RTÉ admits paying Tubridy €345,000 more than declared

It is a serious problem with no easy solution. The "broadcast" tax has been floated for decades by whichever government was in power. The problem for broadcasters like RTE is that their market shares have been falling continually and the way that people "consume" media has changed. Originally, RTE had the Irish TV market to itself and there was minimal competition from the UK and NI channels. Along comes cable TV in the 1970s and the figures begin to drop. The cost of television sets remained quite high so most homes didn't have two TVs. Then the costs of the TVs started to fall in the 1980s and families began to buy second TVs for the kids. The kids didn't want to watch RTE. Satellite TV kicked in towards the end of the 1980s and began to be carried on the cable TV networks so it was more competition for RTE.

The radio side of things for RTE was even worse. In the 1970s, the Pirate Radio stations started up and almost every town in Ireland had at least one pirate radio station and people listened to them instead of RTE. To try to deal with the problem, RTE launched 2FM and it was, for a while, popular. The FF local radio legislation nearly killed off a whole industry. Some RTE DJs proved that they could survive in commercial radio. Could Tubridy have survived in such a competitive environment? No. As soon as he got Gerry Ryan's slot (G Ryan being one of a kind), the slot lost about 40% of its audience. The way that Irish broadcasters weren't falling over themselves trying to get Tubridy with huge salaries showed how screwed up RTE really was in terms of both management and salaries.

The big problem with a "broadcast" tax is that it is unfair and is not based on consumption. Someone with no TV would have to pay it and someone who has no radio would also have to pay it. There's no feedback system in it that would allow for consumption of media to be measured. (It might be possible with Virgin's cable network but that would create a lot of privacy problems.) The way that TV and radio audiences are guesstimated have their own problems. If Tubridy was as popular as the RTE/NKM propaganda claimed, the audience for the radio slot should have dropped like a stone after he was removed. It didn't.

There are two possibilities for that. The first is that the way that audiences are measured is not accurate. The second is that many people don't so much listen to radio as are subjected to it as a background noise. Someone on a bus trip might be considered a "listener" but they have no control over the choice of station. That's generally up to the bus driver.

The FFG government already has a lot of problems and a backlash against a broadcast tax would probably equal that of the protests against the Water Tax. RTE's credibility and that of its management was destroyed this year. At this stage very few people would want to pay to keep people like Tubridy paid the salaries that they had come to expect. The licence fee revenue was down 20 million Euro this year according to an article in the Indo. People may not want to pay the licence fee in 2024. The upside for Tubridy fans is that they will be able to listen to him in January without having to contribute to his salary.

Regards...jmcc

Brought to you by paying your TV licence .... Ryan Tubridy is James Bond .... in ....

Goldenflipflop

[Fake] Starmaker

Octotubbers

The Living Late Late Nights

Goldenboy

Starring:

Ryan Tubridy as James Bond

Dee Forbes as M

Joanne McNally as Octotubbers

Kevin Backhurst as Blofeld

Pat Kenny as Robosecretagent

Donald Trump as Goldfinger and Brad Whitaker

Gemma O'Doherty as Fatima Blush

John Waters as Dr NosuchthingasCovid

Doireann Garrihy as Q

Baz Ashmawy as Kamal Khan

Enoch Burke as Hugo Drax

Title songs sung by Imelda May

Produced, written and directed by Noel Kelly

Do not expect any invisible cars only Renaults not paid for ....

Ah now Sunny, I think you've very far into the Christmas "Spirits" at this point.

RTÉ have always put Fair City above all other drama (and comedy) over the years. It gets €15m for its production every year, and its actors as we have found out are very well paid.

RTÉ have also slashed and burned across their budgets over the last 10 years in the hope that people might notice the difference in their output, it never worked and people didn't notice. 75% cut to young people's programming, minimal spend to Independent Drama amounting to just under €7m in 2022 (and I am being generous with that figure), comedy development is a huge issue and always has been for RTÉ and so on.

RTÉ's 10 priorities have always been: -

1. At least pretend we are tackling wages and staffing levels
2. Fair City as Drama
3. 2FM for the Yuff
4. Management wages
5. Management expenses
6. Management Cars
7. Summer Holidays
8. Playing the poor man for TV license increases
9. Suggesting that RTÉ out performs in comparison their counterparts in Europe on the budgets they have
10. Suggesting that RTÉ is public service media and must be funded correctly into the future

Fair City was a serious attempt to compete with the UK soap operas in the 1980s and 1990s. But that was all it was an attempt to compete.

I'd rather by cynical than naïve.

So he chose to leave because he wasn't feeling it anymore.

Nothing to do with the payment scandals or RTE not renewing his contract.

“The future is so bright now, but I couldn't see that for a little while there recently and gosh, it was difficult,” he said, adding how many offers of work he has had since.

“Especially in the UK, the offers started to roll in. I mean, they rolled in here but when you've done the Late Late Show, it's hard to go anywhere else in Ireland and I don't mean that disrespectfully."

If I was a betting man, I'd say that's a lie. He took one of the 1st offers he got.

Host Doireann Garrihy admitted she asked him to return to the podcast as "Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without hearing from Ryan Tubridy

Funny how he says that the deaths of those boys in Greece gave him perspective. He never showed any perspective in relation to his privileged circumstances against the majority of people when RTE looked for a salary cut from him. Instead he ended up dragging the whole organisation down with him. Not an ounce of decency or sincerity. He says that he told the truth in front of the Oireachtas committee. Who does he think he's kidding?

All disingenuous crap. It's so transparent....

I thought of the kids and their poor parents - TICK

My poor mother in hospital, who thought about her? - TICK

I'm so happy now, all that old smalltime Irish shíte is behind me. I'm movin on up baby! - TICK

If I had to write a Tubs parody of that Doireann G interview, I'd insert the very same stuff.

Doireann is using it, clearly. She might have had it moved to her boat, though

You might have missed it. Apparently it is starting on the 2nd of January.

Regards...jmcc

It won't be though. It'll be dull competent bland wallpaper pop radio, barely distinguisahable from 20 other shows going out across Britain & Ireland at that time of the morning...

Tune in first day and never listen again would show nobody wants to listen to him

Surely he'll be going into it with the midset that he's broadcasting to a UK audience and will be careful to explain any even vaguely obscure Irish references. I mean that's the main gig isn't it? Even if Q102 dropped him after 6 months that wouldn't matter much to him would it?

He did seem to be desperate to get back in to RTE but I'd say he's genuinely glad now at how things have worked out, even if he's on a fraction of the salary. It just seems like the right move for him on every level.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out for him. He tried it before and it didn't really work out. I can't see his "shtick" transferring over there, ie Irish-America, JFK, Democratic politics, reading from the paper, Toyshow, and a fair dollap of Paddy Whackery. He really will have to reinvent himself.

Isn't this what so many middle-aged men long for though, throw everything up and start again? But they have so many obligations they can't bring themselves to take the plunge. And Tubridy surely wouldn't either if his hand hadn't been forced.

And given Chris Evans seems to have his back in a big way it's probably not such a big gamble. Worst case scenario if he doesn't work out in the mid-morning slot he'll find himself