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Dee Forbes banging the RTE TV licence drum again 60m uncollected fee *poll not working - pl ignore*

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  • Registered Users Posts: 18 00s anorak


    Has anyone mentioned Willie O'Reilly? Rejoined RTE from Today Fm in 2012 to become commercial Director but a couple of years later took an exit package. I was amazed that this was allowed go completely unchallenged at the time but the mainstream media in this country is one communal family that scratches each others backs. I would have thought that it is basic foundation level Junior Cert stuff to know that redundancy packages should be used for surplus to requirement staff who don't need replacing like a midnight to 2 DJ on 2fm who could be replaced by an automated playlist for example, not senior executives who are going to be replaced with someone new in the role.



  • Registered Users Posts: 14,284 ✭✭✭✭retalivity


    There is already an organisation fulfilling a public service remit and producing decent quality programming in Ireland, on a shoestring budget - TG4. Give them direct exchequer funding to provide Irish & cultural content, and bin RTE.



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,993 ✭✭✭RoTelly



    ______

    Just one more thing .... when did they return that car

    Yesterday



  • Registered Users Posts: 549 ✭✭✭Baba Yaga


    been wondering this myself,looks like all those super hot shot expensive investigative reporters hadnt a clue....in my job id be very low down on the scale but at the same time ive a very good idea of what is going on at board and management level...


    "They gave me an impossible task,one which they said I wouldnt return from...."

    ps wheres my free,fancy rte flip-flops...?



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,993 ✭✭✭RoTelly


    Willie O'Reilly left in 2018, I would say he left on the 2017 package, I don't see why not.

    Frances Abeton left the role of Director of Operations and Production Services at the end of 2018, she'd been highlighted in the press on her arrival a year before, did she take up the offer to go? Note that her role was not replaced, and also that it looks and sounds like a made up role.

    Did Jon William take up the 2021 offer when he left at the start of 2022? Do Executives get gold handshakes on Exiting?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT%C3%89_Executive_Board


    ______

    Just one more thing .... when did they return that car

    Yesterday



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  • Registered Users Posts: 19,470 ✭✭✭✭Brendan Bendar


    For anyone to even think of defending RTE in this situation only underlines how corrupt the whole sector undoubtedly is.

    John Q Taxpayer is, and has been, cottaged by these people to a greater and lesser degree for yonks, who ran the gaff like as was said a personal fiefdom ,where a coach and four was galloped through any regulation which left them at a disadvantage.

    Then they try to pull the ladder up after them when they are at long last found out.

    Unbelievable Jeff.



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,208 ✭✭✭saabsaab


    Could be best to just close and restart from scratch at this stage..



  • Registered Users Posts: 7,395 ✭✭✭MrMusician18


    I have my doubts that only reform of existing structures in RTE in exchange for a new funding model will be enough to satisfy an electorate that's seemingly quite angry about a lot of things.

    A rebrand is probably the minimum now and I wonder if a formal split between PSB and commercial is now a real possibility.



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,993 ✭✭✭RoTelly


    Rebrand is useless with out change. Government should start the split.

    • Move RnaG and all Irish Language commissions to TG4 (increase funding to TG4 by €17m)
    • Move Orchestra and Lyric FM to National Concert Hall (increase funding by €14m, Lyric FM news provided by RTÉ)
    • Take 2RN out of RTÉ altogether

    We then have some movement of that split.

    IMO This idea that it was an issue of money and commercialism that got RTÉ to where it is at is pure distraction, RTÉ have never been a good public service broadcaster and they would have played the same game even if they'd been less commercial. IMO.

    These idea continue to suggest that RTÉ was always at the behest of outside forces and they could do nothing, in the words of Moya Doherty an "Existential Crisis".

    How do you split the rest of PBS from commercial?


    ______

    Just one more thing .... when did they return that car

    Yesterday



  • Registered Users Posts: 9,278 ✭✭✭Cluedo Monopoly


    It was always clear that O'Keefe's redundancy was illegal. I hope Revenue actually do something but I'd prefer to see a Garda investigation. It was a cosy deal between herself and Forbes. It's got fraud written all over it.

    They can keep sending me reminders on the license fee. Not a notion. Would prefer to go to court.

    Post edited by Cluedo Monopoly on

    What are they doing in the Hyacinth House?



