Analysis: RTÉ may well wait until after the general election before deciding where to make painful cuts, writes Joe Humphreys.
Only one conclusion can be drawn from yesterday's RTÉ Authority meeting on the future of the State broadcaster - and that is that the torture will go on for some time yet.
No decisions were taken on how to address the company's financial crisis, and none are imminent, judging by the chairman's talk of referring the latest RTÉ strategic review to the newly established Forum on the Future of Broadcasting.
In a brief statement, Mr Paddy Wright said the confidential report, compiled by consultants KPMG and Logical Strategy, was regarded by the authority as "a work in progress".
That work is now set to continue for at least another month before anything which could be classified as a rescue plan is likely to emerge.
The report sets out a variety of options for the State broadcaster, including the outsourcing of programming to independent producers except in the areas of news and current affairs. This is a model successfully pursued by the Irish language station TG4 and Channel 4 in the UK.
A less dramatic option suggested is for RTÉ to retain a number of flagship programmes such as the Late Late Show and Fair City, along with news, current affairs and sport.
A more modest and ill-defined proposal is to continue producing the same range of programmes but at a lower cost.
High-cost public service elements of RTÉ, such as Lyric FM and the RTÉ Symphony Orchestra, are understood to have attracted particular attention under the review, and appear extremely vulnerable to cuts.
One option which has not been courted by the consultants is for RTÉ to continue the way it is going.
Last year, the company had a €38 million deficit. It lost a further €20 million in both 2000 and 1999.
A radical proposal to sell RTÉ's Montrose headquarters and follow TV3 to a site on the outskirts of Dublin is also considered in the report. However, it is understood to argue that such a move would not resolve the company's primary difficulty - the widening gap between costs and revenue.
A more likely outcome is the sale of sections of RTÉ's 32-acre site, a large portion of which is currently unused or devoted to car-parking. The consultants are understood to have recommended that the proceeds of such land sales should be channelled into capital expenditure and new projects such as the introduction of digital broadcasting, and 24-hour news and education channels, rather than into paying running costs.
Significant redundancies - running into the hundreds - are entailed in all of the consultants' options.
Fearful of the outcome, RTÉ's group of unions is to launch a campaign next week aimed at securing guarantees for an increase in State funding ahead of the general election.
The group's secretary, Mr P.J. Coakley, said he welcomed Mr Wright's stated commitment yesterday to create an "excellent working environment" at RTÉ. He added he found it "significant" that the chairman said the review would provide an input to the broadcasting forum.
Mr Wright's comments suggested "he sees a hierarchy to these reports, and it would seem the forum is now at the top of that hierarchy", said Mr Coakley.
RTÉ refused yesterday to elaborate further on Mr Wright's statement.
Only established last week by the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, Ms de Valera, the broadcasting forum has been charged with making recommendations on how RTÉ should pursue its public-service broadcasting role. The forum, however, is not due to report until the end of July, by which time the general election will have come and gone.
Its creation may have given RTÉ just the excuse it was looking for to do nothing until a new, and more benevolent, government is in place.