State funding for RTÉ rose by €29 million last year but Minister for Communications Patrick O’Donovan has warned the station Government support “is not endless, it is not bottomless”.
Mr O’Donovan said the Government had made good on its promises and “ponied up” the funding support “to keep RTÉ afloat”.
Figures from the annual report, approved by Cabinet on Wednesday and published by the station, show RTÉ received about €222 million in support from the State and licence fee income in 2024, along with commercial revenues of about €160 million.
RTÉ’s revenue declined due to a significant drop in income from the television licence fee. This was primarily caused by the fallout from its financial scandals in 2023.
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Later, Mr O’Donovan said he believed RTÉ had “changed” in recent years and the Government would continue to support the broadcaster.
He said it “took the collapse of the company’s finances . . . in order to change” the culture at the company. He added his belief that the broadcaster “has changed substantially under the current chair, the current director general – you’re seeing a totally different RTÉ now”.
While the organisation has reformed substantially, he outlined how it had further to go. Both the leadership of RTÉ and the Government were committed to this process, he said.
Mr O’Donovan said he would be seeking further information on a number of issues arising from the RTÉ accounts. However, he again pointed to a “change of focus in RTÉ under the current leadership”. Such issues were now, he said, flagged with Government before its accounts were published.
RTÉ recorded a €5.5 million surplus last year, compared to a €9.1 million deficit in 2023, the accounts showed. Licence fee income dropped but Exchequer support increased by €29 million.
Average pay at the station was about €72,000 a year, though this includes part-time and casual staff, of which there were about 1,800. Headcount is due to be reduced by 100 this year. The report shows 221 people were paid in excess of €100,000 in 2024.
Joe Duffy was RTE’s highest paid presenter for 2024, earning €351,000, followed by Claire Byrne on €280,000 and The Late Late Show host Patrick Kielty on €257,657. Miriam O’Callaghan earned €246,708, followed by Brendan O’Connor (€244,099), Ray D’Arcy (€220,409), Mary Wilson (€209,545), Dáithí Ó Sé (€196,885), George Lee (€195,939) and Darragh Maloney (€194,902).
Director General Kevin Bakhurst was the highest paid member of RTÉ management, earning a total of €339,954, including pension contribution and allowances.
RTÉ also benefits from extensive State advertising, though these figures are not released separately to other commercial income. It also receives a series of State grants to specific programmes and services. For example, support from the Department of Foreign Affairs for some of the station’s foreign coverage increased by over 50 per cent in 2024, to €417,000.
Mr O’Donovan said, “we need to have a public service broadcaster”. He added its value was evident in programmes such as The Traitors – which he later described as “Gangbusters” – as well as coverage of the Olympics and the European football championships.
“They have to do it and it costs a lot of money and they need to be supported and I’m using this opportunity again to ask people to buy their licence,” he said.
The Minister said if the Government had not provided the financial support, then “we would be in a very different situation. There’s an awful lot of companies historically that didn’t get that level of support because of an internal mismanagement of the company that allowed the licence fee to go into freefall”.
“But that support is not endless,” he said. “We did require structural reform, we did require change. We were told we were going to get it and for that change we’ve put forward the monies on behalf of the people, but that’s not bottomless and it’s not endless.
“So I would hope and I would expect that RTÉ live up to their side of the bargain in respect of the agreement there with the Government.”
