2FM and RTÉ2 will not be sold off
RTÉ2 and 2FM will not be put up for sale and are ‘central’ to the plan to reform the crisis-hit national broadcaster, the station’s director general has confirmed.
Kevin Bakhurst was responding to queries following the recent publication of his interim blueprint for RTÉ’s future.
It followed calls from Cabinet ministers during the summer for RTÉ to sell off the television and radio stations as part of a move towards a scaled down operation focusing solely on public service broadcasting.
Mr Bakhurst acknowledged that, when he first took up the role of director general he said ‘everything was on the table’.
But he insists both RTÉ2 and 2FM ‘remain central to our plans going forward’.
The RTÉ chief told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘2FM plays a valuable role for RTÉ in reaching younger audiences and the figures for 2FM in the recent JNLR survey are encouraging.
‘We also have plans for RTÉ2 which will be increasingly important as part of our focus on delivering more quality Irish programming to audiences.’
Mr Bakhurst also dismissed political calls for even a partial sale of RTÉ Dublin 4 Montrose headquarters.
He said the most recent valuation for the site, which estimated it at €100m, means ‘a sale of the land would not be worthwhile’.
The RTÉ boss also said moving RTÉ’s operation to another site would be ‘very disruptive’.
But he added: ‘We do need to look at making better use of the existing buildings and facilities which are underutilised in some cases, and which require significant investment.’
Launching his interim plan to reform the beleaguered broadcaster, called ‘A New Direction for RTÉ, Mr Bakhurst announced plans to slash 400 jobs as part of a €40m voluntary redundancy scheme.
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) said they are ‘gravely concerned’ at the scale of the proposed redundancies, but welcomed the director general’s assurance there will be no compulsory redundancies.
Despite the difficult measures RTÉ workers are facing, Mr Bakhurst said he is ‘pleased’ with the initial response to his plan.
‘While there have been a lot of questions, I, along with my colleagues on the Interim Leadership Team have done our best to answer as many of them as we can at this stage and we will continue to do so,’ he added.
‘It is important that we are open and transparent about what we need to do to transform the organisation. This is just a first step in the development of a full strategy and we have a range of things to work through in the coming months before we publish the detailed strategy in the new year.’