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

Just don't push Catherine Martin to actually answer this, assuming she's not too late for the presser. Besides, hack turned govt lackie Aidan Corkery will filter out any inconvenient questions by wrapping up early for the next appointment.

Expect lots more golden parachutes while the coffers are fat with spoils from the peasants.

It is August the courts are on …. oh wait the WRC is in session!

Another massive payout for Jim who never answered a single question. Thanks FFGG.

Has Catherine Martin retired already. Or is she just busy doing nothing?

Probably higher as it went to the WRC in the end. Also have to take into account that RTE paid the Taxes on the CFO's false redundancy payment. So might be into the 500-600 gross range.

On the grounds that O’Keeffe got 450k and RTE paid her taxes on it. Kevin publicly stated they were going to pay her taxes. This would have set a benchmark for Jennings to aim for.

When the employer pays the taxes, this is a BIK. To use Joe Duffy's understanding of the tax system. You need to earn 2,000 euro to get 1,000 euro. So, to pay 100k in tax you have to earn 200k and so on. So if O'Keeffe owed say 100k in taxes, it cost Kevin 200k to pay it. We don't know the exact figures, but the 450k may well have cost RTE (the Taxpayer) 600k or more…

the Irish tax payer are awful gobshites, Rte givin golden handshakes and secret payouts to people who get sick when the sh1t hits the fan. And the Burke crowd amassing 100s of 1000s in fines and nothing been done about it. And still getting payed.

In saying all of this we have to remember that we are talking about the CFO and Head of HR in one of the largest employers in the country. This is their bread and butter, they are far from innocence and Kevin was a fool to say RTE were going to pay her tax.

it will turn into a taxes on taxes situation. Its tax law that paying an employees taxes is counted as earnings

Total coincidence that the Jennings news comes in the last weeks of silly season, of course.

Nothing new there Mr A, think ‘Birthdaygate “ back in the Covid days.

Once a silo, always a silo, those lads are cornholing John Q Taxpayer like there was no to-morrow.

It actually has around 2,500 when the 'subcontractors' are counted... By Irish standard this is large. ~95% of Irish employers have 5 or less employees. What I don't understand is what they are all doing. They have cut back on service after service, but still have all the staff. HR were supposed to introduce a grading system years ago, but failed to. It would be a start in controlling costs. Detail what everyone one does and their level of responsibility, then assign a grade to them. There are already HR systems/methodologies to do this. I have see it done in other large employers. Once you have a grade, the grade has a salary range. Then look at the employees actually Salary vs their Grade. Some will need a salary increase, but others will be earning more than the top salary for their grade. They can increase their responsibilities (grade) or their salary can stagnate until the top of the salary range for their grade reaches it.

But, I come back to what are all the staff doing? Joe Duffy had had at least half a dozen different producers in the last month. What do these people do on other days? Are their people 'wandering the corridors' who produced a show a one/twice a month?

Then we have tallent like George Lee. Hardly ever on air these days, but on big money.

With the exception of Irish portions, NCH and RTE news and current affairs , absolutely none of the other stuff should be exchequer funded.

Otherwise you're saying break up RTe but lets keep funding them by throwing them hundreds of millions a year and also let them keep ad revenue. Sure our license goes down to 60 quid but we'd still be funding their gold plated contracts and so called redundancy payments.

If a charity had done what RTE is currently doing fraud squad would be in and making arrests. But RTE is being allowed to get away with it.

pretty much more of the same either they are double jobing or making up roles

https://about.rte.ie/2024/08/23/appointment-joseph-hoban-announced-as-rtes-new-head-of-communications-marketing-and-social/

New Head of Communications, Marketing and Social

Is that a new role (during a freeze) or his he replacing some one and is that someone the former Director Of Audiences, Marketing and Channels, now Deputy DG? and where does it put the Head of Public Affairs, and where are their public affairs unit to answer questions about Jimbo.

They are still cornholing us.

The main man is clearing out the old guard and bringing in his own team. You have to pay money to get good senior executives. High quality strategic and operational leaders won’t join RTE for peanuts. In fact they probably need to be paid more to be persuaded to join. Competitive market for talent out there.

This isn’t a community radio station folks.

Lookit…… it’s quite simple in the long run.

RTE management ran themselves into the buffers,all it took after the years of stovepiping , siloeing, lack of control of expenses, outlandish wedges to people on a false premise that they would leave, was a slip up on the Tubridy disclosure and the whole house of cards came tumbling down.

You can pay these honchos Monopoly money but unless they are held to account for their activities and made to pay the price …..it’s a waste of time.

Thanks Bob, I don't understand your defence of RTÉ TBH. And don't take this an attack on you, its purely some ramblings that I am jotting down.

Many years ago I was a much more prolific users of boards.ie, I'd mainly posted in Broadcasting, Film, TV and the odd occasion Politics and after hours. 4 years ago I made a decision to drop that user, as I felt Boards had become massively political and a place were you could not have an opinion on certain topics, so I created this user name and I large stick to Broadcasting and this thread and a few other related to broadcasting. Those are the rules I have set myself, because I agree with you you can be sucked into social media and I have limited my time to weekdays, I am breaking that rule. To me these are sensible rules for me as a user of boards.ie.

This is going be long :)

Over on another part of boards I post but rarely, and less than I used to, that is due to a mod that seems to think you cannot make a bad comment about anyone in RTÉ because they aren't here to defend themselves, IMO RTÉ get plenty of airtime to defend themselves, I almost always mention the mismanagement of RTÉ because of this, though talk about VMTV/TV3 how you like, as much as you like. Watch me be banned from there!

As my other username I defended RTÉ to the hilt, and right now I could defend RTÉ if anyone asking me to, I could do it far better than most in RTÉ. (Obviously outside of this crisis, its indefensible).

