RTÉ PUBLISHES 2024 ANNUAL REPORT
RTÉ PUBLISHES 2024 ANNUAL REPORT
RTÉ REPORTS NET SURPLUS OF €5.5 MILLION IN 2024
A YEAR WITH MANY SPECIAL EVENTS – UEFA EUROS 2024, THE OLYMPICS AND PARALYMPICS, PLUS THE GENERAL, LOCAL AND EUROPEAN ELECTIONS – AND A RECORD YEAR FOR RTÉ PLAYER
To view RTÉ’s 2024 Annual Report, visit https://about.rte.ie/reports-and-policies/annual-reports/
RTÉ is today releasing its Annual Report and Group Consolidated Financial Statements for the Year Ended 31st December 2024, following it being laid before the Houses of The Oireachtas today.
Director-General of RTÉ, Kevin Bakhurst said: “RTÉ today reports a surplus of over €5m for 2024, thanks to careful cost controls which have continued into 2025. Alongside a full review and scrutiny of the balance sheet, RTÉ is also on course to deliver a surplus in 2025. From the start of 2026, no one in RTÉ will earn more than the Director-General. These results demonstrate RTÉ’s commitment to running the organisation in a financially responsible and sustainable way.”
Chair of the Board of RTE, Terence O’Rourke, said: “I was appointed Chair of the Board of RTÉ in March 2024 – a significant and transformative year for RTÉ. On the one hand the Government published two Expert Advisory Committee Reports in May, with recommendations, while RTÉ published its five-year strategy and a new Governance Framework in June. In July RTÉ received a commitment from Government to provide the organisation with €725 million in public funding over three years, a decision that allows RTÉ to plan ahead with a considerable degree of assurance, for which we are grateful. We do not take lightly the responsibility that comes with this decision.
All the extensive work taking place across RTÉ to ensure we deliver cultural reform while also meeting the changing needs of our audiences needs to be matched by superior levels of corporate governance and transparency, as well as financial rigour. Much of my work as Chair of the Board has been and will be to work with my Board colleagues, the Director-General and the Leadership Team to ensure that we deliver on the commitments in our strategy and ensure that RTÉ is a well-run, well-governed, accountable organisation. This is essential to the task of rebuilding trust in RTÉ.
On that note, I am pleased that RTÉ is today reporting a surplus for 2024 and that we are forecasting a surplus for 2025.
Director-General of RTÉ, Kevin Bakhurst continued: “2024 was an eventful and challenging year – but one where RTÉ demonstrated how it can truly deliver for audiences and bring the country together for important national moments, while also carefully managing our costs and delivering a surplus.
While we continued to face many challenges, particularly in the early part of the year, and to deliver extensive and necessary reforms to the organisation, we also let our programmes, our content and our services do the talking, and audiences came to RTÉ, often in record numbers. The strong growth in RTÉ Player streams – by an incredible 44% year-on-year – and the very high levels of engagement with RTÉ.ie, our RTÉ News and Radio Player apps and our social media content were very encouraging. RTÉ’s Commercial team also delivered a really strong performance in 2024 in a very competitive market, which generated important revenue to support our public service content and programming.
2024 also saw the launch of our five-year strategy, which will prepare RTÉ for the future. And for the first time in a generation, we received multi-annual public funding, which recognises the importance and value of strong and independent public service media to Ireland and is enabling us to plan ahead with certainty. This has been transformative and will enable RTÉ to make significant changes and to deliver more to audiences. For this we are grateful and we will not take it for granted.
At the end of the year, in an email to RTÉ staff, I stated that, while 2025 will bring its own set of challenges and we will be making some important decisions, I am very optimistic about RTÉ and its future. While challenges remain, we are delivering more to audiences, we are listening to what they have to say and making better decisions, we are also listening to our staff and improving our culture to make RTÉ a better place to work, while implementing important governance reforms, managing our costs and ensuring strong financial discipline. This is reflected in the surplus in the 2024 Annual Report and the surplus forecast for 2025.”