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  • Registered Users Posts: 549 ✭✭✭Baba Yaga


    wonder what else is going to come out...? its nearly a year since yer man jacked in the late show and very little has actually been done since,yer one dees doctor needs to stop signing off on the sic notes and she has to be made answer questions,its OUR money she pished away after all...i really do think the only thing to do is close it up and start fresh...and in the mean time bring in the garda fraud squad.


    "They gave me an impossible task,one which they said I wouldnt return from...."

    ps wheres my free,fancy rte flip-flops...?



  • Registered Users Posts: 7,384 ✭✭✭Tow


    Is Eimear Cusack still director of HR? It would have been her job to approve and calculate the redundancy payments. She also failed to produce the Org Chart and introduce a Salary Grade system.

    When is the money (including lost growth) Michael Noonan took in the Pension Levy going to be paid back?



  • Registered Users Posts: 43,028 ✭✭✭✭SEPT 23 1989


    Two muppets named and shamed about their parts in the Dublin riots

    no redactions for them unlike RTE

    still no mention of the next chapter of their own never ending scandal six stories in



  • Registered Users Posts: 7,395 ✭✭✭MrMusician18


    Oh I agree, a rebrand is a veneer of change, not actual change. The problem for government is that they have limited room for manoeuvre - RTE is hugely important to them to get their messages out and is broadly in alignment editorially with their policies. RTE doesn't really ask hard questions, so it won't piss them off so that they actually turn on them. A hostile national broadcaster, even hobbled by cuts would be problematic. You don't need huge budgets to ask hard questions.

    Unfortunately for government though it looks like the public want radical change in RTE, so my guess is they will market outward facing change as inward structural change.

    I guess it would depend on whether other media goes along with such a wheeze.



  • Registered Users Posts: 13,360 ✭✭✭✭hotmail.com


    The government has took no action on RTE except for statements and giving them a large cheque to keep them afloat.

    Catherine Martin is clearly soft and RTE knows it.



  • Registered Users Posts: 19,470 ✭✭✭✭Brendan Bendar


    Time to put the boot in.

    This lot have been butt-reaming poor JQT for was to long.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,234 ✭✭✭Viscount Aggro


    Can they not cull the insipid radio presenters?

    Give younger people a job, and a chance.

    I could name a few... Marty Whelan, Lorcan Murray.

    Jaysus, it makes me want to queue up at the trees.



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,208 ✭✭✭saabsaab




  • Registered Users Posts: 893 ✭✭✭Emblematic


    I think you are going to run into these questions no matter what you do. If you were setting up RTE for the first time, you would have questions as to exactly what is going to do, what kinds of programmes are they going to make etc.

    I would not see it doing stuff for newspapers and other publications. It would be primarily radio and television.

    Yes, Ireland already does this stuff but it does it in a non transparent way. So for example, 40 million is spent on commissioning in RTE but overall 200m is given to RTE from the licence fee (correct me if I am wrong). That seems a lot of money propping up RTE.

    Take all of RTE's subsidy away from them and with the money set up an independent State-owned commissioning body and let all the broadcasters (including a now-private RTE) benefit from it.

    Of course there will be questions and initially a lot will be got wrong but the better focus should lead to efficiencies.



  • Registered Users Posts: 893 ✭✭✭Emblematic


    Over time they would become the new RTE with all its problems. The reason for this is that would be occupying the same niche that RTE now occupies and it would be come large and bloated. Right now it works well because it is small and focused.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 19,470 ✭✭✭✭Brendan Bendar


    If a lot of them concentrated on serving the public instead of lining their own pockets with various bungs and schemes the

    taxpayer would get better value.

    Don’t you think?



  • Registered Users Posts: 12,559 ✭✭✭✭machiavellianme




  • Registered Users Posts: 19,470 ✭✭✭✭Brendan Bendar


    I don't suppose that anyone thinks its strange that in an outfit which is no stranger to investigative pieces in other companies and public services that they are "shocked" and "sickened" by stuff which was going on under their own eyes?

    On their own premises?

    By their own workmates and management?

    Seems to me that everybody else was 'fair game' but the portcullis dropped and the drawbridge raised at any sniffing around Montrose.

    Uhmmm........



  • Registered Users Posts: 13,360 ✭✭✭✭hotmail.com


    Wider issue is whether RTE is properly able to hold large corporations, government, banks etc to account given their attitudes towards public money.

