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

Damien360

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120803111#Comment_120803111

RTE don’t like change. As far as they are concerned, he brings in a lot of ad revenue. Whether or not a sock puppet could do the same is not considered. He will be back with it all out behind him.

alzer100

Irish Daily Mail have an article on the front page quoting our Tánaiste Micheal with something like RTE culture, my concern with the agent (I don't have it in inverted commas as I am not stating an exact quote). He's really trying to deflect damage away from his mate Tubridy. NK is a shark yes, but Tubridy as a senior broadcaster and someone in an influential position, should have had the foresight and integrity to question or at least have is financial/legal people to.

I think there really is an effort on behalf of the higher levels in FF anyway, to support Tubridy or use the media for damage limitation.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120802968#Comment_120802968

She fills in for Jenny Z on occassion, but that is about it.

Reading of Jerry Ryan's will

Dear Morya and Children,

....

To my daughter Lottie I give you my black book of possible blackmailing targets, I am sorry to say your as stupid as your mother and you'll need it... however it remains in your possession as long as you keep that muckraker Tubrity on a leash, since PK left the cash machine I've had to feed him his coke, keep him coked up as much as possible, but not in the morning or on a Friday. And don't be using it yourself, get your own, NK will sort you out.

...

RabbleRouser2k

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120803425#Comment_120803425

Initially I though, 'Hmm... Tubridy might be back'... but the more time goes on, the more I think RTE will cut the poisoned limb. His face is all over the papers regarding what was wrong with RTE. So he has become the face of the problem. And there's more stories to come, and you just know that Tubridy has more dirt coming his way.

Rte have cut ties with presenters before, never to see them return. I mean, there's the '40 year old presenter and voice over artist'' who's name we shall not say, and then there's Brian Ormond.

https://www.pressreader.com/ireland/irish-daily-mail/20140811/281483569534705

Bout 8 or 9 years ago, Brian Ormond was the up and coming face on RTE, getting all sorts of promo deals, as was his wife Pippa. He was fronting a new show for the Lotto, with adverts and everything.

Then the Viper came knocking at his door, claiming he owed €40, 000 to people over a 'get rich quick' scheme that turned out to a money pit.

That was it, he was done.

That was over €40, 000 in 2014, money taken from a select few individuals.

With Tubridy, you're talking ten times that much (in addition to the money he's making), taken from every license fee, tax paying citizen in the country. Then there's allegations of tens of millions of euros of 'kickbacks' to other folks, including Tubridy. Allegations of 'tax dodging', a 'Slush fund' that was off the books, and possibly not paying any tax on that. We're hearing tell of staff, and showrunners, who refuse to work with him. Co-workers who didn't get maternity leave, who were told to take pay cuts, that 'there's no money to pay for a crew for your news item', all while Tubridy was getting kick backs. Sponsors don't want to be associated with him. 200 of his co-workers despise him.

And he's still due to appear before the Oireachtas.

He'll probably get a termination of contract payment, and then he's free to look for a job on Newstalk or some other station. But a return to RTE is highly unlikely.

AndyBoBandy

I can’t imagine we’ll ever see or hear from Tubbers in Irish media again (apart from when he’s in the news).

And I’d say even the BBC wouldn’t touch him with a barge pole now, even if they could get him on the cheap (not that they were ever interested in him anyway)…..

Id say his career as it is now is done and dusted.

He has about as much charisma as a mouldy biscuit.

Loafing Oaf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120805248#Comment_120805248

Well there's always

to fall back on...

AndyBoBandy

Aha!

For Forks Sake

Monkey Tennis?

Loafing Oaf

Although in fairness their last experience with an Irish presenter wasn't a roaring success

gmisk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120786247#Comment_120786247

He didn't burp? Makes a change...

gmisk

Letter in this morning to renew tv license, joy.

AndyBoBandy

Tubbelino & Commandant Kelly have offered to appear before the Oireachtas committee next week to 'set the record straight'

https://www.irishtimes.com/media/2023/07/05/rte-pay-crisis-live-barter-account-committee-latest-ryan-tubridy-watch/

So it looks like Kelly/Tubridy are going into damage limitation/career repair mode...

