Late on Saturday night, RTE began screening a feature film. Within minutes, technical glitches forced the channel to pull it, issue repeated apologies and play music for a quarter of an hour. Finally, the film was replaced by another.

This latest embarrassment, coming on the day it became public knowledge that RTE's managing editor of television, Joe Mulholland, was to be replaced by TG4's chief executive, Cathal Goan, is symptomatic of RTE's increasing difficulties. A number of technical reasons could be forwarded to explain the problem, but financial cutbacks, curtailing RTE's on-duty late-night expertise, won't have helped.

RTE is the victim of a globalising economic ideology which demands that it make cuts to make profits. But being partly publicly financed, it must fulfil a public service remit at the same time as pursuing these profits.

It's an impossible game, serving two masters. In an era when market economics calls the shots, there is now no room at the top of RTE even for the likes of a wily old campaigner like Joe Mulholland.

Powerful and controversial, Mr Mulholland has himself been an ideological force within Irish broadcasting for the last 30 years. Though he undoubtedly displayed commitment to his own vision of public service broadcasting, he was an autocratic figure who attracted both loyalty and antagonism.

His decided views on Irish broadcasting's role in what is euphemistically called "the national question" have, like Section 31 itself, long been topics of bitter controversy within RTE and the media generally. To some, his removal will be seen as unfair scapegoating, to others as a "live by the sword, die by the sword" parable.

In his time at RTE, he has been director of news, head of television current affairs and director of television production. Grand titles all, the point about them is that they are positions from which public consciousness on all sorts of matters, not least political, cannot but be profoundly influenced.

But RTE cannot be seen merely in a national context. Since about 1980, the start of the Reagan/ Thatcher era, a tide of privatisation has swept world broadcasting. Conveniently fanned by the financial self-interests of many who control the media, privatisation has now achieved an ideological status whereby it is treated simply as common sense, as a sole reality.

Just as symbolic as the latest onscreen hitch - in what has been a critical fortnight for RTE's future - is the fact that the Minister responsible for broadcasting, Ms de Valera, has been visiting the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox television studios in Los Angeles. That's the logical outcome of untrammelled media privatisation: governments must pay homage to the huge power of the biggest private media players.

Coincidentally, the Murdoch-owned Sunday Times published an interview with Ms De Valera yesterday about her visit to Fox and other Hollywood studios. As the Minister told her interviewer, the unfolding digital era is not going to make things any easier for RTE. It's certainly true that RTE needed extra private capital to get digital up and running, and selling some of its assets to get cash was probably the only way this could be achieved. The announcement of Gerry Reynolds's appointment as controller of digital channels means that the new technology is being embraced.

But, as with Joe Mulholland's reign, there is a divisive history too in the matter of RTE's transmission system. In the past, advocates of commercial-only media outlets, such as Century Radio, argued that RTE had abused its monopoly of the system to damage rivals. There is a nasty row in all of this, but it ought not be forgotten that the licence fee-paying public has actually paid for the system.

Cathal Goan will inherit an extremely difficult job. He will be aware that there are forces beyond his control shaping the future of Irish television. But within his remit, he may be able to rekindle morale within RTE. In itself, that would be a notable achievement.

Belfast-born and a former producer of children's programmes, head of Irish language programmes and producer of Radio 1's Today at Five (when Pat Kenny was its presenter), Goan will be expected to work within strict budgets.

For six months or so now, RTE has taken a bashing. The weather presenters, the Newgrange debacle, the millennium night "special", the dropping of arts programmes and the ailing Late Late Show - all of these have contributed to Joe Mulholland's downfall. Ultimately, however, it is not just a succession of such clangers which will determine the organisation's future.

It's the behind-the-scenes intrigue among RTE's top brass - not least the Authority members, the Government and the businesses that control broadcasting capital - that will count.

Some things seem certain. The old communal, if paternalistic, spirit of public service broadcasting will be greatly eroded. Greater privatisation of broadcasting will ensue, with promises that regulatory systems, all the way up to Brussels level, will protect quality. These will regularly fail, just as the IRTC has failed to stop loss-making radio stations going for cheap, profit-making options.

On top of all that, there will be a bewildering range of government, business and media PR pumped out for public consumption. It will be hard to blame viewers for caring only about Coronation Street or The Premiership or whatever. But really, this preference reflects the triumph of a particular economic system.

Back in 1965, when politics ruled, the Taoiseach, Sean Lemass, warned RTE to remember that it "was just another arm of the government". Now, with the worldwide economic system hugely more powerful than national politicians, RTE is being told that, really, like the Government itself, it is just another arm of commerce.

The removal of Joe Mulholland signals the end of an era. He had devoted supporters and implacable enemies, but his medium was politics. In broadcasting, as in most arenas, that's yesterday's discourse.

The focus has shifted. A succession of errors left Mulholland as a sitting duck for a classic PR sacrifice designed to assuage public criticism of RTE. Much more importantly, of course, in the prevailing world of broadcasting for profit, he was judged to be spending too much money and he had to go. The accountants are closing in.

Eddie Holt is a lecturer at the school of communications, Dublin City University, and is television critic of The Irish Times.