Sir, – It’s not only that radical changes are being made in RTÉ (Fintan O’Toole, “With all the confidence of a hostage in a ransom video, Catherine Martin began dismantling RTÉ”, Opinion & Analysis, July 30th) but also that the director general is leading and the Minister and Government are allowing them without consultation or discussion with the public or in the Oireachtas.
As anyone who has worked there over the past couple of decades (in my case up to retirement five years ago) knows, there has been a systematic erosion of the creative hub which not only generated programmes but fed the wider media industry through the training and multi-genre editorial experience of producers, directors, editors, camerapersons, and so on.
Stripping RTÉ in-house production back to news and current affairs will destroy something which, for all its faults, has served audiences and citizens well, effectively removing our BBC and leaving us with Channel 4, when we need both. – Yours, etc,
DAVID McKENNA,
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Dublin 8.
