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RTÉ IS TO cut the pay of its top presenters by 15% as part of a major restructuring plan that will seek to reduce costs by €60 million over three years.
The national broadcaster revealed details of the plan this evening which will also see 200 jobs cut next year.
Lyric FM is to be retained but its production moved from Limerick to Cork and Dublin.
RTÉ Director-General Dee Forbes said in a statement tonight that the station is in a “fight for the future” of the organisation.
Forbes said last year that RTÉ was facing “urgent and substantial financial challenges” and that change was needed.
As part of cost-cutting efforts, RTÉ has pledged to “reduce the fees paid to our top contracted on-air presenters by 15%”, this is in addition to cuts of “over 30% agreed in previous years”.
RTÉ executives are to take a 10% reduction in pay and the board of RTÉ will “waive its fees”.
As well as a reduction in staff numbers of about 200 next year, other staff-related savings are to be found.
RTÉ says it will work to reduce staff costs by consulting with staff and unions “on a number of initiatives, to include pay freeze, tiered pay reductions, review of benefits, work practice reforms”.
The broadcaster says it will close its Digital Audio Broadcast network as well as RTÉ’s digital radio stations, such as RTÉ 2XM, RTÉ Pulse and RTÉ Gold.
RTÉ Aertel is to cease, the RTÉ Guide is to be sold and the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra is to be transferred to the National Concert Hall.
Speculation that Lyric FM’s future was in jeopardy raised fears among listeners in September but RTÉ has now confirmed that the station will be retained.
“Production of RTÉ lyric fm will move to Cork and Dublin. RTÉ will continue to provide a mid-west news service in Limerick,” the statement said.
Licence fee
In the statement this evening, RTÉ said that licence fee evasion rates in Ireland are among the highest in Europe and are “costing jobs”.
The broadcaster says that between people who evade their TV licence fee and those who just watch RTÉ programming on the RTÉ player, “over €50 million is lost to public broadcasting every year”.
“Government needs to act to ensure there is a future for public service media in Ireland. I am clear about what role RTÉ should play in Irish life, but I am also clear that we cannot do it unless government fixes the TV licence system We shouldn’t be under any illusions; we are in a fight, a fight to sustain a viable public media in Ireland,” Forbes said this evening.
The RTÉ Director-General, who spoke on last night’s Late Late Show special, said the death of Gay Byrne caused this plan to be released this week.
“Our intention was to brief staff in full this week. However, given the sad passing of our colleague Gay Byrne, a decision was taken to postpone until next week. With so much detail now in the public domain, our first priority was to contact all staff immediately with an update on the revised strategy, and plans,” she said.
In a separate statement, chair of the RTÉ board Moya Doherty said that the TV licence fee system is “broken” and “has not been fit for purpose for a long time”.
“In order to support this process of transformation that we are embarking on and to achieve financial stability, the TV Licence must be reformed. This is the responsibility of government alone,” Doherty said.
“This is one of the most defining moments in the RTÉ’s 93-year history.”
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Isnt god wonderful….
No….The universe is wonderful.
Your obviously more religous than scientific otherwise you would know your so called God did not create the Universe. Or this World for that matter.
I think there was a slight hint of sarcasm in James’s comment which you all missed
Nice work putting the caption over the actual object in the image…
Erhhhhhh…….they didn’t. Its above the word “at” in the caption right on the edge of the outer ring.
Infinitesmily grand!
Is that we’re the little bo***x Fitzpatrick comes from????
The world is flat, one god created all this and we don’t know who created him/her/it?
I’ve got your ring and new moon right here.
God
Invisible pink unicorn
SCIENCE SHOWS THAT THE UNIVERSE CANNOT BE ETERNAL because it could not have sustained itself eternally due to the law of entropy (increasing net energy decay, even in an open system). Einstein showed that space, matter, and time all are physical and all had a beginning. Space even produces particles because it’s actually something, not nothing. Even time had a beginning! Time is not eternal.
The law of entropy doesn’t allow the universe to be eternal. If the universe were eternal, everything, including time (which modern science has shown is as physical as mass and space), would have become totally entropied by now and the entire universe would have ended in a uniform heat death a long, long time ago. The fact that this hasn’t happened already is powerful evidence for a beginning to the universe.
Popular atheistic scientist Stephen Hawking admits that the universe had a beginning and came from nothing but he believes that nothing became something by a natural process yet to be discovered. That’s not rational thinking at all, and it also would be making the effect greater than its cause to say that nothing created something. The beginning had to be of supernatural origin because natural laws and processes do not have the ability to bring something into existence from nothing. What about the Higgs boson (the so-called “God Particle”)? The Higgs boson does not create mass from nothing, but rather it converts energy into mass. Einstein showed that all matter is some form of energy.
The supernatural cannot be proved by science but science points to a supernatural intelligence and power for the origin and order of the universe. Where did God come from? Obviously, unlike the universe, God’s nature doesn’t require a beginning.
EXPLAINING HOW AN AIRPLANE WORKS doesn’t mean no one made the airplane. Explaining how life or the universe works doesn’t mean there was no Maker behind them. Natural laws may explain how the order in the universe works and operates, but mere undirected natural laws cannot explain the origin of that order. Once you have a complete and living cell then the genetic code and biological machinery exist to direct the formation of more cells, but how could life or the cell have naturally originated when no directing code and mechanisms existed in nature? Read my Internet article: HOW FORENSIC SCIENCE REFUTES ATHEISM.
WHAT IS SCIENCE? Science simply is knowledge based on observation. No one observed the universe coming by chance or by design, by creation or by evolution. These are positions of faith. The issue is which faith the scientific evidence best supports.
Some things don’t need experiment or scientific proof. In law there is a dictum called prima facie evidence. It means “evidence that speaks for itself.”
An example of a true prima facie would be if you discovered an elaborate sand castle on the beach. You don’t have to experiment to know that it came by design and not by the chance forces of wind and water.
If you discovered a romantic letter or message written in the sand, you don’t have to experiment to know that it was by design and not because a stick randomly carried by wind put it there. You naturally assume that an intelligent and rational being was responsible.
I encourage all to read my popular Internet articles: NATURAL LIMITS TO EVOLUTION and HOW FORENSIC SCIENCE REFUTES ATHEISM
Visit my newest Internet site: THE SCIENCE SUPPORTING CREATION
Babu G. Ranganathan*
(B.A. Bible/Biology)
Author of popular Internet article, TRADITIONAL DOCTRINE OF HELL EVOLVED FROM GREEK ROOTS
*I have given successful lectures (with question and answer period afterwards) defending creation before evolutionist science faculty and students at various colleges and universities. I’ve been privileged to be recognized in the 24th edition of Marquis “Who’s Who in The East” for my writings on religion and science.
Wake me up when you’ve finished the lecture. Time and place. This is neither.
There’s a spacecraft leaving tomorrow for it be on it the lot of you
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