RTÉ admits paying Tubridy €345,000 more than declared

hamburgham

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121203920#Comment_121203920

And it’s pretty dire first time round.

skimpydoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121206027#Comment_121206027

What were you expecting after all its RTE.

podgeandrodge

Sunday Indo - WTF is going on in RTE - more waste of money.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Details have also emerged of a row over the booking of The 2 Johnnies for Kielty's first show last month. The Tipperary comedy duo were a late addition to the line-up after a planned appearance by popular CNN journalist and Kerry native Donie O'Sullivan was scrapped by Alan Tyler, RTÉ's group head of entertainment.

The dropping of O'Sullivan happened two days before Kielty's first show — and after a flight had been booked to bring him to Dublin from the United States, where he is based.

The source who spoke in detail to the Sunday Independent this weekend also revealed that members of O'Sullivan's family were booked into hotels before the decision was made to replace him with The 2 Johnnies.

"What happened that week was the researchers had booked Donie O'Sullivan. Jane had signed off on it, and even Alan had signed off on it. A flight was booked for Donie, to fly him from the States. He even had to get permission from CNN so they could release him.

"Then, on the Wednesday [September 13], Alan said: 'No, we're dropping Donie and will get The 2 Johnnies instead.'

"The cost of the flight, which was four figures, was lost. And that happened on the same day that the director general [Kevin Bakhurst] was at the Oireachtas committee meeting, having just announced a recruitment freeze and a freeze on discretionary spending.

"The team were horrified. They tried to change his flights to another day, but Donie had already checked in online so they couldn't. Members of his family were coming up from Cahersiveen and that all had to be cancelled.”

When asked about the cancellation of O'Sullivan's booking yesterday, RTÉ did not respond.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121208690#Comment_121208690

Who made the decision to drop the guest? Should be taken off their wages. Enough is enough.

Tow

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121208872#Comment_121208872

Alan Tyler

ShamNNspace

Something else to that story... Sure couldn't they have got the two Johnnies anytime

hotmail.com

Scrapping the barrel to have a CNN journalist on the programme. Who on earth thought this would be an interesting guest in the first place?

I suspect Kielty hasn't a clue who he is.

Rubberchikken

There is no 'full transparency from rte. If they'd had the b@lls they'd have called a halt to the LLS after tubs left.

It's had it's time imo. Why do viewers want to watch the leftovers from the rte canteen or the usual suspects with the low selling books?

Rte should stop wasting tax/licence payers money.

podgeandrodge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121210804#Comment_121210804

Agreed. But the time to decide that this was not an interesting guest, was before RTE paid for his flights!

fritzelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121210972#Comment_121210972

RTE were all over him the last time he was in Ireland - has he fallen out of favour?

kitsy13

Donie does a lot of work on tech scam stuff on cnn, so a scam exposer may not be the appropriate person on rte at the moment..as for him not being a good guest, he has done very well for himself ,seems nice and is on cnn, he was thrown out to cover the jan 6th stuff and was brill..cnn is a huge jump from irish media , fionulla sweeney was excellent 20 year ago on rte ,poached by cnn...there is a lot in rte that seem to think they are in the same class but nothing happens !

hotmail.com

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121212073#Comment_121212073

Old events now. Who wants to listen about that on a Friday night.

glenfieldman

Covid was at the same time yet Tony Houlian was the guest last week, who the f**k wanted to listen to that

kitsy13

Dail tv had the highlights of tubs appearance on the other night..he said if he was to be on rte again there would be "no messing around" about salary figures anymore and would pay back the 150k Renault money that taxpayers gave him that actually cost more through the English route that the money took..he has admitted there that things were ropey..if I get audited by revenue for claiming bacj wrong I would get screwed yet he has 150k for doing nothing and it's apparently OK cause he isn't working now.he needs the few quid.only in Ireland !

CollyFlower

Donnie would be a great to have on the LLS, I'm sure he'd have more to talk about than the Jan 6th event that made him well known over here. Another one that RTE rejected because he wasn't part of the RTE 'family'

Caquas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121208979#Comment_121208979

Donie O’Sullivan wasn’t dropped to make room for the Two Johnnies.

My guess is that PK and Alan Tyler had no interest in a story about an Irish lad doing well in Amerikay, still less in his proud family from Cahersiveen.. That story was very popular 50 years ago when emigration was the our only hope but, if PK wants to shake things up at the LLS, he should cut out this kind of fluff.

ShamNNspace

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121212229#Comment_121212229

🤔...

Karppi

Regardless of the quality of Donie or whatever, if the carry on that happened and led to wasted Premier Class tickets plus hotels, disruption to people and the running order isn’t tackled the mismanagement will go on and on. For me, it’s not so much the cost of it, it’s the dithering, procrastination and the seesawing guest list that speak to the complete dysfunctionality of RTÉ’s management.

There are no signs of a cohesive team at RTÉ. I don’t think Kevin’s got a grip. Meanwhile, Catherine Martin is alternating between wringing her hands and counting out €500 notes. Pathetic, really.

Caquas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121212248#Comment_121212248

We knew that ☹️

I’m saying that the LLS did not have a sudden, overwhelming and urgent desire to book the Two Johnnies, who are available at the drop of a hat, and therefore were obliged to drop Donie with all the attendant costs.

I say the LLS first decided to drop Donie because he wasn’t the type of guest they wanted. Then they got the Two Johnnies to fill the gap. Big difference.

It is commonplace for live shows to be stuck filling the gap for “no shows” and perhaps the most depressing aspect of this mess is that the “new” LLS could not do better when filling their first gap (even worse, because they caused the gap by dropping Donie without having a better alternative).

