RTÉ is facing a perfect storm that clouds its future in uncertainty

John Irvine, one of the influential shapers of the fledgling television service in the 1960s, reckoned that there was no more demanding job in Irish public life than that of RTÉ director general (DG). There were “so many qualities and virtues” that the chief executive was expected to display that the situation was “unreal”.

In Irvine’s personal archives, a document spelt out the requirements. A successful DG would need to “have a good, solid, but liberal national outlook”; and also be modern, progressive and hard-working while proving an inventive, intuitive leader. Incidentally, it was presumed throughout this 1960s document that putative applicants for the post would be male.

By temperament he “must be cool” and capable of withstanding the inevitable public criticism. “An impulsive or capricious director general would be a disaster.” Finally, the envisaged paragon should not be an “egghead”: but, if so, he should still understand what interested “the ordinary man in the street”.

Half a century later, applying for the DG’s job, Kevin Bakhurst was well aware of the contemporary challenge: how, in an ever-changing media environment, public service broadcasting should best be funded. What he could not have anticipated was the perfect storm that would engulf RTÉ just as he arrived and which would call into question the station’s credibility as a supplicant for public funding.

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Summoned to appear on several occasions before two all-party Oireachtas committees, RTÉ management found itself defending its spending on corporate hospitality – always an easy target for begrudgers. Barter accounts had to be explained to a public unaware of their currency in the advertising world. The politicians, critical of the laxity of RTÉ’s accounting practices with regard to these accounts, renamed them “slush funds”.

And there was endless debate over Ryan Tubridy’s pay and whether the published figures had been understated, and, if so, whether they should have been corrected. And by whom. There was even the joint appearance at the hearing by Tubridy himself alongside his agent Noel Kelly. This was truly box office.

And it played out for many hours of testimony at the televised hearings, which proved to be preferred viewing in some country pubs to horse racing. It was the main topic of conversation for weeks. Some even said that it provided the best televised drama they could remember.

Much of it resembled a tangled web. And many of the arguments were necessarily arcane. While the gratuitous sarcasm of some of the political interrogators seemed more intent on creating soundbites than getting answers, other more skilled members of the committees did elicit damning details of recent poor governance at the top in RTÉ.

The fact that it was such a complicated narrative left the station vulnerable to Ronald Reagan’s warning that “when you’re explaining you’re losing”.

And RTÉ did have a lot of explaining to do. It was a public relations disaster – with the broadcaster’s only positive being plaudits for the independent tone of its own coverage of the continuing debacle.

[ Tubridy has landed a new job in the UK but why has Virgin Radio given him one? ]

Since funding public service broadcasting was at the heart of the controversy, it was not helpful when the revelations triggered an unforeseen consequence. A minority who had been shy of paying their television licence could boast that they had been right all along. And others, who disliked such charges anyway, now joined the bandwagon.

This erosion of licence revenue then further compounded what was already a very difficult political decision. And Irish governments can be notoriously shy of taking hard decisions when it comes to imposing new charges: especially with elections imminent.

There has been much debate about how other European democracies fund public service broadcasting. The Future of Media Commission was impressed by those countries that abandoned the old licence fee model in favour of arms-length exchequer funding.

But although such a switch in Ireland was its main recommendation when it reported in 2022, it was flatly rejected by the Coalition. Instead it set up a technical working group to explore options for a modernised and reformed licence fee.

This past week the Minister for Arts and Media, Catherine Martin, suggested that this expert committee should revisit that issue and not exclude the direct exchequer funding model from their deliberations.

But it is also known that she has little support for this line from senior Government Ministers. And all Ministers are promising that the issue needs to be resolved within the lifetime of this Coalition.

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The Government insists that public service broadcasting is essential for a healthy democracy. RTÉ is still the main supplier: and – through its own programming over many decades – arguably its main practitioner.

And it obviously aspires – through its promised reform programme – to remain the best custodian in future of public service broadcasting. Whether it can maintain that role while losing a fifth of its workforce and outsourcing more of its programme-making to the independent sector remains to be seen. RTÉ’s position is certainly more perilous than it has ever been.

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It can safely be said that no director general in its history has ever had to face such a challenge as that currently facing Bakhurst.

And a postscript. Irvine included one other test in his already quoted long list of required qualities in a director general: that he be “an Irish national”. One indication of the advances made in the half century since Irvine’s memo is that Bakhurst’s nationality is manifestly irrelevant. He wins widespread respect for his integrity and straight talking – even from those in disagreement with his policies.

Should he succeed in steering a successful path through the quicksands ahead might he even prove to be as popular an Englishman in Ireland as Jack Charlton or Andy Farrell?

Dr John Bowman is a historian. He has been a broadcaster on RTÉ television and radio since the 1960s and is author of Window and Mirror: RTÉ Television: 1961-2011