RTÉ admits paying Tubridy €345,000 more than declared

I'm glad you asked.

One of the biggest issues RTE have is they're a primarily a state/public broadcaster; but also operating as a commercial broadcaster. There's an inherent and obvious conflict in this, and it's the cause of most of the issues that have arisen in the last 10 days. It's been obvious to many on the outside than for far too long the commercial tail has been wagging the RTE dog so to speak.

I want to be clear on this: RTE have done some excellent work over the years, particularly in the realms of news and current affairs. Their other output however leaves an awful lot to be desired. Too often "talent" are given vanity projects designed to either line their pockets or boost their profile with no visible entertainment or public interest in said obscure project.

From an entertainment perspective, I have often said Paths To Freedom is my favourite RTE show. I also liked LOVE/HATE, and recently Kin.

In a similar vein, some of the scheduling on the TV channels in particular over the years has been absolutely "bonkers". RTE will frequently buy the rights to shows like for example, Mad Men, or Damages, or Parks & Recreation (just a few examples as all were multi-award winning US Shows; 2 dramas and a comedy). These shows will be then be subjected to "graveyard scheduling", i.e. a deliberate tactic where the shows are shown at ridiculous time and days (say 01:!5 on a Monday night/Tuesday morning, or 11pm on a Friday night when most of the actual target audience would be out socialising etc.) and effectively doomed to failure from the outset from an audience numbers perspective. Even if you show some episodes at "normal hours", you can then you can mess with any audience you have by showing Episode 1 on Tuesday night at one time, Episode 2 at a different time and on a different night the following week, and so on - all things RTE did with all 3 aforementioned shows. It doesn't take long to kill off an audience with tactics like this.

Even putting shows on RTE1 over RTE2 increases manifold the chances of said show "surviving". All of the above were of course shown on RTE2.

So why would they do this?

Well, one reason is to boost home-produced shows and keep the prime time peak viewership slots for them. Example: you could put literally anything on RTE1 on Christmas Day and it will have huge audience figures. So what do RTE do every year? Put on Mrs. Brown's Boys and the say "look at the amazing figures it received!" Shows like "Killinaskully" were given regular slots during peak viewing periods (Sundays at 8pm on RTE1). As were many other RTE Shows - Operation Transformation, DIY SOS/The Big Build Ireland, and many more have been the benefactors of generous scheduling designed to effectively guarantee audiences. Just a coincidence these shows are mostly fronted by NKM clients of course.

Another reason is to keep the content away from your competitors. If RTE buy it, TV3 can't. And if RTE buy Season 1 of a show and then drop it, do you really think TV3 now want Season 2 etc.?

Another way to ensure a show fails is to, for example, show Season 2 of Mad Men at a stupid hour when other stations available in Ireland are already on Season 3 or 4 etc.

Make no mistake, all of the firstly-named shows failures on RTE were as a result of deliberate acts of scheduling.

Anyway, back to your question.

Topline changes I'd make if I was in charge:

1. A complete restructuring of the entity into Public and Commercial (not necessarily those headings but with that at the core). How would this work? Well there would be a Public arm which would cover news, current affairs and would house such entities as TLLS. BOTH arms would be funded by commercial through the sale of advertising, but there would be ZERO cross-pollination of on-air "talent". The Public arm would be for entertainment content only. Sponsorships would only be allowed on the Commercial arm btw.
2. An immediate end to talent being self-employed (bogus in many/most cases btw). If you want to work in RTE, you become a member of staff and you pay PAYE like everyone else. If you don't, no problem - you can move to the fully commercial sector. There is (or was) a prestige and associated fame of being the face of a show on the National Broadcaster, and that dwarfs any that would apply to a commercial station. One should be proud to work for the National Station, not use that position to effectively blackmail them into ensuring you've over-lined your pockets with public money.
3. An immediate end to Agents representing "talent", This would be moot anyway if point 2 is implemented.
4. A cap on salaries throughout the organisation, particularly of on-air talent. No-one - and I mean no-one, from the board to on-air talent - should be earning more than €240,000 (I've picked this figure as its what a Hospital Consultant demands). And no-one can tell me €240,000 isn't an awful lot of money. If for example Presenter X has an offer of €250,000 or more from a rival station, go for it! You may be missed, but you're not irreplaceable. Also on this point - to ensure it evolves any HR Manager will tell you that an organiaztion needs a healthy degree of churn. What churn have we had from a presenter POV in RTE in the last 20 years?
5. An end to the rampant nepotism and cronyism that exists in the place. People should get hired on merit and ability, not surnames. I would be looking at a serious cull if I went in to start things off.
6. Working as I do in the Private Sector and knowing what the organization is like from my dealings with them, I can tell you that while there are some very good and hard-working people in some departments in RTE, there are many who are what I would term "dead wood", and need to go. The last time I was involved in exploratory discussion re. sponsoring a show on RTE (this was pre-Covid), it was nigh on impossible to get anyone in there to commit to a meeting after 2pm. And they would openly say to you on phone/zoom calls etc. that they couldn't commit to that as they had to collect the kids etc. I'd love to collect my sone every day from school, but my employer pays me to be at work at that time so I can't. I don't golf myself, but a lot of people in RTE do it seems as that was another excuse. Whatever about doing it, the lack of self-awareness to tell a prospective client that you can't meet them in. the afternoon because you have a tee time is shocking. We would not accept this from any other supplier. We didn't have a choice with RTE. Again, a cull needed here.
7. A closing or selling off of the non-performing elements of the offering, i.e. 2FM. It has long lost its way and is effectively dead in Dublin already where it is outperformed by almost all of the commercial stations in the city. It's supposed to be a Youth station, it's content is clearly aimed at 20-30somethings and it's poor at that - to put it mildly.
8. A reduction in staff where there is a clear overstaffing issue. An example would be the 2FM Breakfast Show, which has 3 presenters - all of whom by coincidence are represented by NKM.
9. Corporate Entertainment Budgets to be dramatically cut. I won't lie, I've received concert tickets from RTE in the past, but never directly - always through the Media Agency I buy media slots from. It wasn't a regular thing but I did receive them. I also received them from other TV and Radio Stations. I was invited a few times to go to golf events, but I don't golf so it wasn't applicable to me. I also got rugby and soccer tickets but only on a very small number of occasions. I was never at pre or post event hospitality at such events though, that I can confirm - nor was I in Japan on RTE's ticket. Corporate Entertainment exists in most companies and sectors, there's nothing unusual in that. What I will say is there's an enormous difference in being given a free ticket to a concert (all concerts have free tickets btw) and a week long junket to Japan costing circa €20,000 a head.

Apologies, I have to dash for a bit of a domestic emergency here but I will return to this later.