The Government’s abrupt and extraordinary withdrawal of €20 million in funding promised to RTÉ for 2027 is a fresh punch on the nose for the public service broadcaster.
If no political resolution can be found, RTÉ will be forced to scramble to slash its services, programming and headcount.
It has little room to manoeuvre, however, with its options constrained by fixed costs, existing spending commitments, legislative requirements, and the usual lead times involved in the making of television.
RTÉ will have budgeted for public funding of €260 million in 2027. Taking €20 million out of that total at the eleventh hour will be a messy and fractious process – one that would be impossible to complete without damaging both RTÉ and the broader Irish screen industry.
RTÉ director general Kevin Bakhurst described an emergency meeting with Minister for Media Patrick O’Donovan as “extremely constructive”, having earlier said that if nothing changed, the organisation would be left with “some pretty difficult choices to make”.
The most obvious place it would turn to in the “difficult choices” scenario is its commissions from independent production companies.
RTÉ was, before the Minister’s intervention, aiming to allocate about €60 million to independent commissions in 2027. This is about €10 million above the sum that it must spend under statutory minimum spending rules.
[ RTÉ DG says he has confidence in Minister after ‘constructive’ meeting on fundingOpens in new window ]
That €10 million could now be vulnerable. If RTÉ was to retreat on this spending – it is expected to spend about €58 million on independent commissions in 2026 – it would undermine the breadth and quality of its programming in 2027.
The big tent poles in its schedule are unlikely to be affected. RTÉ has deals in place for independently produced shows such as The Traitors Ireland and Dancing with the Stars. Axing these shows would make little sense in any case, as they are popular and bring in much-needed commercial revenue.
During previous crises, RTÉ responded by delaying the transmission of dramas and comedies, even when those same shows were broadcast internationally as planned.
To do this again in 2027 – for instance, by postponing the third season of the drama Kin – would mark a major setback in its ongoing bid to attract audiences in a competitive industry.
Instead, it is the long tail of lower-budget programming – the six-part factual series, the one-off documentary – made by smaller independent producers that could be placed in doubt.
This would not only substantially diminish the richness of its offering, it would also cause hardship and loss of work in the independent sector.
In-house production – already being whittled back – would likely have to bear some of the brunt too. The problem here is that RTÉ doesn’t make very much programming itself any more beyond news and current affairs, which sits at the heart of its remit.
Two notable exceptions are Fair City, which has seen its episode frequency temporarily reduced in the past, and The Late Late Show, which already runs for a shorter season than it did before the crisis year of 2023.
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Sports rights are expensive, meaning any bids currently in train could need to be rethought as a result of the Government’s move. But less sport also means less of that vital advertising money, while politicians tend to notice and vociferously object whenever RTÉ tries to skimp on the genre.
Elsewhere, there is a risk that the necessary continual investment in the RTÉ Player and its new Listen app could suffer, while a plan to move out of its obsolete Cork studios on Fr Mathew Street into new premises in the city next year could also be in jeopardy.
Voluntary redundancies, meanwhile, remain a key element of Bakhurst’s five-year strategy to shrink RTÉ, with the official expectation still being that 400 people will leave the organisation by 2029.
About 100 people departed RTÉ last year, with 67 people leaving under a voluntary exit scheme – the launch of which was delayed by the Government. But even if RTÉ was to shortly receive fresh approval for a second scheme, this would not represent a path to quick savings.
Industry insiders are dazed by how Budget 2027 has left the sector – not just RTÉ – in disarray.
They point to the irony of €20 million being pulled from RTÉ at a time when the Minister is pushing through the Broadcasting (Amendment) Bill 2026, which is designed to implement the EU principle of “adequate, sustainable and predictable” funding for public service media in Irish law.
The Department of Media said it would “continue to engage constructively” with RTÉ on the issues discussed at Thursday’s meeting.
But anything less than the restoration of the €20 million pledged to RTÉ could prove a lasting blow to the relationship between its current management and this Government.