AndyBoBandy

The Toy Show Musical has losses of €2.2m

Two Million & Two Hundred Thousand Euro

AlmightyCushion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120808068#Comment_120808068

As bad as that is, it isn't even as bad as it gets.

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2023/0705/1392900-toy-show-the-musical/

The average ticket price was quoted at €46.50. This meant RTÉ needed to sell 70% across all shows at the 1,995-seater venue to break even.

Just 20,000 people went to see the show. Only 11,044 of them were paying customers, with 5,500 tickets supplied to guests on a complimentary basis and a further 3,500 awarded as prizes.

This is a far cry from the box office predictions made in the business case which sets out a sellout of the 54 shows delivering €4.1 million.

In reality there were just 27 live shows. The total venue capacity for the shows that went ahead was 53,865.

This highlights the stupidity and delusion of RTE. Their business case predicted they would sell out 54 shows which would have been 108,000 tickets. In the end they only sold 11,000 tickets and gave away nearly as many for free. They sold only about 10% of the tickets as they thought they would sell. Their whole business case for this must have been 'Loads of people love the toy show so if we make a musical for it we will sell fúckloads of tickets'

avfc1874

When you think how often the ads for the show, and still a massive flop, deluded, The toyshow is only popular because of tradition, nostalgia,

AlmightyCushion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120808283#Comment_120808283

They did spend more than double the advertising budget. Probably because they were selling so few tickets. I agree with you about it only being popular because or tradition and nostalgia. Even still, I just don't see how they thought a musical about it was such a good idea. It just seems like a rubbish idea for a musical/movie. What even was the plot of it. I really don't know how they thought it would sell so much. I could see a second run of it doing well if the first run had a lot of good feedback about it but they just expected it to be huge from the get go.

The accounts also detail a forecast of €156,020 for marketing and press but the eventual expenditure was €339,634 an overspend of €183,614.

AndyBoBandy

Nostalgia has a lot to answer for for when it comes to the Toy Show...

I really dislike Tubridy (I think he's an odious little creep, or thats how he comes across to me anyway), but said I'd put some of the Toy Show on for our son, as it was apparently the talk all week in school, so I didn't want him to miss out on the Monday morning chit-chat when it's all the other kids would be discussing.....

Anyway he lasted about 5 minutes before declaring "This is boring".... and that was the end of that.

My own memories of the Toy Show with Gay Byrne and Pat Kenny were seeing loads of toys being tested/broken/not understood by Pat & Gay.... Any small amounts of Tubridy's toy shows I've seen (and there are not many), but they always seemed to be focused around him, or a performance...... and any interactions he had with the cameras were him speaking as an adult, to the adults watching at home, in a sort of condescending towards the kids sort of way.... and the interactions he had with the kids was all an act, and put on in a very fake sort of way.... I don't know, it just never seemed 'right'... and certainly never felt 'genuine'.

and then his revelling in the self appointed 'Toy Man' persona that he anointed upon himself also really ground my gears.... like as if 'he' was the magic, and not the toy show itself, which is ultimately what kids want to see..... Toys.... and not that gobsh1te...

alzer100

Forbes an Tubridy, delusions of grandeur.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120808616#Comment_120808616

They all have it: -

Breda O'Keeffe had an oscar winning preformance. To an extend I can believer her.

She starts of with a nicely script set of events, and points out what was in place for such decisions and she makes herself out to be a diligent CFO. It helps her that her successor comes across as a buffoon.

She then goes through the large job that she and her successor have that they have in their jobs, so they wouldn't have full over sight of the small ticket items that RTÉ was spending money on.

Later she is asked about the 25K car allowance that the Executives get, she see no problem in saying that this was part of each of the Directors contract from before her time.

Then she gets to talk about how important RTÉ is to her and her 17 years at the company. Indeed she seems to get worked up on this.

But while she's on the Exe Board she's sitting on a massive wage, expenses and a nice car. She never thought we maybe the €250k that RTÉ are spending on executive cars might be better spend on content.

And I think she got away with this from former RTÉ people and current RTÉ people and the politicians.

AndyBoBandy

I'd say the incoming DG Kevin Backhurst is royally pi$$ed off with how the last 2 weeks have unfolded.....

He probably thought we was coming to join the gravy train and it was his turn to drive it.... and life would continue to be good....

And now...

