RTÉ admits paying Tubridy €345,000 more than declared

Pat Kenny on the RTE gravy train for a long time. I doubt we're going to get an honest debate about RTE or RTE salaries with him as the chairman.

In fact he's never even had a debate about it on his programme.

I do think @log01 has some point though I don't think saving LW really is the answer.

Gavan Reilly is on twitter questioning how much would either cutting 2FM costs down or axing 2FM save in the long term. After all it is only 3m that they give to 2FM from the license fee.

This reasoning could be applied to DAB, LW and AERTEL. Why ditch them when they don't cost all that much in anycase.

Gavan seems to forget that on the one hand if RTÉ made 2FM cost neutral that 3m or so could go to fund other programming across the board.

on the other if 2FM was axed in the morning most of its ad revenue would go to other radio stations, indeed you may find that both RTÉ Radio 1 and Lyric see a bounce in ad revenue, but also even if it were axed by RTÉ 2FM cost would be gone and that 3m or so could be redistributed again.

then if you sell it on the new owner would first cut back on costs and then would go on to change its format to generate income.

Gavan (and those in the media) seem to think that cuts at 2fm are not possible and even if they were possible 2FM it wouldn't save all that much money in any case!

Again you could apply that theory to the NSO which was bring in revenue to RTÉ while also getting funding from the licence fee.

It's bizarre then to think that with all that saving from axing of LW, the moving of the NSO and the axing of DAB that RTÉ would then go to risk spending such savings on The Toy Show The Musical!

Gavan's and other theory could be applied to any part of RTÉ if they so wish, so why not push that theory over the LW and DAB broadcasts.

Pat is a great current affairs broadcaster but let's me honest, he can't be impartial here after 40 odd years at RTE. He also saw himself as a mentor to Tubridy who he said on his radio show was not really at fault here.

Pat is also very much a man of cold hard logic. In this case, Tubridy's agent looked for the best deal he could get, RTE agreed to it and contracts were signed. End of story. As a man who benefited hugely from that mindset during his own time in RTE, it's silly to think he's going to go back on it now. To paraphrase a well worn saying "Dublin in one small media club, and we ain't in it"

If your on X (Twitter) or any other social network might not be a bad idea to post that Independent article about the RTS event 😁 Thanks!

Well done finding it again. It should be pointed out that is not a one off charge but a yearly recurring cost on top. Madness

Very interesting observation re the end of pirate radio and the dawn of licenced local radio in Ireland. On reflection I'd tend to agree with you, much of the cutting edge, radical local pirate radio stations went off the air on NYE 1998 and most failed to get licences which went to the "safe" conservative options. I'm mindful of Mayo Community radio v's MWR here in Mayo. MWR's proposal was backed to the hilt by the Church, Local newspapers and local entertainment business interests so it was never even going to be a contested level playing field. Even the geography itself was telling with MWR's base in the rural agricultural hinterland of Ballyhaunis v's MCR's finger on the pulse of the youth of Castlebar and Westport based out of Moneen, Castlebar.

My friend,the Govt is elected democratically by the citizens of the country.

They use taxpayers money to run the national broadcaster..

They do this to maintain a level of balance in reportage to the population and to obviate the risk of some motor -mouthed

jackass with more money than sense taking over the airwaves setting up shop and firing whatever dogma he thinks

is appropriate without any control from the state.

Fair enough you don’t like RTE, fair enough your opinion is that they try to make people think in a certain way.

After Tubridy’s deal with Renault brings RTÉ to brink, Daithi O Sé went on Tubridy’s old slot yesterday to “plug” the virtues of hair transplants.

He told Oliver Callan that RTÉ bosses OK’d the deal.

Did they OK him using RTÉ as a vehicle for free advertising?

You would think so, been there a few months now - it's a slot where you could talk shite and no one cares, if you're working from home its only background noise while you get to grips with what to do for the day