{"id":165072,"date":"2025-11-05T23:52:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T23:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/165072\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T23:52:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T23:52:07","slug":"rte-confirms-move-to-wind-down-inhouse-documentary-unit-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/165072\/","title":{"rendered":"RT\u00c9 confirms move to wind down inhouse documentary unit \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

RT\u00c9<\/a> is set to wind down its in-house television documentary unit as it continues to find cost savings after the financial and governance crisis that shook the national broadcaster in 2023. <\/p>\n

Sources within the organisation told The Irish Times that the unit\u2019s approximately 10 staff were informed of plans to change operations on Wednesday. <\/p>\n

RT\u00c9 is understood to have told them they will be able to finish any current projects, after which there will be opportunities for redeployment within the organisation.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for RT\u00c9 said on Wednesday evening that the broadcaster will commission more documentaries externally. No jobs will be lost other than those of staff members already availing of the organisation\u2019s voluntary redundancy scheme.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have spoken to the in-house documentary team about some changes to how we will produce documentaries for RT\u00c9 television and RT\u00c9 Player next year,\u201d the spokesman said.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Minister says commercial support for RTE not bottomless Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

[\u00a0RTE records \u20ac5.5m surplus in 2024Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He said that due to voluntary exits within the unit, \u201cwe are reassigning some people to different production roles and commissioning some additional documentary content from the independent sector\u201d.<\/p>\n

Asked for comment, a spokesperson for the RT\u00c9 group of trade unions said the decision shows the broadcaster \u201chas learned nothing\u201d two years on from the crisis. <\/p>\n

The trade union group, which includes the National Union of Journalists<\/a> (NUJ), Siptu<\/a>, Connect<\/a> and Unite<\/a>, accused RT\u00c9 management of using the fallout from the scandal \u201cto hollow out the organisation, selling it off bit by bit\u201d. <\/p>\n

The union spokesperson said: \u201cInstead of a return to the core values of our public-service remit, we have dramatically increased commercialisation, with whole swathes of the organisation now being primed for outsourcing. <\/p>\n

\u201cRTE\u2019s flagship TV documentary unit is just the latest to be earmarked for complete closure. This follows the closure of RTE\u2019s religion department, as well as plans to hand both Fair City and The Late Late Show<\/a> over to the private, for-profit sector.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll this is at the expense of stable jobs in the sector, to be replaced by more precarious short-term employment.\u201d<\/p>\n

RT\u00c9 said it is committed to Irish documentary-making despite the reassignment of staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2025, we will broadcast 72 hours of documentary programmes, with around nine hours made by in-house teams,\u201d the organisation\u2019s spokesman said. \u201cNext year, we are planning to offer Irish audiences around 75 hours of commissioned documentaries produced by the Irish production sector.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Trust will \u2018take some time to rebuild\u2019, says Kevin Bakhurst, as RT\u00c9 misses key targetOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The in-house documentary unit is the latest department in the RT\u00c9 to face effective closure. <\/p>\n

In May, RT\u00c9 announced plans to switch production of some religious programming, specifically \u201cChristian worship content\u201d, to outside producers. 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

In the same month, RT\u00c9 announced that Upfront with Katie Hannon would not return for a new season in September. <\/p>\n

RT\u00c9 has also set out plans to switch the production of Fair City and The Late Late Show from its Montrose base in Dublin to external producers in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RT\u00c9 is set to wind down its in-house television documentary unit as it continues to find cost savings…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,1208,18,13,14,6,19,17,48706,11,12,15,16,95151,5,1181,31825,7,8,11799],"class_list":{"0":"post-165072","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-connect","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-late-late-show","18":"tag-latest-news","19":"tag-latestnews","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-national-union-of-journalists","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-rte","25":"tag-siptu","26":"tag-top-stories","27":"tag-topstories","28":"tag-unite"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115499784150714833","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}