Plans for big cuts announced yesterday. They held off too long in making these with many of cuts made up to now small and narrow. Good to see focus of cuts in sports will avoid Irish events. A lot of money wasted on things like ‘The Premiership’ which has always had poor ratings. Ridiculous situation where RTÉ have regularly spent large sums on securing rights to it and yet when there is a big Irish soccer game outside of their existing deal (like playoff against France) RTÉ seem to regularly struggle to secure rights for it.
As part of additional cost-cutting measures, a new voluntary redundancy scheme will be established, with €15m of savings to be sought from staffing costs.
There will be a 25% reduction in the budget for sports rights by 2014, with Irish sport to be a priority in future.
The amount paid for overseas programming will be cut by at least 10% by next year.
There will also be a reduction in spending on regional divisions, with “specific decisions to be finalised over the next quarter and communicated to news, radio and operational staff”.
Further measures will see a minimum of 10% reduction in the budget for acquiring overseas programming.
The announcement of a minimum 30% cut in pay for top earning presenters will apply to the top 20 best-paid staff. RTE had previously sought this level of reduction from its ten best-paid staff only.
The cost reduction plan was announced by RTE Director General Noel Curran this evening.
Mr Curran said: "Key goals include eliminating the financial deficit; delivering on clearly-defined output priorities; and becoming a truly multimedia organisation that embraces the opportunities provided by digital technologies.
"Clearly RTE must innovate and remain relevant to the needs of the Irish public, guaranteeing our public value. Our operations and delivery must be cost effective.
“We must be excellent. In achieving all of these things, as we can and will, we will secure our future. So it is vital that we make these changes.”
As part of today’s announcement, RTE said it had told its Trade Union Group and Management Association that it intends to open new work practice negotiations, beginning after Easter.
Mr Curran said: “Significant change will be required so that work practices become simpler, more flexible, more effective. All change will be through negotiation.”