Dont be at yourself

I wonder did the senior producer who was recently resigned to due to 'interference' from Alan Tyler leak this? Apparently unhappy with how the Late, Late is being repositioned by Tyler + PK as an entertainment show rather than the usual Friday night misery.

RoTelly

As I said in the other Thread RTÉ basically book in a C list celebrity from Ireland doing well in the states. He's been on TLLS before, if he was working on FOX NEWS he'd not be invited to D4, that is a reality.

The money given one guest mediocr is crazy even if had appeared on the show.

I'd be with Alan and PK2 on this, no matter how much I dislike the 2 Johnnies

Caquas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121213689#Comment_121213689

Agreed, Donie was on the LLS with Tubs in 2021.   It would be pure repetition to have had him back now and a betrayal of the claim that PK would reinvent the LLS.

Donie is an object of fascination within RTÉ where everyone fantasises about escaping to a real TV channel with millions of viewers, although that hasn't happened since colour TV arrived 😜 (Angela Scanlon doesn't count, not an RTÉ lifer, nor Donagh Morgan, an RTÉ outcast, and Tubs is obviously not an exception to the rule).

I still think the Executive Producer was replaced because PK didn't accept any challenge to his editorial control. Alan Tyler is his enforcer who sits in on LLS programming meetings because PK realises he can't trust the executive team. The leaks we're seeing now present an image of an executive team battling with a blow-in (Alan Tyler) and a Nordie who don't understand the true nature of the LLS and its role in Irish society. But I think PK has a pretty shrewd idea about the LLS - that it's a programme which lost its way many years ago and is kept on life-support (i.e. given the best ratings slot) because no-one in RTÉ dared replace it.

The LLS played a transformative role in Irish society during the Gaybo era when it discussed the most shocking and unmentionable issues (contraception! corporal punishment!! homosexuality!!!). Gaybo had a near-death run-in with the Bishops early on so he looked sternly disapproving when his guests said exactly what he had invited them to say, plus he made sure the controversies were always sugar-coated with music and chats with audience members (the mothers of 12 were a favourite target). There were even A-list guests back in the day, actual Hollywood stars.

The show has been drifting for decades without a raison d'être because nothing is taboo now, the Catholic Church is a mere shadow of its omnipotent past, and the A-listers have disappeared.

I suspect PK wants to turn the show into something like Jimmy Fallon with a bit more substance to the chat to make up for the lack of star power (sharper political commentary like Seth Meyers?). He is lively and sharp but he is not at Graham Norton's level and he needs a team of writers for his monologue. Sadly, the best line in his opening monologue - about being the host to ask the questions, not answer them at an Oireachtas Committee - falls flat now that he failed to ask Carl Frampton a hard question.

hotmail.com

Donnie just linked with Trump. RTE establishment obsessed with talking about Trump. Tubridy was part of that.

Kielty probably not that bothered and thought Donnie was a dud guest to bore us about Trump. He was right.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121215907#Comment_121215907

I honestly don't think that the RTÉ Lifers really understand TLLS (as you say it is harder now). I honestly don't think that PK2 or Alan T should listen to anyone in RTÉ. RTÉ is filled with people who think they know Broadcasting and the Audience, I think the past few months has at last shown more and more people this is not the case.

As for big stars, Gay Byrne was also in the middle of the heyday of the 1970s chat show interview hollywood stars that were either retired or on the verge of retirement.

Also I do think the big star has disappeared. There are so many TV drama series that its hard to keep up with all the actors. I don't think TV has a George Clooney or a Dick Van Dyke or a Mary Tyler Moore or a David Duchovney/Gillian Anderson set of stars.

Rubberchikken

I can't be the only one who thinks the LLS has had it's day.

Its time was the late 70s early to mid 80s when Ireland was still under the thumb of the Catholic church.

G Byrne then rightly brought things out into the open. Things that are the time we're shocking but now seem commonplace and in a lot of cases don't even warrent a raised eyebrow

If PK wants the LLS to be more like the American chat shows, who is he going to get here? There's noone that could qualify as star material that I can think of.

Tbh there is no one on this island that would make me actually watch any of the LLS. My tv doesn't get stations and I'm happy to keep it like that.

I do truly think rte need to get their head out of their @ss and realise that the LLS is old creaky and past its prime

Ohmeha

Article below on the Alan Tyler vs LLS/Tubridy 'Old Guard' drama going on

https://businessplus.ie/industry-type/marketing-media/alan-tyler-ruffles-feathers-among-late-late-show-veterans/

Atlantic Dawn

Donie is useful in an active election when the 2 candidates are actually called or for him to chat to Iris born punters around St Patrick's Day. One thing he won't be on LLS covering is the complete destruction of American retail in non open carry states due to lax policing.

retalivity

TLLS never does topical panel discussion about current events anymore. I know its supposed to be mainly light hearted, but could you imagine if, for example, they had 30 mins this week about Israel/Gaza with people like Alan Shatter, a SFer and Claire Daly? It would be box office. Or have the Burkes on with Fr Brian Darcy and an athiest. Or Donnelly and some angry GPs. Or those anti-everything NP loons and some rational minded people? There might be calls that some of these shouldnt be platformed but I think Kielty is cute enough to give them juuust enough rope...

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121216905#Comment_121216905

So just enough rope for both the left and the right ! But yes you are right we are basically de-platforming people. I think many of the far left just would not debate with Alan Shatter (Sinn Fein will and have, but PBP etc I can't see them entering into any conversation with anyone from the right).

I am not sure if PK2 could present this type of debate.

Ash.J.Williams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121212229#Comment_121212229

Hi Ryan