RTÉ admits paying Tubridy €345,000 more than declared

Exactly. He's trying to spin this as a positive...........and I suppose it is from the point of view of being unemployed to now working in UK media. But when viewed from the perspective of where he was 12 months ago, it's a huge demotion and, for the moment at least, the end of a very comfortable existence.

He's gone from secular saint, all round good egg and Toyman, fronting the biggest show on Irish TV and the biggest salary for an on-air presenter to having to move to London (with all the associated expense and hassle) to take a job on a relatively small station, with much longer hours and commitments and he will now be actually expected to pull his weight. I sincerely doubt Virgin will supply him with 10 researchers and lackies like he had at RTE. And he's doing all this for a fraction of his old wedge. He's now in an anonymous big city. No more claps on the back and selfies and people asking him about running for the president. Comfy, leafy D4 will seem like the other side of the world. He's going to be expected to attend lots of red carpets and pump and promote his show wherever possible. Not really his natual habitat, especially when the default question is going to be "Ryan who?"

Fundamentally I dont think Tubs has any love for the UK or any real interest in working there. His stints at the BBC previously were only designed to bump up his RTE contract renewals with threats of leaving. He is a homebird and a very parochial one at that. He likes his home comforts, the familiarity of his surroundings, his trips to Galway. He especially liked the high esteem he was held in at home and I'm quite sure he had aspirations for an Aras bid in the future. This London move would only have made sense if he had gone 15 years ago and into a big show on the BBC for multiples of his RTE salary. It certainly makes little sense now. Beyond of course, staying employed and relevant and hoping he can come home to Donnybrook in some guise in the next 3 to 5 years.

I tuned into Virgin Radio today on the smart speaker to check it out.

Plays a lot of music, with the usual inane dj banter in between songs.

It's not a hard job, it's not brain surgery.

He should be grand.

Only a small note. But I'm pretty certain Bakhurst said it was gonna be 170k. Not that it makes a difference. Absolutely fucken mad money to be paying to someone who is hated by half the country now and that includes his workmates, for a public facing role. Most of whom would STILL be on a fraction of that wage and facing voluntary cuts in future. If I was working in RTE and that happened I'd have fainted from the anger.

And Ryan and Bakhurst still thought that was somehow a tenable situation? Completely detached from reality. We had even worse from Ryans mate Sarah McInerny interviewing Bakhurst "Ah wouldn't you give him another chance like?". Without so much as a single statement of contrition from Ryan. Truly unreal.

It's probably all in Ryans best interest that things went down this way. I'd genuinely be concerned that Ryan would be lynched by a colleague or aggrieved member of the public if was still on the payroll.

He will need an image update to be ladish like Evans, perhaps get himself a red M5 and a few speeding tickets around London to get his name out there before the show kicks off.

It's possible he was given a fixed fee for first x number of months or a year, and see how it goes.

Dragging the deaths of teenagers into his downfall was a new low

he is playing to a very small crowd in this country

south east Dublin his people

but I can’t see them being too happy about doing that

No one here is as morbidly obsessed as RT is

If you didn’t pay his wages you got a summons and went before a judge

can’t pay

Jail

that keeps people very interested in this character

If someone owed you €150,000 you’d keep an eye on them too.

All this because of greed:

Regards...jmcc

His big refrain seems to be how much he loves the ‘children of Ireland’ ; ‘the old folk / senior citizens’ ‘ people of Galway/ Conemeara’ and all those that care to listen to his style of presentation. If he loved them all sooooooooo much then why did HE BLOW UP the very platform that he had to show it. He cannot use such reasons that he was ‘burnt out’, that he needed a new beginning , etc, etc. The very fact that he was giving up the LLS should have been a HUGH release /relief to him - giving him a lot of free time , an opportunity to freshen up his radio programme, more time for himself and family, etc, etc.

no, it was not enough for him to keep his head down until he got his feet under the RTE table, his EGO, his reality, ‘do you know who I am’ refrain, inability to ‘read the Room’ , KB you are only a ‘blowing’ here GOT IN THE WAY.

So, one would wonder how much he did really love the Children of Ireland?