RTÉ admits paying Tubridy €345,000 more than declared

Tomorrow is the big day folks RTÉ is going to announce

Job cuts

Closure of Digital Radio services

Moves to Cork

It is strategy 2024, but they have a trick up their sleave, they are going to get the Screen Producers of Ireland on board by offering 50% increase in indo productions (Going from 40 m to 60 m... just don't tell anyone one they cut it back by 50% from 80m in the late 2000s).

It isn't strategy 2024 its .... NEW DIRECTION 2028

Oh and you can say good bye to RTÉ ONE +1 !

400 staff to go, makes you wonder what they are doing in the organisation that it can continue without them as it's near 25% of staff. The cost of this scheme is estimated to be in the region of €40 million so a €100k a head pay off, nice if you can get it...

That's the problem with averages, it won't be that for The Grunts effected, It'll be capped at max of two years salary if you've done 20 years service. So a PA BCO or Researcher may get a max of 70k before tax after 20 years service. Unless of course you make them mandatory and let people go with just stat redundancy. People who had no idea how the company was being run (Ruined) and were just doing their day jobs are the ones going to pay the prices. As for how the number will be reached it's explained by the fact that the majority of inhouse programmes will now be commissioned.

400 over 5 years. Ridiculous.

Could you have any confidence that they will perform any of these?

RTÉ plans to reduce staff numbers by up to 400 by 2028 through voluntary redundancy under a plan sent to the Government.

The cost of this scheme is estimated to be in the region of €40 million.

There is an aim to achieve 40 redundancies quickly and this will be funded by the proceeds of land already sold on the RTÉ campus.

The strategic plan says RTÉ will continue to reduce the pay of its top presenters and will keep in place a 2023 pay cap.

The plan is also seeking to further cut operating costs by around €10 million next year.

Upgraded technology, live and online content will be prioritised, in this plan.

Some services are set to be reduced and there will be more production in Cork and in other regions in the years ahead.

There will be a direct and immediate impact on services the plan says and the RTÉ 1 +1 and the RTÉ 2 +1 TV channels would cease.

More content will be produced by the independent sector and services such as RTÉ Radio 1 Extra, RTÉ Pulse and RTÉ 2XM could be scrapped.

With such a large work force how many would be leaving thru retirement to start with, seems a piss poor effort and we all know when it comes to RTE, promises and action are two very different things

It's not a plan at all.

The penny hasn't dropped that the station is broke and has been broke for years.

If this was a private company it would be long gone.

If it means it becomes a smaller organisation with the main focus on news and current affairs, then so be it.

The narrative that current staff will suffer... lol ! That place has been a gravy train for decades and it still is... Its not human nature to see it as if they hit the lotto, but they did... time is simply up now for some of them, but they have had a feast, not a famine...

So 400 voluntary redundancies? In my experience of that, its the best talent who get the pay off and leave. The wasters stay on as they know they wont get a job anywhere else!

Not all of them are. But all of them have benefitted from overstaffing and many from overpayment and no doubt ridiculous pensions etc... if they are worth that in the real world, they won't have problems finding employment...

RTE is not a public service broadcaster in the traditional sense of the term. It uses a hybrid model which sees it active in the commercial sphere and competing with commerical Irish broadcasters for advertising revenue. For the first decade or so of the operation of RTE's TV service, it had almost no competition except from UK channels that could be received on the coast and the border. The advent of cable television in the 1970s changed that and it was facing more competition. The pirate radio stations of the late 1970s and 1980s created even more competition as did the satellite TV channels from the late 1980s onwards.

RTE has also had to compete with streaming services with RTE Player. Because of the licence fee funding and bailouts, RTE has had the luxury of surviving when a commercial station facing the same competition would have failed long ago. Like a drip-fed junkie hooked on cash, RTE has the licence fee and bailouts feeding its habit. The rubbish about RTE having to pay its "talent" so well to prevent them begin poached by commercial broadcasters has been show to be just that. Tubridy has been gone from RTE for months and, to use Terry Prone's apt phrase, the offers haven't been coming over the phone for the Ryanstone cowboy.

Despite RTE's aspirations to be BBC on the Dodder, it is not. Commerical stations can't afford to lose audiences and would be faster to get rid of "talent" that were losing numbers. RTE can because is is funded by the licence fee, bailouts and commercial advertising. RTE and its hybrid model has skewed the Irish media market because commercial Irish broadcasters can't compete with RTE's deep, taxpayer-funded, pockets. For RTE, like the end of the movie "Goodfellas", it's over. Tubridy will have to be content with egg noodles and ketchup on the Alan Partridge circuit.

Regards...jmcc