{"id":185094,"date":"2025-12-10T16:22:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T16:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/185094\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T16:22:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T16:22:09","slug":"rte-expects-100-employee-exits-this-year-bakhurst-tells-committee-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/185094\/","title":{"rendered":"RT\u00c9 expects 100 employee exits this year, Bakhurst tells committee \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

RT\u00c9<\/a> is on course to reduce its staff numbers by 400 people over the next five years, after 65 of the 107 employees who were offered voluntary redundancy packages accepted their deal, director general Kevin Bakhurst<\/a> has told an Oireachtas committee.<\/p>\n

The national broadcaster will also outsource National Lottery draws as it continues to look for cost savings and staff reductions, the committee heard on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Mr Bakhurst, a former BBC News executive, also said that he has not applied for the vacant director general role at the BBC and is \u201cvery happy\u201d in his current job.<\/p>\n

RT\u00c9 is aiming to shed 400 permanent roles through its voluntary exit scheme, which Mr Bakhurst said has received more than 300 applications, combined with resignations, retirements and \u201crole suppression\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe had 308 applications. We made 107 offers. We\u2019ve had 65 acceptances of those voluntary exit offers, either severance or retirement,\u201d he told the Joint Oireachtas Media and Communications Committee.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo the acceptance rate was around 63 per cent of the offers we made.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the broadcaster has had around 30 resignations or retirements, \u201cwhere we have suppressed\u201d or declined to back-fill the roles. <\/p>\n

Around 130 retirements are expected over the next three years, and to reach the 400-person target, RT\u00c9 will have \u201cto look at those retirements and see which of those we can just suppress the role\u201d, Mr Bakhurst said in response to a later question.<\/p>\n

\"\"Will the Government\u2019s new plan speed up the delivery of vital infrastructure projects? <\/p>\n

\u201cOverall, those numbers together, obviously, are up into the high 90s. So we\u2019re still very hopeful indeed of 100 exits this year from RT\u00c9,\u201d Mr Bakhurst said.<\/p>\n

In response to questions from Social Democrats TD Sinead Gibney, Mr Bakhurst also confirmed plans to outsource National Lottery programming as part of its cost savings initiative. <\/p>\n

Last month, the broadcaster confirmed plans to shut down its in-house television documentary unit and has already announced that it will switch production of some religious programming, specifically \u201cChristian worship content\u201d, to outside producers. <\/p>\n

Although the department has retained a commissioning editor, it means Masses will no longer be broadcast from Donnybrook and instead will be produced by churches nationwide.<\/p>\n

RT\u00c9 also plans to outsource production of the Late Late Show and Fair City to external producers.<\/p>\n

Asked by Ms Gibney if management is targeting any other programmes, Mr Bakhurst said: \u201cThe Lotto will be going out, because that costs a lot of money to do. It\u2019s a better way to do it, and also enables us to let a few more people leave who couldn\u2019t leave this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Separately, Fianna F\u00e1il TD Malcolm Byrne asked Mr Bakhurst if there was \u201cany temptation\u201d to apply for the vacant role of director general at his former employer, the BBC. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I can leave because Marty Morrissey has told me I\u2019m not allowed to,\u201d Mr Bakhurst, adding later in the meeting that he has not applied for the job and is \u201cvery happy\u201d in RT\u00c9. <\/p>\n

The BBC job was vacated in November after the resignation of Tim Davies amid criticism of perceived editorial bias at the broadcaster. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RT\u00c9 is on course to reduce its staff numbers by 400 people over the next five years, after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8938,61,60,47232,13397,43,6085],"class_list":{"0":"post-185094","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-alan-kelly","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-kevin-bakhurst","12":"tag-malcolm-byrne","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-rte"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}