RTE Salaries

avalon68

Icepick wrote: »

Top RTE salaries are bit of a red herring. Looking at the total bill, it's clear that RTE must be overpaying almost everyone and everything.

This hits the nail on the head really - people seem to fixate on individual wages, like joe Duffy etc. it's a drop in the bucket really when everyone/everything in the organisation costs over the odds. Cutting pat kenny or joe Duffy will make no difference. They need a massive overhaul in all departments. Should really be surviving on advertising revenue too....we have to sit through enough adds everyday!

Benedict

avalon68 wrote: »

This hits the nail on the head really - people seem to fixate on individual wages, like joe Duffy etc. it's a drop in the bucket really when everyone/everything in the organisation costs over the odds. Cutting pat kenny or joe Duffy will make no difference. They need a massive overhaul in all departments. Should really be surviving on advertising revenue too....we have to sit through enough adds everyday!

If you discovered that your local postman was earning a grand an hour for Sunday overtime work while your child's SNA has been laid off - would you be upset? Or would you say, "so what difference is a few grand going to make to the total fiscal problem?"

All individual overpayment will only be a "drop in the bucket". So do you sit back and say nothing? Because if you ignore drops in the bucket, pretty soon, the bucket is full!

avalon68

Benedict wrote: »

If you discovered that your local postman was earning a grand an hour for Sunday overtime work while your child's SNA has been laid off - would you be upset? Or would you say, "so what difference is a few grand going to make to the total fiscal problem?"

All individual overpayment will only be a "drop in the bucket". So do you sit back and say nothing? Because if you ignore drops in the bucket, pretty soon, the bucket is full!

Where did I say ignore it? I said the whole system needs to be tackled. And no, I would not be concerned with my local postman - I'd be far more concerned that all of the postmen in the country were on that wage......I like to look at the bigger picture.

thebman

avalon68 wrote: »

This hits the nail on the head really - people seem to fixate on individual wages, like joe Duffy etc. it's a drop in the bucket really when everyone/everything in the organisation costs over the odds. Cutting pat kenny or joe Duffy will make no difference. They need a massive overhaul in all departments. Should really be surviving on advertising revenue too....we have to sit through enough adds everyday!

Just had to sit through 3 ads on rte player for a news bulletin that then failed to play for some reason.

Benedict

We would all love to be like Avolon68 - if money grew on trees.

But it doesn't!

We'd all love our postmen to be awarded 4k per hour in overtime - if we didn't have to pay for it.

But we do!

RTE are soooooo generous!

With our money.

Tim Robbins

Icepick wrote: »

Top RTE salaries are bit of a red herring. Looking at the total bill, it's clear that RTE must be overpaying almost everyone and everything.

What is overall cost?

Irish Steve

Cerco wrote: »

Did you happen to see the recent Prime Time interview he conducted with Roisin Shortall and the rep from the drinks industry? an absolutely dreadful performance. He asks questions and then constantly interrupts with nonsense arguments.
The fractional oart that us shown is all that matters imho.
I would say he is good but definitely noy great.

I did see it, I was in the studio audience for that programme, so saw a lot more than actually made the screen, for a lot longer both before and after the live broadcast.

Also saw how the programme is "directed", PK may well have been the interviewer, but he's not directing the programme, that happens off set, the presenters get their instructions from the director, who is trying to ensure that all the points that are on the running order get a sensible proportion of the time, and that's not always easy, especially with some of the political contributors, once they start, it's very hard to switch them off again.

That whole segment on Sports and Drinks, nearly half the programme, only went into the running order over the weekend, in the light of developments elsewhere, so while it had clearly been researched, it was also done under pressure, as the other segment re pensions had originally been planned for the whole programme, so there was big pressure on both segments as a result.

The "on screen" PK and the "real" PK are not the same, if circumstances were different, I'd have no problems with PK as a neighbour, and I'd also hope as a friend, but you won't get that impression from what you see on the air, you have to have had closer and less formal contact with him to discover that.

Cerco

Irish Steve wrote: »

I did see it, I was in the studio audience for that programme, so saw a lot more than actually made the screen, for a lot longer both before and after the live broadcast.

Also saw how the programme is "directed", PK may well have been the interviewer, but he's not directing the programme, that happens off set, the presenters get their instructions from the director, who is trying to ensure that all the points that are on the running order get a sensible proportion of the time, and that's not always easy, especially with some of the political contributors, once they start, it's very hard to switch them off again.

