Gareth O'Callaghan: Fear and loathing as RTÉ comes close to running on empty

RTÉ is now in checkmate. Shrinking its extravagant output is its only way out of debt, writes Gareth O'Callaghan

Ryan Tubridy announced this week he is joining Virgin Radio UK. RTÉ'S chronic financial problems have really only started to come to the surface since the Tubridy payment scandal broke.

“On some nights, I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio,” journalist Hunter S Thompson once said.

Right now, it feels as though RTÉ’s gas needle has been on empty for years. It’s still running thankfully, but for how much longer in the style we’ve known it for much of our lives? For those of us who were reared on a diet of Irish radio and television, it’s difficult to imagine a world without RTÉ in it; but as the year comes to a close, that once unlikely notion is becoming a possibility.