And now he has to come in and try to somehow fix this unfixable sh1tshow...

In fairness though, it's probably the best drama RTÉ have produced since Love/Hate

ZookeeperDub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120803441#Comment_120803441

The desperation of some people to constantly try to drag in FF and whatever party they don't support into RTE etc.

FF have nothing to do with Ryan Tubridy, no more than any of the party leaders who would all run around him to get air time on LLS etc.

Lets not forget that based on the few interviews he done with Mary Lou they seemed better mates than any of the party leaders. But that's not relevant either in this situation.

Hotblack Desiato

Tubridy's family is practically FF royalty. Beaten only by the Lemass / O'Rourke / Haughey clan really.

Two of his uncles were FF TDs (one of whom held an executive position in RTE before politics)

His grandfather Todd Andrews was FF before FF was a thing (Civil War) and of course was chairman of the RTE Authority among other sinecures FF appointed him to.

That's all just on his mother's side!

His paternal grandfather was an FF TD as well.

Plus Tubridy himself is an ex-(as far as we know) FF member.

alzer100

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120811820#Comment_120811820

Its not about brining in FF. I simply pointed out an article in a newspaper, it is what it is.

I Don't support SF.

RabbleRouser2k

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120812498#Comment_120812498

His brother ran for FF as well, but wasn't elected.

steddyeddy

So just to confirm, RTE doesn't need extra money. It just needs less entitlement.

RabbleRouser2k

Was checking last week's TV Guide (no the RTE guide, I don't buy that crud) and RTE had listed 'the best of the late late show with Ryan Tubridy' for Thursday nights at 11 pm or thereabouts.

Of course, they couldn't show that with all the crap going on rn, so they replaced it with another repeat.

This time it was Nicky Byrne's 'Face the Music'...

Face the Music.... someone in RTE has a sense of humour.

steddyeddy

I thought this was fantastic. Anthony Halpin, the judge who presides over cases involving non payment of the TV license has hit out against the culture of "elitism, god-like personalities", and "freeloaders" within RTE, all in a time when people are "crippled with the cost of living crisis". RTE reports on the responses to its own culture.

A Dublin judge presiding over the capital's TV licence prosecutions has slammed RTÉ for what he described as elitism, "god-like personalities", and "freeloaders" while defendants were "crippled with the cost of living".

Dublin District Court has a special weekly sitting for cases brought by An Post against TV owners who have not paid their €160 annual television licence fees.

Today's list featured 159 prosecutions, but before hearing the cases, Judge Anthony Halpin delivered a strongly-worded preamble about the ongoing controversy at the national public service broadcaster.

He said he was "disgusted and appalled" by the revelations.

"It is a criminal offence and on conviction, it carries a fine and a record of having committed a crime.

"The people before this court are accused of failing to pay the TV licence fee, and these people may feel a little hard done by when they see the way RTÉ has abused statutory funding which is annually provided to RTÉ."

Did anyone ever think they'd see the following passage reported by RTE:

"Shame on those who have brought that about. I will go no further than those remarks, but I must say those freeloaders in RTÉ who received a loan of cars, who received branded cars free gratis, spouses of RTÉ who were wined and dined and part-took of events at the expense of RTE, and others who were lavished with such generosity, ought to pay back to the organization the euro equivalent of the benefit they received, to help this financially strapped semi-State body.

Crucially, Halpin is factoring the revelations about RTE's culture into sentencing and won't be seeking to lay down the maximum sentence possible on those who can't or won't pay the license.

fran38

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120821691#Comment_120821691

I don't think Halpin has much scope in which he can alleviate any fine. The law is the law at the end of the day and that will ultimately be the defining factor in this. And no, I haven't paid for a TV licence since 2010.

RabbleRouser2k

Courtesy of the Phoenix.

Also, interesting article from 2017 discussing the mismanagement of money, and how she blamed people like Trump and Brexit for the troubles at rte.

https://www.thephoenix.ie/article/dee-forbes/

AndyBoBandy

And she was also looking for a €34m bailout in the upcoming budget…

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/rte-asked-government-for-345m-bailout-just-as-auditors-uncovered-secret-deal/a1497190186.html

RTÉ asked Government for €34.5m bailout just as auditors uncovered secret deal