That whole segment on Sports and Drinks, nearly half the programme, only went into the running order over the weekend, in the light of developments elsewhere, so while it had clearly been researched, it was also done under pressure, as the other segment re pensions had originally been planned for the whole programme, so there was big pressure on both segments as a result.

The "on screen" PK and the "real" PK are not the same, if circumstances were different, I'd have no problems with PK as a neighbour, and I'd also hope as a friend, but you won't get that impression from what you see on the air, you have to have had closer and less formal contact with him to discover that.

That is all very interesting I am sure but it is the performance of "on screen PK" we are paying for. IMHO Richard Crowley is a much better presenter than PK or Miriam O'Callaghan. He can think and respond on his feet. I doubt if he is far up the food chain in the organisation.

avalon68

Benedict wrote: »

We would all love to be like Avolon68 - if money grew on trees.

But it doesn't!

We'd all love our postmen to be awarded 4k per hour in overtime - if we didn't have to pay for it.

But we do!

RTE are soooooo generous!

With our money.

You seem to be completely mis reading my post - I didn't say I wanted postmen to be paid 4k overtime - what I actually said was its a waste of time targeting one local postman when it's the entire postal service that should be targeted. I can never understand the fixation on single individuals - if you fired joe Duffy or whoever in the morning - how would it improve the overall situation? It's the whole organisation that needs to be tackled.....but people mainly seem interested in knocking others down a peg rather than actually fixing things

Benedict

avalon68 wrote: »

You seem to be completely mis reading my post - I didn't say I wanted postmen to be paid 4k overtime - what I actually said was its a waste of time targeting one local postman when it's the entire postal service that should be targeted. I can never understand the fixation on single individuals - if you fired joe Duffy or whoever in the morning - how would it improve the overall situation? It's the whole organisation that needs to be tackled.....but people mainly seem interested in knocking others down a peg rather than actually fixing things

With great respect, I think you are naive to think that stamping out instances of individual abuse does not affect the overall situation. Joe's hourly rate of pay is a staggering 63 times the average industrial worker's rate in this country. If you allow that sort of thing to go unchallenged, it will inevitably trickle down through the entire organisation.

You're wrong - hitting on individual cases does affect the whole.

armchair fusilier

Tim Robbins wrote: »

What is overall cost?

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/rte-pays-80-staff-10m-on-top-of-3m-for-star-broadcasters-29166095.html

Benedict

It just beats me how any responsible negotiator could agree to hand over 300k of public funds for the equivalent in hours of 40 days work per year. And when the country is financially on its knees!

No wonder Enda Kenny described it as "quite extraordinary".

avalon68

Are there any figures on what proportion of the advertising revenue for rte is brought in during shows of these top paid presenters?

[Jackass]

Car99 wrote: »

Brendan O Connor and Gerorge Hamilton on €200k+ per year . The mind boggles.
Europe must look at us and say ffs the Irish are in cloud cuckoo land.

Private Sector makes unprecedented tax payments during boom time, public sector tries to find a way to spend it.

Then when private sector collapses, they all lose their jobs and public sector have confrences to try and keep all the benefits they have from when we had so much money, the powers that be didn't know what to do with it, literally, so they started to give it away in public sector pay and welfare to ensure relection. Just make sure everyone you know is given a public sector job to repay all the .... favours .... over the years.

Some one else will sort it out, it'll be grannnnnnd, and when they do, they'll be so hated because of it, we'll be straight back into Government!! (/FF politics)

carpejugulum

armchair fusilier wrote: »

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/rte-pays-80-staff-10m-on-top-of-3m-for-star-broadcasters-29166095.html

It seems irreparable. It should just be privatized. And then we would see how much are the likes of Joe Duffy really worth.

The RTE figures show 145 staff on between €80,000 and €100,000, 437 paid between €60,000 and €80,000, and 991 employees paid between 40,000 and €60,000.

There were 437 staff on less than €40,000, with more than half of these described as "part-time/casual" workers.

RTE paid almost €130m in basic salaries in 2011, employing an average of 2,150 staff during the year.

The figures for staff pay released to the Irish Independent by RTE show that all seven members of the broadcaster's Executive Board were paid more than €150,000 in 2011.

Three of the senior executives – including director general Noel Curran – were paid more than €200,000. Mr Curran's total pay package came to €287,000, including €58,000 in pension contributions.

RTE refused to name the other two executives whose pay exceeded €200,000 "as this is regarded as personal information".

