COUNTY VIEW: It started with The Late Late Show

Gone but not forgotten, the shadow of Ryan Tubridy still looms large over Irish broadcasting. The star talent’s public pillorying – much of it self-inflicted – exposed a culture of entitlement in RTÉ that the new Director General must now attempt to erase.
Kevin Bakhurst’s unenviable task of cleaning out the stables started this week, but it’s clear that there is a long road ahead if he is to win back the public confidence and support which RTÉ so badly needs.
The three-month saga of RTÉ bloodletting was notable for many things, but the common factor was that the national broadcaster was in for a beating at every turn of the road. In retrospect, Tubridy’s misdemeanours were but the tip of the iceberg, although he may reflect that his interests might have been better served had he chosen to appear alone before the Dáil committees rather than with the backing of his suave agent.
The cavalier approach to the prodigal spending on senior executives and their cronies – the purchase of 200 pairs of flip-flops, costing €5,000, for a summer party will live long in broadcasting history – spoke volumes of a culture which had lost the run of itself. And the swift exodus of so many key executives, deftly removing themselves form the field of battle, together with the monastic silence of Bakhurst’s predecessor, showed how easy it is for those culpable to escape the day of reckoning.
And there were the grandstanding politicians, all too eager to put the boot into their perceived antagonists, the majority of whom showed little ability to match their stridency with forensic questioning. (There were notable exceptions, of whom Alan Dillon can rightly take a bow.)
But now the time has come to put the house back in order, and Mr Bakhurst has given an outline of what the priorities will be. Few will quibble at his plan to cut back the earnings of the top presenters – most of us would consider a quarter-of-a-million euro a year quite adequate for the work they do. Shrinking the workforce by 400 from its current complement of 2,000 will hardly inflict any terminal damage on the station, all the more so if the cuts are coupled with an outsourcing of some of its broadcast functions.
What the DG must grapple with is the reality of the funding gap between its total revenue and what it takes to deliver its current level of services. There is no way a public service broadcaster can continue to operate on a permanent deficit, and at some stage the coat has to be cut to match the available cloth. The balancing act is to ensure that can be done without compromising the high quality of what RTÉ produces and which even its most ardent critics will acknowledge.
What is important now is that RTÉ can succeed in restoring its integrity and authority, and in ensuring that it can continue to hold politicians and public entities to account in a probing yet impartial manner. That ability will be tested as we face into a year of local, European and general elections. For now, the pendulum has swung the other way; the politicians, gleefully, have put RTÉ on the back foot. And with good reason.
There is every danger that an organisation which depends on the largesse of its political masters would be loathe to risk its benefactor’s hostility. Biting the hand that feeds, especially at such a critical juncture, might not be seen as a prudent course of action. For that reason alone, RTÉ’s funding future needs to be secured, sooner rather than later.