RTÉ admits paying Tubridy €345,000 more than declared

you know for a fact that everyone in RTE is on a gravy train? https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2022/0829/1319476-average-pay-at-rte-totalled-60-686-last-year/ don't conflate the high earners with everyone else.

Not all of them are. But all of them have benefitted from overstaffing and many from overpayment and no doubt ridiculous pensions etc... if they are worth that in the real world, they won't have problems finding employment...

RTE is not a public service broadcaster in the traditional sense of the term. It uses a hybrid model which sees it active in the commercial sphere and competing with commerical Irish broadcasters for advertising revenue. For the first decade or so of the operation of RTE's TV service, it had almost no competition except from UK channels that could be received on the coast and the border. The advent of cable television in the 1970s changed that and it was facing more competition. The pirate radio stations of the late 1970s and 1980s created even more competition as did the satellite TV channels from the late 1980s onwards.

RTE has also had to compete with streaming services with RTE Player. Because of the licence fee funding and bailouts, RTE has had the luxury of surviving when a commercial station facing the same competition would have failed long ago. Like a drip-fed junkie hooked on cash, RTE has the licence fee and bailouts feeding its habit. The rubbish about RTE having to pay its "talent" so well to prevent them begin poached by commercial broadcasters has been show to be just that. Tubridy has been gone from RTE for months and, to use Terry Prone's apt phrase, the offers haven't been coming over the phone for the Ryanstone cowboy.

Despite RTE's aspirations to be BBC on the Dodder, it is not. Commerical stations can't afford to lose audiences and would be faster to get rid of "talent" that were losing numbers. RTE can because is is funded by the licence fee, bailouts and commercial advertising. RTE and its hybrid model has skewed the Irish media market because commercial Irish broadcasters can't compete with RTE's deep, taxpayer-funded, pockets. For RTE, like the end of the movie "Goodfellas", it's over. Tubridy will have to be content with egg noodles and ketchup on the Alan Partridge circuit.

Regards...jmcc

The most important question is does the cuts address the deficit fully. It's the only metric.

To me they look to be aiming at the low hanging fruit, sell a bit of land, let 400 go etc.. but cutting 2xm, pulse and the digital stations isn't going to save a whole pile, nor is getting rid of rte+1...is it?

And what is the plan for the current contractors....they seem to be where the money on 'talent' is being spent. Also how much contingency is needed to solve the issues around bogus self employment. They have said they have money out aside for this but haven't said how much.

It would be very interesting to know how much correspondents from the indo and Irish times etc are getting and why. They seem to be on about every topic, even when rte has their own correspondent for politics, finance, health etc. why do they need people from the indo and times when they have George lee and co?

There would want to be a lot more to this plan than what the indo have outlined, or it's just more of the same really.

I dont recall any qualms from RTE discussing redundancies in other companies, similarly ahead of official releases.

What goes around comes around.

How many of them work a 35 hour week for their salary?

Also don’t forget all the allowances they get, they’re probably not included in that figure.

I have first hand experience of that some years back, RTE had the story before any of the staff

Definitely not an Alanis Morrissette style ironic. But that's Journalism.

Regards...jmcc

Didn't rte try redundancy before and it went nowhere, hard to google it now as its all the current stuff

Was it established if these hundreds of contractors are included in the 1800 staff or on top, or are they fudging the numbers again

While I note your skepticism, I am absolutely sick of hearing about this far-right bogeyman that the great RTE is protecting us from. There is no national right wing media to speak of in this country. None. All (RTE included) sing from the same centre left hymn sheet.

If a couple of tiny online only one man band right wing outlets are a threat, well maybe we do need some mainstream diversity of thought. That's the only diversity that's not acceptable though.

In any case, I'm not saying RTE should go off air during a rapid reorganization, but that it should be given a bit of leeway if it's output is a bit chaotic during the transition. It should be able to cope because management feel that they can manage long term without those staff.

As I said, the real reason they want to take so long is to draw it out so that momentum gets lost and they can retain their bloated size.

DC pensions for staffsine 90's. FFS at least know what your talking about before shiteing on. Taking pleasure in ordinary workers loosing jobs go you. Cabbage

Do you honestly feel that their is a huge difference between Strategy 2024 and this "New Direction".

I currently don't see it.

• Reduction in staff over a set number of year
• Reduction in the number of broadcast service (all of which will have to be signed of on by the minister)
• Move of production from one part of the country to another
• "Continued" reduction of top pay
• potential sale of land
• invest more in digital and online services

I'd be surprised if they don't ask for the CO to move to the NCH.