The 2011 board also included current managing directors of television and radio Glen Killane and Claire Duignan, RTE digital boss Muirne Laffan, and managing director of corporate development Brian Dalton. Former director of news Ed Mulhall and then-chief finance officer Conor Hayes made up the remainder of the board.

The RTE spokeswoman also refused to reveal the name or job description of the part-time/ casual worker paid as much as €150,000, again saying this was "personal information".

Farmer Pudsey

As bad as Joe ''the socialist'' Duffy's wages are St Marion Finnucane nearly 300K for two radio programs a week is as the saying goes a bit Irish. And this is going on for as long as Joe is doing what was her afternoon show. Now her contract must have come up for renewal in the meantime.

This is what I find as the biggest issue with RTE you have nice contract given out to older presenters that are not doing as much as previous or tommers to retired presenters such as Gay Byrne .

Benedict

A lady from RTE was recently defending the salaries of the "Top Ten". Her defense seemed to be that although the salaries were huge, they are not now as huge as they used to be.

She is correct. Before the cuts, chatting on the radio could get you about 30 times the hourly rate of a hospital consultant. Now, you'd have to settle for somewhere between 10 and twenty times the hourly rate of a hospital consultant - depending on which show you are chatting on!

carpejugulum

Benedict wrote: »

A lady from RTE was recently defending the salaries of the "Top Ten". Her defense seemed to be that although the salaries were huge, they are not now as huge as they used to be.

She is correct. Before the cuts, chatting on the radio could get you about 30 times the hourly rate of a hospital consultant. Now, you'd have to settle for somewhere between 10 and twenty times the hourly rate of a hospital consultant - depending on which show you are chatting on!

And not only is claiming that they have to pay them a lot because they would go elswhere a lie, but it also does not matter.
RTE's mission should not be to have the most expensive entertainers in Ireland. It should deliver what it is supposed to and have a ceiling. And if this ceiling is not high enough for some, they can go elsewhere.

Cerco

Benedict wrote: »

A lady from RTE was recently defending the salaries of the "Top Ten". Her defense seemed to be that although the salaries were huge, they are not now as huge as they used to be.

She is correct. Before the cuts, chatting on the radio could get you about 30 times the hourly rate of a hospital consultant. Now, you'd have to settle for somewhere between 10 and twenty times the hourly rate of a hospital consultant - depending on which show you are chatting on!

I saw that interview, I think she was from the HR department and perhaps she felt it was a great achievement to overcome the sense of entitlement held by the top earners.
This sense of entitlement seems to permeate the higher echelons of the Public Service. Starting with the politicians and working it's way throughout the PS. The great giveaway subterfuge of benchmarking was responsible for the largesse of outlandish salaries. The "when we have it we spend it" attitude. Well we don't have it anymore! So the responsible plans to introduce a new licensing method of a broadcast household charge to support the vulgar salaries et al. This will of course increase year on year.

The onus is on RTE to reduce it's costs in this time of austerity and the best place to start, in my opinion, is with these high earners.

clear thinking

The public service rte supposedly do should be tendered out. Rte would then have to be commercially viable and the licence payer would get some vfm.

It would immediately solve this salary rubbish, either the market would pay it or it wouldn't.

Benedict

The hourly rate available to some, far exceeds the hourly rate of any other job paid for by the public. President of Ireland, An Taoiseach,
the highest paid legal advisor, the highest paid civil servant, the highest paid doctor/medical advisor, none of them comes within an ass's roar of the rate that can be paid to someone for chatting on air.

And that's after the cuts!

Are we mad?

Or just stupid?

Benedict

Some time ago, I heard Mike Murphy on an interview recalling how he pleaded with Gay Byrne to ask for a rise. His reason was that if Gay got a rise, he could ask for one too. And that's how it seems to work. Until recently, RTE were quite happy to pay Marian 3k an hour for chatting on the radio. Now they've reduced that by about a third. Joe was getting nearly two thousand an hour. He still gets more than a thousand an hour. One sets the benchmark for the other and it all ripples down so everyone gets a piece of the action.

Does anyone think for a moment that if Marian was getting 500 an hour, Joe would be getting over 1k? No. He would be getting 250.

Until the freedom of information kicked, RTE salaries were a closely guarded secret (and the reason is obvious). Now the genii is out of the bottle. But what these authorities do not seem to appreciate that paying these sort of sums out of the public purse especially during a time of such hardship for so many is an affront to the Irish people.

