150KTubs - future career in Virgin Radio and other soulful pursuits **Mod: Read OP**

This is the sort of thing that you assume all Irish adults know. Even if you're an ordinary Joe Soap, you instinctively tailor your conversations based on who you're talking to. You dial down your Irishisms and you automatically cut out the references you know will fly over the head of the other person. You're not going to start babbling on about the Munster hurling final to a unionist from northern Ireland, or quote lines from Fr. Ted at a Dutch person who has never heard of the series. It isn't rocket science and it's a formula that so many Irish presenters, journalists and other personalities have stuck to when working in the UK. They become people who are good at their job but happen to be Irish, rather than using it as a big loud badge.

I don't know, I reckon that's a gig he could revive

The 150k issue came up during the RTÉ appearance at Oireachtas committee yesterday - Tubs has NOT paid it back as yet.

Mr. Bakhurst said in today’s hearing: “It’s not been paid back… we ask if he’s going to do it, but we’ve had no progress on that.”

https://goss.ie/featured/rtes-director-general-kevin-bakhurst-reveals-there-is-no-legal-basis-to-recoup-e150000-paid-to-ryan-tubridy-370399

It is and some people are much quicker at picking up the nuances of other cultures. Tubridy hasn't really operated outside the village of Montrose and is still very much in the "village idiot on tour" phase that most people go through when they move to a new city or country. It will take a while before he adapts to UK, and more specifically, to London culture. However, the syndication aspect of the deal means that he has also to appeal to an Irish audience and a UK audience. The irish audience is familiar with him and the UK audience is not. The problem for Virgin Radio is that the novelty factor is wearing off and the listenership patterns will be starting to emerge over the next few months. The syndication deal made sense on paper and might work for a large single market but the Irish and UK markets are not the same.

Regards...jmcc

Which may explain this:

Partnering with a recognised expert could be a smart move, for all the reasons you correctly outline.

Adding a podcast to the daily national UK radio show, nearly national Irish Sunday radio show, national Sunday newspaper column and whatever books he might be working on would only leave TV as the major media format he doesn't have a presence on. And he did quit TV on his own terms before the scandal, so maybe that's not of interest to him anyway.

I suppose the question is, is it good to have many irons in the fire, or bad to spread yourself too thinly? I guess time will tell.

True, and despite regularly doing his own song and dance routines on the annual Toy Show, he had the good sense to stay well away from the calamitous Toy Show: The Musical. The stage and big screen probably aren't currently in his purview.

Virgin must have a good idea about how he's doing compared to Eddie Temple-Morris who had the mid morning slot before him based on the number of simultaneous streams - think something like 25% of UK radio listening is online these days so they'll know the direction of travel by now

He was on around 700.000k when we had 15% unemployment and thousands were emigrating.

If he couldn't park some of that annual income then what was he spending it on, icing sugar?

I won't be surprised if he's paying for his exposure at the moment out of his past earnings.

But as they say in investing past performance is no guarantee of future earnings.

No matter how you slice and dice the numbers, €193,100,000 net wealth is ludicrous stuff. Lets stick to the facts.

And then the thought that someone with that wealth would for some reason be paying their employer to work for them, while living like a student!

Unhinged isn't a word I'd personally ever use, but I think we can all safely dismiss such notions as fanciful, to say the very least.

Also, the drug use allegations - which he has denied - are uncalled for.

He's an ex-RTE presenter who ended up on a small UK radio station on a fraction of the salary he was paid in RTE. His weekday show is syndicated show on a few Irish local radio stations owned by News UK. He also has a Sunday show on those local radio stations. He's got a column in a minor Irish Sunday newspaper. The podcast or "secret project" hasn't happened yet. He wrote two adult non-fiction books about ten years ago. He also co-authored (?) a children's book.The LLS is now presented by Patrick Kielty. His former radio slot is now presented by Oliver Callan. The Irish broadcasting market, at a national level, seems to be moving on without him. The longer he stays in London, the more irrelevant his brand becomes to the Irish national broadcast market. Maybe the next few RAJARs and JNLRs won't be bad and he will be successful.

At the moment, a triumphal return to RTE seems unlikely and that 150K is going to continue to taint his brand in Ireland.There may not even be an RTE to which he might return.

Regards...jmcc

I would chime that rte, or a future version of rte taking tubridy would be confirmation of no reform in accountability.

However voters did put Fianna Fail back in power.

Technically, the voters did not put FF back in power. It was FG. This Tubridy pay scandal and the RTE mess is now driving a stake through the heart of FFG with different opinions on how RTE should be funded. I suppose that the nation should be grateful to Tubridy for starting the exposure of RTE's "management".

Regards...jmcc

Moved on? He's working in a British radio station in London effectively broadcasting to an Irish audience. His Q102 slot and staying in the Irish public consciousness seems to be his primary concern. That doesn't come across to me as someone who has moved on to bigger and better things. He's doing what he NEEDS to do, nothing more. Sitting on his arse in Monkstown looking like a failure wasn't an option really, was it.

He was almost back in RTE last autumn with a new contract worth €170k. His desperation to put the payments scandal behind him and get back on the RTE teet was palpable. Bakhurst himself was all for it until Tub's scuppered his own contract talks with his sheer hubris.

Tubridy has no scruples. He wants back to the easy life. RTE have shown and continue to show no scruples about anything. There is more than a slight chance he'll be back at the national broadcaster in some capacity at a future date, assuming the PR climate is right.

Edit - Contract value correction

Where did you get the 180 figure?

I checked back and it was actually €170k it appears. What's 10k in RTE though, eh!?

Bakhurst gave the figure in a RTE interview last August, after the talks fell through.

https://www.irishtimes.com/media/2023/08/17/tubridy-must-own-a-certain-amount-of-responsibility-says-bakhurst/