What better way to banish the cloud currently hovering over RTE than with a champagne-fuelled announcement of a New Year's Eve broadcasting extravaganza?
The station's millennium schedule, 2000 Today, which will run for 24 hours from 9 a.m. on December 31st, will span five continents and is described as the most ambitious co-production in Irish broadcasting history.
Announcing details of the schedule, RTE's managing director of television, Mr Joe Mulholland, couldn't avoid referring to this week's news that serious cuts would have to be made at Montrose. "Every organisation goes through difficulties . . . We are still proving, no matter what the begrudgers say, that we are providing a good service," he said.
So good that two wide-screen TVs were set up in the Clarence Hotel in Dublin to show the assembled media what RTE has planned.
Starting from the Pacific island of Tonga, one of the first places to see in the new year, the station will hook up with 60 other broadcasters for the globe-trotting celebration.
At home, there will be live music, with the Celtic Link programme, featuring Brian Kennedy and Donal Lunny, broadcast live from Dublin to an audience of hundreds of millions around the world. The celebrations also include performances from The Corrs, Boyzone, David Gray and Divine Comedy.
But it's not all music. The State's most prominent writers, dancers, designers and actors will take part. RTE presenters such as Pat Kenny, Joe Duffy, Mark Little and Liz Bonnin will host the mostly live event.
We were shown a promo full of astronauts talking about the future, piano players on cliff-tops, opera singers, bagpipers, ice skaters and a narrator who sounded like he had been watching far too much Oprah. "2000 Today," he booms, "is a journey of immense diversity, highlighting our cultural differences whilst emphasising our common destiny in a spirit of joy and optimism . . . a once-in-a-lifetime experience that will be unforgettable, compelling and life-enhancing, a lasting legacy, a collective inheritance".
Tune in, turn on and watch the box on New Year's Eve. It might just change your life.