The future of RTÉ is a balancing act; 300 jobs to go

“Adapt or die.” These were the words of RTÉ’s director general Dee Forbes yesterday. She was announcing the sell-off of nine acres of the state broadcaster’s land and the culling of up to 300 jobs.

Against a backdrop of a €110m decline in licence fee income since 2008, losses of €10m for the organisation last year and the rise of Netflix and Amazon Prime: If video killed the radio star, then streamed content is slowly murdering terrestrial TV.

“It’s kind of like the horse, you know? The horse was good until we had the car. The age of broadcast TV will probably last until 2030.”