THIS IS NOT Kevin Bakhurst’s first rodeo at Montrose.
An English journalist who began his career at the BBC in 1990, Bakhurst served as editor of the BBC Ten O’Clock News between 2003 and 2005. He went on to become the controller of the BBC News channel for seven years, before joining RTÉ for the first time in 2012.
Bakhurst has been brought in before – first as head of news and then as acting Director General – to serve as a steadying force amid choppy waters. As before, he will be tasked with managing costs and improving relationships with stakeholders at a time when public perception of RTÉ is at a low ebb.
Under the stewardship of then-Director General Noel Curran, Bakhurst was named head of news at RTÉ in the wake of a scandal that Curran called “one of the gravest editorial mistakes ever made” by RTÉ.
Mission to Prey, an episode of Prime Time Investigates, falsely alleged that Fr Kevin Reynolds had committed rape and fathered a child while working in Kenya, resulting in a €200,000 fine for RTÉ from the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, payment of “substantial damages” to Reynolds, and the removal of Prime Time Investigates from air.
Bakhurst was hired to replace Ed Mulhall, who retired following investigation into the decision to broadcast the episode.
The new man retooled Prime Time, introducing a format that the Irish Times called: “looser and more varied, incorporating reports, interviews, panel discussions, audience participation and other segments.” Donogh Diamond was installed by Bakhurst as editor of Prime Time and remained in the position until 2021.
Following the axing of the Prime Time Investigates moniker, Bakhurst oversaw the establishment of the RTÉ Investigations Unit, which would feed into RTÉ’s current affairs programming.
Working in the midst of the recession, Bakhurst was also involved in avoiding the closure of several RTÉ regional offices.
“We considered innovative ways of staying, of using new technology and creating new partnerships in the regions – in some cases moving into Institute of Technology (IT) premises, in others working with the ITs on a range of other initiatives,” he said, at the time.
RTÉ’s current controversy originated in the discovery of major fees paid secretly to Ryan Tubridy. Notably, Bakhurst appeared before the Oireachtas in 2014 to defend the large sums paid to RTÉ presenters.
Before the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications, Bakhurst said that competitors were “talking to other people who they want to lure away from us.” This statement came in the context of an appeal for further government funding after Pat Kenny left RTÉ for Newstalk in 2013.
At the time, Bakhurst frequently warned of the commercial challenges posed by the likes of BSkyB. In the intervening years, the market for advertising and commercial revenue has only become more saturated, with the advent of social media and streaming services.
Bakhurst initially stepped in as acting Director General following the resignation of Noel Curran in 2016.
When Dee Forbes - who resigned in the wake of the secret payment scandal and has yet to come before the Oireachtas committees citing health reasons - was named Director General, some were surprised that the job had not gone Bakhurst's way.
Instead, Bakhurst returned to his native England to take up a post at Ofcom, the regulatory watchdog for the broadcasting industry in the UK. At Ofcom, Bakhurst oversaw work on content standards and policy, including "taking on regulation of the BBC and preparations to become the regulator for video sharing platforms in the UK". In 2020, Bakhurst was named to the Ofcom executive board.
It was in April of this year that Bakhurst was named as Forbes' replacement. At the time, chair of the RTÉ Board Siún Ní Raghallaigh said that Bakhurst possessed "an exceptional breadth of industry experience, great leadership skills and a passionate commitment to the development of public service broadcasting in all its forms".
Fast-forward three months, and Bakhurst now finds himself taking the reins of an organisation engulfed in controversy, with the broadcaster's culture of corporate governance, financial oversight, and treatment of staff under intense scrutiny.
The 57-year-old must now move at speed to address public perception regarding failures of corporate governance at RTÉ.
On Monday - his first day on the job - Bakhurst made the decision to stand down the entire RTÉ executive board and put in place an interim leadership team to oversee all major decisions made by the broadcaster in the coming months.
Speaking in 2012, Bakhurst said of RTÉ: "We still maintain a level of trust that many other media organisations would envy."
As Bakhurst embarks on his second stint at Montrose, that trust is in a more perilous position than ever before.
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