbers are expected to be – initially at least – voluntary and are likely to cost €40 million, it is understood.

The plan also promises to significantly reduce the numbers of staff that are paid over €100,000 a year.

It also says the station will increase spending on independent productions by 50 per cent by 2028.

A new RTÉ news app will be developed by 2025. There will be an effort to attract younger listeners and viewers to its services but some services are likely to be abolished, including RTÉ Pulse, RTÉ 2XM, RTÉ Jr Radio and RTÉ Radio 1 Extra.

RTÉ director general Kevin Bakhurst is to brief staff on the plan on Tuesday.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said Minister for Media Catherine Martin and the Coalition party leaders received the plan in recent days and “we need to give it give it proper consideration”. As a result, he said, the Cabinet would not be considering it at its meeting on Tuesday.

Asked at a press conference on Monday if he believed there was enough in the plan to justify the up to €40 million in State funding that the National Treasury Management Agency’s NewERA agency had suggested RTÉ needed, Mr Varadkar said the Government had to “give it proper consideration first”.

He added: “There’s two separate questions here. There’s the €40 million that RTÉ will need to keep RTÉ going and then there’s the wider piece as to what the future of RTÉ looks like and how that’s going to be funded.

“I believe RTÉ is an essential service, it’s a public service broadcaster, and we’re not going to allow it to fail, we’re not going to allow it to cease to operate as a going concern. And that’s why they will need additional finance and they will need that before the end of the year. The exact amount is yet to be agreed.”

Siptu’s divisional organiser Teresa Hannick said she was “shocked” by the number of job cuts being suggested and angry that staff at the national broadcaster were again reading about Montrose management’s plans in the media before being told directly.

“There is a meeting tomorrow with the group of unions at which we’ll get ‘a walkthrough’ of the plan but in the meantime the staff are finding out about their futures and through leaks in the media,” she said.

She said the indication from management had been that Tuesday’s meeting would be a briefing with no opportunity for interaction.

“Until that, I don’t know what the truth is but the numbers being leaked are absolutely shocking and there is a lot of concern in certain sectors of the organisation that they are simply going to be sold off.”

She said she had feared any survival plan would be “rough” but that she was still shocked by what is being talked about now. “I’m very concerned about the number of job losses and the wider issue of funding because of the issues with the licence fee and the question of how much political support there is for the organisation.”

Siptu has almost 1,000 members, including members of Equity, the performing arts union which is an affiliate organisation, at RTÉ and Ms Hannick said she would be putting an emergency motion to the union’s conference in Galway when the situation is clarified.

National Union of Journalists Irish secretary Séamus Dooley said the emergence of details of the strategy document on Monday “by way of media leaks is a further blow to the trust of staff in an organisation where morale is at an all-time low”.

He said: “We are gravely concerned at the scale of the proposed redundanices and will require detailed information on how it is proposed to maintain core services and the impact on staff of such drastic proposals.

“Against the backdrop of an investigation into the last voluntary redundancy programme, staff will be very sceptical about a new programme.

“Staff will want an assurance that there is a genuine, sustainable long plan based on clearly defined objectives that than a set of announcements aimed at securing Government support for short-term funding.”

An independent review of RTÉ's previous voluntary exit schemes was announced by management over the summer amid concerns over lack of transparency and inconsistency in the handling of applications.

On December 31st, 2022, there were 1,868 employees, of which 243 were part-time/casual.

The full-time equivalent (FTE) headcount on December 31st, 2022 was 1,735.

At the start of 2022, the National Symphony Orchestra and its 70 FTE staff transferred from RTÉ to the National Concert Hall.

* This article was amended on 14/11/23 to correct the extent to which RTÉ plans to increase spending on independent productions by 2028.