RTÉ admits paying Tubridy €345,000 more than declared

And VMTV spend the same to show coro st at the same time as ITV, and The Chase a year later and to repeat WWTBAM every weekend!

McSavage savaged all the sacred cows of modern Ireland he didn't leave much out. Usually a comedian will have a target to make fun of but also will try and appeal to a section of audience but McSavage savaged both the old conservative targets like the Catholic church but also the new liberal sacred cows so you might be laughing at one sketch but then be a bit uncomfortable at another sketch necause it was a bit close to the bone.

You know that poll is rubbish when there's 16-24 year olds listening to him at 9am - either they're in school or in bed

Interesting no actual breakdown of the numbers for each age group

Not a great figure TBH

McSavage at his best.

Do you get much giving out about TG4, which is funded directly by the exchequer and AFAIK is only watched any way regularly by a tiny fraction of the population? I think there is a broad acceptance that a lot of what RTE does would never emerge from a purely market-based broadcasting environment and therefore needs to be subsidised by joe public in one form or another....

The poster was asking about water charge-style protests though. Is someone who would be that fecked off about the mooted move to direct exchequer funding of RTE likely to have been appeased by different strategic decisions over the last 15 years or the introduction of salary caps or whatever? Surely if they are going to be sufficiently motovated to go on marches etc. they would need to be against the move in principle under any circumstances, and which demoraphic is that likely to be in Ireland? Most 'direct action', as in the case of the water charges, comes from the radical left, but AFAICS, the Irish left seems to be broadly supportive of direct exchequer funding of broadcasting...

In broader terms, of course, Tubridy, the corrupt barter accounts, the excessive junkets and so forth are merely symptoms of the fact that the monolithic national public broadcaster is coming to an end as a useful concept. It is no longer relevant in today's world and people are (correctly, imo) voting with their feet. It made a certain amount of sense from a governmental perspective that if Ireland did not set up a national broadcaster a vacuum would be created that would eventually be filled by British and commercial channels despite legal efforts to prevent this. Not desirable from the perspective of the governments of the day. Also due to Ireland's small size, some form of subsidy would be needed in order to compete. Back then this meant the setting up of a national TV broadcaster subsidized by a license.

But now with the technology to deliver hundreds of channels, streaming movie platforms, thousands of international radio stations and so forth, is the setting up of a traditional TV service how you would now go about encouraging Irish and public service content? If RTE never existed and you wanted to encourage more local content would you create it. I think you would not. I think you would instead be making use of the platforms that are already there not setting up a traditional broadcaster.

One reason you probably would not set up a traditional broadcaster with heavy investments in transmission networks and so forth is that it will tend to cling to these technologies even as viewers move away from them as they are doing. To make up for this lack of viewers, the traditional broadcaster then rather than innovating, seeks more and more direct public funding.

This is what we're seeing with RTE. As people move away from them, they seek means in which they get paid regardless. In some ways, the current scandal suits them as it accelerates the move to a mandatory broadcasting charge of which they will be the main beneficiary, and with no legal means of avoidance for the public; something they have wanted all along.

There may still be a need for some small body overseeing public money into Irish created content but it should be a traditional broadcaster as they are on the way out as the primary means of delivering content. Particularly not a heavily unionized broadcaster that is resistant to change. It needs to be something that is reflective of the changing technological landscape.

Perhaps.

But only if RTE transforms itself, caps presenters' pay and is efficient and transparent.

Well I think everyone accepts the licence fee system is a bit behind the times but I didn't realise that extended to how the inspectors got about...

TV ads are part of RTÉ set of promo minutes, neither An Post nor The Government of Ireland pay for these adverts and RTÉ don't as they are not considered part of their ad minutes on either Radio or TV. (Ads on other broadcasters would be paid for but paid for by RTÉ).

I think one of the good things about the TV license is that it forces you to remember to that you pay for this service that it is yours, and if your not happy you should complain. But we also see bad decision continually across all public services in this country.

I was coming out of the shop this morning and Newstalk was on. Pat Kenny had just stated. The first item was the report on RTE that was coming out (or meant to be). He went straight to I think its Fionann Sheehan to report about it.

From the start I got the impression he might not be a big fan of Pat Kenny given the way he said hello. He was saying Grant Thorton was saying the report was out but nothing from RTE or rather RTE had said they had not seen it. What striked me was he was saying that they released a part of the Report last week that said they looked into everyone elses wages.

Fionann was saying it had not been a question that was not asked, I would have thought it would have been the first question asked. The bit that made me laugh and another reason I feel there is no love between them is he said and Pat you are fine all your pay was correct when you were there. Pat Kenny stayed very quiet but I saay he was not happy with that remark. So Tubs and no other client of Noels was getting a top up. Bet they are happy