RTÉ denies outsourcing will replace its own 'Late Late Show' and documentary units

It comes one year into the broadcaster’s five-year plan for its overhaul, and two years after a series of financial scandals saw the collapse in licence fee revenues and the departure of several senior executives from the organisation. File photo

RTÉ has denied it is set to rely on outsourcing to replace its own documentary unit and staples like The Late Late Show, insisting instead that what’s happening amounts to “working with the full creative economy”.

The broadcaster’s head of video, Steve Carson, said the decision to wind down the broadcaster’s own in-house documentary unit had stemmed in large part from the impact of  RTÉ's voluntary redundancy programme, which remains in progress.

Earlier this week the roughly 10 members of the documentary unit were told that the section would become obsolete once their current projects were completed, with those workers encouraged to redeploy to alternative opportunities within the organisation.

It is further expected that both The Late Late Show and long-running soap opera Fair City will cease to be produced in-house with production to be taken over by third-party companies.

The move comes one year into the broadcaster’s five-year plan for its overhaul, and two years after a series of financial scandals saw the collapse in licence fee revenues and the departure of several senior executives from the organisation.

Mr Carson denied that the various changes in operating policy amount to pure outsourcing.

“It is not outsourcing to work with the independent production sector. It’s part of the creative economy,” he told RTÉ radio.

What's your view on this issue?

You can tell us here

He said that despite the wind-down of its dedicated unit, RTÉ will actually produce more hours of documentaries next year compared with that created in 2025, adding that to suggest that  RTÉ is “cutting documentaries... isn’t right”.

“We're going through the voluntary exit process. And what we're doing in the context of that is looking at the resources we have next year and making sure that we are able to deliver," Mr Carson said.

That voluntary redundancy process is projected to reduced  RTÉ's overall headcount by 400 by 2028.

Mr Carson said Fair City and The Late Late Show are reliant on studios within RTÉ itself which are approaching their “end of life”.

“By the end of the decade, we'll have to either invest more than €100m (in) refurbishment, or we have to look at other options,” he said, adding both will continue to be made at  RTÉ's Montrose headquarters throughout 2026.