Dee Forbes banging the RTE TV licence drum again 60m uncollected fee *poll not working - pl ignore*

Nobody watches news, current affairs, investigative reporting, regional shows, gardening shows, live music shows, sports? With even an ounce of imagination RTE could make interesting AND public service television (maybe they should watch TG4 for a few days) without paying a presenter half a million...that would involve being innovative, hard working and taking risks, all of what is anathema to RTE as it currently operates.

You list a range of progammes nobody is watch but in fact RTÉ don't produce that many of them that you suggest outside of News and Current Affairs. I think a Public Service Broadcaster should produce standard content (mainstream) along with risking taking content (imaginative content). But I agree with you RTÉ has no sense of producing anything worthwhile let alone anything not that worthwhile.

yeah they have been doing so since 2011.

I'm sure Toyota Long Mile will give her a job, €100k a year to flog their 100% petrol powered self charging hybrids as well as their lemon of an EV the BZ4X.

I'm sure she'd still have loads of followers on the socials for the loikes..... so would be a good investment.

Honestly though, what does she actually do on the radio? last I heard she had a little slot where she'd discuss the latest celebrity gossip? is that her shtick?

Ryan Tubridy won't be coming back. No chance.

Initially I though, 'Hmm... Tubridy might be back'... but the more time goes on, the more I think RTE will cut the poisoned limb. His face is all over the papers regarding what was wrong with RTE. So he has become the face of the problem. And there's more stories to come, and you just know that Tubridy has more dirt coming his way.

Rte have cut ties with presenters before, never to see them return. I mean, there's the '40 year old presenter and voice over artist'' who's name we shall not say, and then there's Brian Ormond.

Bout 8 or 9 years ago, Brian Ormond was the up and coming face on RTE, getting all sorts of promo deals, as was his wife Pippa. He was fronting a new show for the Lotto, with adverts and everything.

Then the Viper came knocking at his door, claiming he owed €40, 000 to people over a 'get rich quick' scheme that turned out to a money pit.

That was it, he was done.

That was over €40, 000 in 2014, money taken from a select few individuals.

With Tubridy, you're talking ten times that much (in addition to the money he's making), taken from every license fee, tax paying citizen in the country. Then there's allegations of tens of millions of euros of 'kickbacks' to other folks, including Tubridy. Allegations of 'tax dodging', a 'Slush fund' that was off the books, and possibly not paying any tax on that. We're hearing tell of staff, and showrunners, who refuse to work with him. Co-workers who didn't get maternity leave, who were told to take pay cuts, that 'there's no money to pay for a crew for your news item', all while Tubridy was getting kick backs. Sponsors don't want to be associated with him. 200 of his co-workers despise him.

And he's still due to appear before the Oireachtas.

He'll probably get a termination of contract payment, and then he's free to look for a job on Newstalk or some other station. But a return to RTE is highly unlikely.

Well there's always

to fall back on...

Monkey Tennis?

He didn't burp? Makes a change...

Tubbelino & Commandant Kelly have offered to appear before the Oireachtas committee next week to 'set the record straight'

So it looks like Kelly/Tubridy are going into damage limitation/career repair mode...

I'd say the incoming DG Kevin Backhurst is royally pi$$ed off with how the last 2 weeks have unfolded.....

He probably thought we was coming to join the gravy train and it was his turn to drive it.... and life would continue to be good....

And now...

And now he has to come in and try to somehow fix this unfixable sh1tshow...

In fairness though, it's probably the best drama RTÉ have produced since Love/Hate

Tubridy's family is practically FF royalty. Beaten only by the Lemass / O'Rourke / Haughey clan really.

Two of his uncles were FF TDs (one of whom held an executive position in RTE before politics)

His grandfather Todd Andrews was FF before FF was a thing (Civil War) and of course was chairman of the RTE Authority among other sinecures FF appointed him to.

That's all just on his mother's side!

His paternal grandfather was an FF TD as well.

Plus Tubridy himself is an ex-(as far as we know) FF member.

His brother ran for FF as well, but wasn't elected.

Was checking last week's TV Guide (no the RTE guide, I don't buy that crud) and RTE had listed 'the best of the late late show with Ryan Tubridy' for Thursday nights at 11 pm or thereabouts.

Of course, they couldn't show that with all the crap going on rn, so they replaced it with another repeat.

This time it was Nicky Byrne's 'Face the Music'...

Face the Music.... someone in RTE has a sense of humour.

I don't think Halpin has much scope in which he can alleviate any fine. The law is the law at the end of the day and that will ultimately be the defining factor in this. And no, I haven't paid for a TV licence since 2010.

And she was also looking for a €34m bailout in the upcoming budget…

RTÉ asked Government for €34.5m bailout just as auditors uncovered secret deal

Virgin Media One showing it live tomorrow, dedicating 5 and half hours to it.

https://twitter.com/VirginMediaNews/status/1678440733894746113?t=1eKrD7MK_r097Hdi4nloLw

Surprised this hasn't had a mention yet

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41179438.html

Guess they'll be dusting off either Pat Rabbitte's or Dennis Naughten's previous bills to implement what will be a despised "broadcast tax". Electoral suicide at this time IMO...

Remember when this thread was the go to place to be for the anti RTÉ chat and discussion.... you know, before the Thanos 'snap'

Any word from Dee anyway? I hope she's recovering well.

Yeah just append it with "...while paying everyone under the table, having champagne parties, flying the staffs families around the world and losing millions on vanity projects" - you could go on and on

Let's suppose for a second that RTE were to undergo a major restructuring and one big change was shifting to a licence-only model of funding and that the licence stayed the same - what would have to change at RTE to make this work, or is it actually just unfeasible all round?

You would say, for a start, to cap all presenters' wages. OK, fair enough. But there are also a large number of other staff working for the organisation in various capacities, and at least some of these are union members who aren't necessarily going to stand for being paid a cost-saving wage, nor necessarily should they. Collective bargaining to get the best terms is part of what being in a union is all about.

So, let's say RTE pares down both the staff numbers and the range of services it offers in order to accommodate this new model of funding - what goes, and what stays?

Licence Fee only on TV means all ad revenue going to UK opt-out channels with VMTV taking up a little bit more but when you consider that RTÉ and VMTV and opt out account for 70% of ad revenue and VMTV, opt-outs and non-opt-outs have the same level then VMTV is left where it is.

On the other hand Radio would just move towards National and local services, but you would have to put real regulations on spend on them, Local Radio would have to radically transform, even today it get away with an awful lot of bad programming dressed up as News and Current Affairs.

The Licence Fee does 2 things

1. It gives the audience a relationship with the broadcaster, you remove this everyone forgets they still pay for the service
2. It prevents cuts either politically or on economic grounds. TG4 is a good example for 2 reasons (1. Its late establishment in the 1990s it wasn't politically important and 2. cuts given to the service from 2011 to 2018 due to the down turn in the economy)

If you were to reform the commerical side of RTÉ you'd consider the following

1. Remove ads from Radio
2. Remove Sponsorship from TV programmes
3. Only allow ads during programming that is more than 45mins long, with an exemption for drama funding by RTÉ to the value of X.

But unfortunately RTÉ is flooded with staff, what do they do?

1. RTÉ is coming towards its annual summer break, how did they get it so good? or why do they all take their holidays in August
2. Over costing programming: e.g. The Today Show on RTÉ TV possible costs 3 times the cost of Ireland AM and produces less programmes
3. Can you reassign staff to programming making duties?