For example the only thing I'd mention on RTÉ august holiday before would be "well it used to be from June to August" and prime time was drop completely in August, now it gets a Thursday night edition, this is not to mention the axing of all other CA programmes over the summer.

But there are plenty of things that RTÉ do well and if they had the right management the could have even done those things better and with other genres, instead they have close to 50 employees working on Marketing and Comms, along with numerous contractors, along with spending in areas where there is no need.

Do I believe that Bakhurst will do a good job? No. I am happy to give him the benefit of the doubt but at what point does that benefit stop? Dee Forbes had a honeymoon period right up until her resignation, nobody was talking about their misspending of the funding (I wrote to RTÉ, I wrote to every TD, I wrote to the FOMC, the BAI and so on, I FOI'd them on their executives expenses long before anyone was talking about them). RTÉ was in a heap 7 years ago and nothing changed you could see it, the dogs on the street could see it.

You have visited RTÉ, I assume when on TV. There is only one building being maintained and that is the executive offices at the centre of the campus, the rest as you walk around are mess.

The lobby of the Radio Centre was supposed to be open and minimalist, now it is as if your father went to the dump found old sofas and threw them around the space, and sure stick up a few old logos and here's a 1990s reception desk, there is probably still a FAX machine sitting behind it (plugged out and not in use).

Over in the TV building stacked RTÉ Guides with no where to go, a rug that clearly needs mending and a wash, potentially to be removed and replaced. Over the years corridors closed off with ugly fire doors and a wardrobe department draping their cast offs around the windows to provide some privacy. Meanwhile TV studios not in use sitting there ready to go.

So bad in the Radio centre they decided that the "video" studios would be built in the new-ish TV building, rather than investing in maintaining the Radio Centre. Venetian blinds broken and lopsided.

A general malaise had set in, and visually on their stations RTÉ ONE stuck in 2008, RTÉ2 rebranded with nowhere to go but sport, RTÉ Player continually getting bad reviews, disjointed programming, disjointed scheduling, little new or inventive, a digital TV station they have no interesting in (RTÉ NEWS NOW), digital radio stations they want to see the back of and never invested in, a Radio player forgotten about, with the old logo of the RTÉ player branding for about 3 years before someone though of removing it, a cork studio also badly maintained, dropping of all local office to be hosted by the ITs for what benefit to the ITs? and I could go on.

Well my elderly father has a soft spot for Sharon Ni Bheolain .

Now Iam wondering what he means when saying is Sharon doing a line.

have you listened to Liveline, Ray Darcy show?

Both of those are at the level of Community Radio, with the 2 presenters drawing 600k between them, and production and researchers on top

I think if people just stop paying the license and when the first person is brought to court for non payment I would go full media circus on them and simply say that why should we pay a license for an organization who have committed fraud and the vast majority of these people are allowed walk away without answering questions and with a huge golden handshakes. I would take the piss and get a doctors note stating I cant answer any questions due to illness and see if this person can get away with it for as long as Jennings and Forbes did. I can see this happening there will be a queue of people looking to ask the court why the gov are wasting time and money on 100/200 Euro fee when RTE have defrauded the tax payer of millions and no one held accountable and RTE want us to continue paying or just stating I will answer all questions after Miss Forbesand Mr Jennings have had answered theirs. I would love to see all other media outlets and online media covering this it would be a real kick in the teeth for RTE who simply have no right to continue getting tax payers money the day and age of an impartial media here is gone as soon as there is any commercial aspect it directly conflicts with what public sector broadcasting should be as once money is involved there is a bias towards getting more and it is obvious we need to have a new public media out let and let RTE hit the skids and have nothing else for public broadcasting bar one TV channel and one radio station that only shows things like news, Irish sport (with things like our national game being broadcast for free here I think the GAA should have all government money taken away if they refuse to do this) and other social/political and ethical issues that Ireland is dealing with looked at on a non biased basis and no adds so we know how much it costs who is getting what and no barter accounts. This is my 2 cents.

Why has RTÉ not announced its line-up of programmes for this Autumn?

mass evasion of the licence fee will achieve nothing; the government will just cover the shortfall

Their 2022 launch was a blast though - I think they all wore gold plated flip-flops and snorted finely ground truffles infused with caviar and icing sugar - All flown in by helicopter as Ryan logged every move on instagram, as he quipped, "I'm 'hahaha' just 'hahaha' fantastic"

They were good times

https://about.rte.ie/2024/08/30/rte-launches-new-season-of-unique-public-service-content-featuring-real-irish-stories-and-celebrating-irelands-landscape-culture-and-creativity/ "Unique Public Service Content" they are such **** saps.

To me its all the same, depression dressed as entertainment and that not just the documentaries.

Factual

On the Beat - Fly on the wall doc about the Gardaí, in a never been done before doc that's been done before

The Case I Can’t Forget - Returns for another series

Blindboy: The Land of Slaves - because he doesn't want to be famous!

Anorexia, My Family and Me - Angie Scanlon needs a series and sure poor poor her, its not like we could find an ordinary person do do this doc on.

Addicts - How addiction works, with Prof Brian Pennie a former addict - This project is co-funded by Taighde Éireann – Research Ireland (formerly Science Foundation Ireland) - another PSA from an Irish Public body.

Noraid: Irish-America and the IRA, Vótáil and Scannal.

Leathered - a doc about corporal punishment - is this not enough of a bore

Lost for Words - my own doc about life with dyslexia as I lock my full potential here on boards.ie

Ben Dunne and Michael Smurfit get docs of their own.

GAA docs include The Game, Hell for Leather and Réiteoir.

And I will let you all read the rest !