    I doubt Dee Forbes was interested in exposing any waste in public money during her time in charge.



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,011 ✭✭✭Expunge


    Can I ask you about your reasoning for proposing a move of Lyric to the NCH?

    From what I hear, they are struggling to run an orchestra over there with morale on the floor and various players/admin out "on the sick" due to stress over the last while. I'm not saying it was much better when the NSO was part of RTE.

    Surely it makes more sense to keep Lyric, RnaG and a more PSB focused Radio 1 together. Technology, studios and HR/personnel could be interchangeable or some way centralised that way as opposed to doing everything in triplicate and encouraging more stupid little empire building by vain, useless middle managers hired during the Forbes era.

    It's all supposed to be PSB audio, at the end of the day.



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,993 ✭✭✭RoTelly


    I agree, regardless of the direction you go, as long as there is reform.

    You can see how RTÉ spend that 40m through their annual commission report. (Sport and News both take up most of RTÉ's spend in house).

    I also thing that a year cost analysis should be made on any government spending. We have a tendency just to think things are going well on a change with no further examination of the spending and if further efficiencies can be produced.

    For example lets say the government went with your idea, they might put CnaM in charge of the 200m in commissioning, but we might see no real change as an audience but the CnaM will produce their annual report showing how wonderful the programmes they are producing are and how well everything is going, but lets say from an audience point of view or even from a producers point of view it is a horrible experience, the CnaM will continue to defend what they are doing without any independent examination.


    ______

    Just one more thing .... when did they return that car

    Yesterday



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,993 ✭✭✭RoTelly


    Lyric FM is "the home of the NSO" or at least that was what they used to say, as it is the classic music station and since the NSO is part of the NCH, I don't see why Lyric FM can't move under the control of the NCH ... it remains in Limerick just under the management of the NCH.

    This comes back to my point about when things move there should be a report: -

    1. Report on how well the move was managed (that would be nice reading since it took them an extra year)
    2. An annual report on how the NSO is doing and how it has benefited from the move or not.

    I think it makes sense to keep Irish language together, while providing lyric FM from a different management team. In other word diminish RTÉ as all of these brands are already at arms length to RTÉ.


    ______

    Just one more thing .... when did they return that car

    Yesterday



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,993 ✭✭✭RoTelly


    Again this is why we need independent reports on all public services, perhaps not every year but certainly every 5 years.

    Do we ever see anything real come from RTÉ, TG4, Screen Ireland or CnaM 5 year strategies? Largely they are filled with things that are not quantifiable and the internal reports check off what has been achieved which is almost everything.


    ______

    Just one more thing .... when did they return that car

    Yesterday



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,993 ✭✭✭RoTelly


    I think the point about being made was why do they need to look outside of RTÉ for a presenter of the 9 to 10 Radio 1 slot when there are plenty of people in RTÉ already capable of taking on that position. Moving Marty to Radio 1 from Lyric FM and replacing him with someone else wouldn't be a big task. There are many other presenters who could take on the role.


    ______

    Just one more thing .... when did they return that car

    Yesterday



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  • Registered Users Posts: 8,327 ✭✭✭RabbleRouser2k


    Taken from the Irish Daily Mail, but very interesting reading.

    Looks like My Garrihy and Ms Ryan are not too well liked in the RTE staff offices.

    Taken from above link:

    However, the staff member who originally brought up the issue said that they believe that some of those stars are a creation of RTÉ, made their name there, and are now able to make money on the back of the national broadcaster outside Montrose.

    It's understood there was support and applause for the staff member for their statement from others in attendance.

    Also, that Dan Healy guy, head of Radio 2 in RTE seems rather clueless. When he defends Lottie Ryan and Doireann Garrihy, he calls the 'online abuse' they received as misogynistic. Yet when the Two Johnnies were hired, there were old interviews dug up to 'paint them as misognists', they almost lost their jobs at the station, and had to issue a grovelling apology.

    Lottie Ryan or Doireann NEVER faced such repercussions for all their dealings, but then again, the Two Johnnies didn't have the same connections as Ryan or Garrihy, did they?

    I saw it discussed, when DWTS launched, that something was 'off' between Zamperelli and Garrihy. Seems like the bad blood is boiling over. But she has a podcast with Lottie, so she won't say nothing about that.



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