How dare RTE use our money in this way at a time when we now even have children on hospital trolleys for want of resources.

riclad

They should have reduced the salarys by 50 per cent , their salarys are at least 3 times the wage of djs in private companys.
I think radio 2 should be privatised , why do we need the state running a pop music station?
in a time when the state is bankrupt,and firing school teachers.
Theres no radio station in ireland that would pay pat kenny,300k plus,
as good as he is.
RTE is basically run as a branch of the civil service ,salarys are based,
on ,get as much as you can.
This is a small country, if a dj wants big bucks go to the usa ,or the uk,
like terry wogan did.

IF I was in charge ,i,d say ,any civil servant, max pay is 90k ,
max pension is 50k.
I Wonder what pensions,or bonus,s they get if they leave rte.

Benedict

We have a situation in which a broke institution (RTE) in a broke country (Ireland) hands a cheque book to someone who is happy to pay up to 2k per hour to chat on air and who, until recently, was happy to pay much more than that. This is done in the knowledge that we, the public,will ultimately have to pay for this squandering. The same public which, in many cases, is at its wits end with worry about where next month's rent will come from.

Does this sound right? Or does it sound wrong?

skafish

Did anyone else see the piece in yesterdays Mail on Sunday where Joooooe Duffffyyyyy had a rant about the teachers reaction to Rurai Quinn last week, and had the bare faced cheek to say teachers are overpaid? (Can't show the link cos the parent compant wont allow uploads to Ireland)

Benedict

skafish wrote: »

Did anyone else see the piece in yesterdays Mail on Sunday where Joooooe Duffffyyyyy had a rant about the teachers reaction to Rurai Quinn last week, and had the bare faced cheek to say teachers are overpaid? (Can't show the link cos the parent compant wont allow uploads to Ireland)

Joe is currently in receipt of a staggering Euro 1, 200 per hour for answering the phone on air. (For many years, he was getting much more than this).

For each of his 40 weeks work per annum, he receives Euro 7,500 for (in hours) less than 1 day's work.

It is ironic that much of his time is spent sympathising with the likes of pensioners who have to live on little over E200 a week (10 minutes pay for Joe).

You can't blame Joe for not objecting when his pockets are stuffed with cash. (The people playing Santa Claus with public money are to blame for that). But complaining that our hard-working teachers are over-paid when you yourself are paid 20 Euro per minute for chatting?

Not clever!

wonder88

How long can these payments continue? RTE is broke and yet we have unbelieveable pay scales. The role of an agent(they all have the same guy) may be to blame but our politicians must act, otherwise I think anyone who pays a licence fee must be considered a fool. How can current affairs presenters be also available by arrangement of their agent for a fee, to promote any product or service? This is a joke

Benedict

Personally I think that PK is word class. We're lucky to have him. Marian is good but really I'm sure she knows in her heart and soul that the pay is bananas. (you can't blame her for not saying so - in her position, I wouldn't)# Joe has a handy number. He earns in 12 minutes what a contributory pensioner gets in a week.

This is not a rant. I'm sure they're all fine people. But come on folks!

Can we come back to earth please?

riclad

YEAH, they are fine people, but there pay was just ridiculous,
There,s no radio station in ireland ,that will pay some dj, 900k, apart from rte.
Marion is great, but as far as i see,she works 3 days a week, on a wage thats in the top 1 per cent in ireland.

Thats the way, rte seems to work, theres maybe, civil service, 7 grades,
and people on contract, if ,i,m getting 80k, my boss has to get 120k.

The wages of the top 30 people there were raised in the boom times,
and even then were not based on reality.

ITS obscene for a presenter to be getting 500k,
when theres teachers, and nurses getting let go,
and garda no,s being cut.

IF a dj ,in say newstalk, gets paid , 200k, i don,t care,
its a private company,

IT remind s ,me of greece where ,certain professions could retire at
40, on a nice big government pension.
IF they pay to much the market will deal with it.

Benedict

If presenters were suddenly getting zero wages, and TD's suddenly stopped getting "turning up" allowance and the other silly allowances they get, it wouldn't make any real difference to the finances.

Or would it?

Because one of the central reasons that Croke Park 11 was rejected yesterday is that Irish people see that this inequality. Nobody wants to pick on presenters (there are lots of examples of privileged groups in Ireland who escape the pain). But each example of gross inequality has played its part in the rejection of Croke Park 11.

Try playing a soccer match in which one side is allowed six yellow cards.

And see what happens.