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RTÉ WILL CUT €1.5 million from its news and current affairs budget as part of an effort to reduce costs at the broadcaster by €60 million over three years.
Management announced the budget reduction to employees in the department during a staff meeting in recent weeks.
The department works across TV, radio and digital news. It produces flagship news and current affairs programmes, including Morning Ireland, News At One, Claire Byrne Live, This Week and Prime Time, along with the Nuacht service for TG4.
It is understood the department has a budget in the region of €30-35 million.
Staff at the station overwhelmingly rejected pay cuts in April, prompting RTÉ to say it would “consider other options as to how best to make the necessary savings”.
The target includes savings made from employees leaving the national broadcaster as part of a voluntary redundancy programme.
RTÉ’s midlands correspondent Ciarán Mullooly retired last week after applying for the redundancy package in April. Ingrid Miley, who had been the broadcaster’s industry and employment correspondent, also left the station earlier this month.
RTÉ’s most recent annual report reveals that there were 301 people employed in the news and current department in 2019, a notable drop from 349 in 2017.
The broadcaster’s total operating costs for that year were €337.8 million and it had a total net deficit of €7.2 million.
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Orrrrr….and here me out on this… Cut salaries of the presenters. If they think they can get better wages elsewhere then let them go
@Keith Grant: several of them are hired not as presenters but as entire production companies. In that way they risen even more undeserved cash. Literal pieces of shyte these people
@Keith Grant: Agreed, also maybe stop buying in so much overseas produced entertainment shows. The last thing that should be cut from a national broadcaster is their news and current affairs section.
@Cocker: it’s RTE and the system who create the playing field. These guys are capitalizing on it, as ridiculous as it is. But they’re not setting it up that way themselves.
But they will still continue to pay Tubs, Ray D’Arcy, ect €100,000′s a year. Joke of a broadcaster.
@Eoin Fitzgerald: Think it’s a lot more than that, more in around the €450 thousand euro mark p.a.
@Colette Kearns: To give it some perspective, before the Banking crash Tubs was on €700,000+ a year, and yes he was just as brutal then as he is now, that’s an example of the culture in RTE, they paid him that much so that the can justify paying other nobodies in RTE €200,000 – these people who would normally be on less than half that in a regular job.
@Eoin Fitzgerald: darcy’s on 450k a year. 45k would be too much.
Reduce show quantity and increase quality. High quality or successful programs can be licensed to foreign networks and streaming services for a premium. Stop trying to be BBC and work with the budget you have. Get rid of the likes of Fair City which offer nothing of value and produce stuff of substance.
@Liam Byrne: Who the flip do you think you are spouting that kind of common sense. All you have to offer is level-headed good advice. How DARE you suggest scrapping fair City in favour of good programming. I will stand for it sir!
@Liam Byrne: Fair City is the best comedy show ever!
@Liam Byrne: They could change Fair City over to a 20-26 episodes per year show on the same budget (or even give a bit extra) and turn out something decent, leave a fortnight between big budget cliffhangers and spread them out. Change the lighting/locations to a more love/hate type of variation.
My sentiments exactly… the sky didn’t fall in when Pat Kenny left. Also, change radio programme names by dropping the presenters name… the Ryan Tubridy show can only be done by… mm, sometimes its Oliver Callan.
Drop the big wages and get more talent in. If I remember correctly, some presenters had a bigger salary than the US president!
Some good news from RTE for a change…
@William Tallon: if it means getting rid of George Lee
@Eoin Fitzgerald: George Lee is forever! He’s like Jack Torrance in ‘The Shining’. He’s always been there…
@Eoin Fitzgerald: And Claire Byrne with a bit of luck
@John O: Miriam O’Callaghan is worse
@Eoin Fitzgerald: At least Miriam is not a mouthpiece for NPHET government
@Eoin Fitzgerald: who’ll do the counting then?????
Get rid of Miriam O Callaghan. Sarah McInerney is top class and can carry that show on her own.
@Tommy Berry: 100% agreed
@Tommy Berry: The amount of presenters they have now is a joke & they spend most of the time interviewing each other!!! And to announce a cut of 1.5M just a few weeks after they wasted how much on a brand new studio??
@Dave: and they won’t even sit on the chairs!!
Anything but the wages again.
@Paul Cunningham: Not everyone in RTÉ are on big wages.
@Tommy Berry: BS
@Tommy Berry: The high wages make up for those on low wages.
@Dixieblue: Really? Do tell?
