Sky and RTÉ Receive Security Threats as Irish Newsrooms Are Evacuated

Sky received a security threat on Friday, hours after Irish broadcaster RTÉ evacuated staff from its Dublin office. Sky said it was one of a number of media organisations to receive a threat of this kind.

RTÉ acted after it received a threat earlier in the day. Its Deputy Director General, Adrian Lynch, said he and Director General Kevin Bakhurst were told about the threat before the decision to evacuate was made. Presenters and staff left buildings on RTÉ's Donnybrook campus, and gardaí (Irish police) attended the scene. RTÉ's live broadcasts were replaced while the building was cleared.

Sky said it carried out a security assessment and reported the threat to the relevant authorities. Its statement was read out on Sky News.

The pattern reached beyond those two broadcasters. Staff at the Irish Independent, the Irish Mirror, Newstalk and Virgin Media Ireland were also evacuated after bomb threats on Friday, according to a report by MayoNews. Other Irish newsrooms, and Bulgaria's Nova TV, reported incidents that appeared to follow the same pattern.

RTÉ said the email containing its threat came from the same group that sent bomb threats to passenger airlines earlier that week. The sender called themselves "Mikhail Andropov". That name has not been verified. No explosives were found on the planes that were targeted, according to Deadline.

The wider run of threats has been disrupting air travel for days. As of 3 November, a string of bomb threats had forced passenger flights across Europe to divert, Reuters reported. On Friday, new threats disrupted European air traffic in at least three incidents, the Associated Press reported.

For viewers in Ireland, the effect was immediate. Programmes went off air, and newsroom staff stood outside their buildings while officers checked them. For the broadcasters, the day was about getting people out safely first, and getting back on air second.