>>> RTÉ’s 2024 Annual Report in summary:
NET SURPLUS: RTÉ recorded a Surplus of €5.5 million for the year.
TOTAL REVENUE: Total revenue (TV Licence/Commercial) increased by €36.4m between 2024 and 2023 (€380.4 million in 2024 vs €344.0 million in 2023).
LICENCE FEE & GOVERNMENT FUNDING: Licence fee income received by RTÉ in 2024 was down €4.0 million compared to 2023. In addition, €48.0 million of government funding income was recognised in 2024 (€32.0 million of which was received in 2024). As a result, combined licence fee income and government funding received by RTÉ in 2024 was €222.3 million, compared to €193.3 million in 2023.
COMMERCIAL REVENUE: 2024 commercial revenue of €158.1 million represents a year-on-year increase of 4.9% (2023: €150.7 million). The main reason for this was increases in Television Trading and Digital Trading income
OPERATING COSTS: Excluding special events, operating costs increased by €6.6 million or 1.9% year-on-year.
SPECIAL EVENTS: 2024 was a year of many special events ranging from the UEFA Euro 2024 championships, the Olympics and Paralympics and the General, Local and European elections. Total special event-related costs were €13.7 million (2023: €7.4 million), a difference of €6.3 million.
TRANSPARENCY: For the second time, and in line with the previous commitment of RTE Director-General, Kevin Bakhurst, RTÉ’s Annual Report includes the earnings of its ten highest-paid on-air presenters for the year as well as remuneration details of members of its Leadership Team.
A NEW DIRECTION: In 2024, the Government approved the RTÉ’s five-years strategy (New Direction) and committed public funding of €725 million for the years 2025 to 2027. (This figure includes Licence Fee income).
>>> RTÉ in 2024
The Annual Report also highlights RTÉ achievements in 2024, including the following:
- The 2024 RTÉ Toy Show Appeal raised over €5 million, with people at home and abroad donating in record numbers to help children and their families across the island of Ireland. More than €26 million has been raised over the past five years.
- 142 million streams and 42 million streaming hours were consumed on RTÉ Player – RTÉ’s highest number to date.
- RTÉ’s share of TV viewing hit a high of 27.9% in 2024.
- RTÉ Archives added and documented over 700 hours of election coverage, reporting and output across all platforms and services, while there was approximately 400 hours of Olympic Games and Paralympics coverage and reporting.
- Spreading the News: A Celebration of 120 Years of the National Theatre was a landmark partnership between RTÉ and the Abbey Theatre which was recorded live in the Abbey to a capacity audience and broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 on 27 December, 120 years to the day after the theatre opened.
- In 2024, RTÉ commissioned over 70 hours of RTÉ Kids and RTÉjr video programming and 40 hours of new podcasts for our young audiences.
- RTÉ supported 178 arts and cultural events all over the island of Ireland in 2024; an 82% increase over the 10 years since the scheme was relaunched in 2014, when 98 events were supported by RTÉ.
- For the second year, The Late Late Toy Show was signed by two Deaf interpreters, Sarah-Jane O’Regan and Jason Maguire, working with hearing feeder interpreters Ciara Grant and Lisa Harvey-Coleman.
- RTÉ lyric fm celebrated 25 years on air in 2024 and to mark this milestone, the station commissioned three new orchestral works which focused on the themes of nostalgia, hope and rebirth.
You can access RTÉ’s 2024 Annual Report in full – and download the English and Irish versions – at https://about.rte.ie/reports-and-policies/annual-reports/
ENDS
Note to Editors: Please note the Annual Report was approved in advance of the notification of the formal changing of the Department name to Department of Communications, Culture and Sport.
For information:
Neil O’Gorman | Corporate Communications Manager, RTÉ | E: neil.ogorman@rte.ie