@Tommy Berry: what about that lucrative Defined Benefit pension scheme though? It has crippled the organisation but they just won’t let it go as they know it’s gold dust in the market these days.
In there car I usually listen to news talk. But from time to time I lose the signal. One day I was scanning the stations and landed on rte radio 1.the song playing at the time was Hit me baby one more time. The national broadcaster should only be playing locally produced content. Any 2 bit station can play that and paying good money too for it. Iv always said it. Do away with rte and make tg4 the state broadcaster. They do a much better job on a fraction of the budget.
Maybe start by giving George Lee his P.45….the nation needs cheering up:)
@Franny Ando: are you joking. George is an expert in many fields eg finance,agriculture and currently science. And Don’t forget he was top class TD also
@James Fox: Your humour knows no bounds
@James Fox: I hope that’s sarcasm:)
@Franny Ando: can easily see why he went into politics. Spends five minutes waffling on when it could be said in a single sentence. Maybe he gets paid by the minute?!
Rejected their pay cuts? What else are they supposed to do? I wasn’t too happy about my pay cut (rejected) at work but i got it any way.
@OConnelj: Excellent :-) well said
Ray D’arcy is on €450,000 a year. Let that sink in for a minute.
@OConnelj: €8,500 a week.
Can we not keep the news and weather and cut fair city.
Sack them all but keep John Creedon, a great man for the tunes.
Rag of station anyway put on shows that were on bcc weeks before hand be better off to disband Mr Big RTE paying tv licence for that stop the lights,,
Hangone.. did the studio for rte news and #PT not get million of makeover including media training for all those involved.. horse bolted.
I say stop paying for sh1_ UK TV.
They can no longer claim to be a public service broadcaster. Can’t even show League of Ireland highlights. No reason to be paying license fees if they don’t cater to the public. At the end of the day, I’m sure that’s part of their remit…. let them go fully commercial and see if they sink or swim.
Should be subscription only. Float or sink depending on quality and demand. That’s how business works outside the taxpayer protected fairytale that they live in.
They should cut €1.5 million from Duffy, D’Arcy and O’ Connor!
Should knockdown RTE sell the land to build houses and move to the countryside
Get rid of George Lee for a start…
That a top 2 earnings saved tubs and Darcy thanks bit of god they won’t be poached now
1st person i would fire would be george lee dr death, loves telling audience about number of covid cases, faiked politician
Rte do not represent good value for money as an entertainment channel in comparison to what else is out there but during the pandemic I think they did a stellar job as the national broadcastor. People turned to RTE News every single night for information and reassurances during the last 15months. There are a lot of very talanted people working in the ranks of RTE that deserve those salaries but there’s also a substantial amount of their presenters and producers that should get their marching orders so standards can improve
This makes me happy….
Privatise RTÉ.
And we still wont get the real news.Only gov spin.
Ya, but does anybody think it was unfair for Yokozuna to have to defend his WWF title against Lex Lugar AND the hit man Brett Hart in Summerslam ’93.
RTÉ 2 now showing repeats of TG4 programmes.
Sending six-one newsreaders to Killarney and/or Belfast instead of using the respected regional correspondent is also a waste.
Presenters on RTE get paid so well they could work for the HSE.
Start with all the ‘roving reporters’. Every Segment on the news seems to break away to some reporter standing outside a court house in Bruff or some other rural backwater to repeat the same thing the studio reporter just told you. Think of the cost of all the gear and crews and expenses and accommodation. Its 2021, we don’t need all of this nonsense for a country this size.
Scrap the whole of rte, it’s nothing more than a bias mouth piece for the government and an utter waste of taxpayers money.
More repeats again,again and again
Excellent :) well said
RTE is great for the sport but it has a lot of mediocre shows.
@andrew: huh? When was the last time RTE showed a League of Ireland game? Indeed, when has Reeling in the Years ever shown anything connected to League of Ireland? St Pats winning the Cup Final for first time in 61 years and completely blanked. Mad stuff.
Rte pure sh…
Will that mean less interruptions on morning Ireland (Interruption)?
Poor Gavin & Audrey.
Ryan tubridy comes on every morning and is regurgitating news from every news paper etc, or telling u about the Christmas 2022 late late show, it’s a joke.
Catherine Thomas came on last week and started talking about her latest pregnancy. All we get is one promoting each other. BIG CUTBACKS NEEDED.
OLIVER CALLAN IS BRILLIANT.
Cut wages
I don’t understand how budget figures are arrived at.???? Where can the annual balance sheet be found?
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