RTE Salaries 2020/2021

hawley

Good that RTE have reduced some of the salaries. The likes of Ray D'Arcy, Brendan O'Connor, Duffy and Tubridy are still massively overpaid for the marketplace though.

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2023/0215/1356849-rte-earners/

NIMAN

Be careful around the 'reduced salaries'.

I think it's been noticeable that these 'stars' are taking more holidays in last few years, so are they taking a pay cut or working less?

Would be interesting to see a breakdown of the weekly fees, to actually see if they have reduced at all.

ButtersSuki

As I've said many times, we need to see a breakdown of these fees PER SHOW and PER YEAR to see if there's actually a decrease in fees being paid. The devil is in the detail on this one.

Take the following as an example:

2021: John Bluffy does 180 shows at €2000 per show = €380,000

2022: John Duffy does 160 shows at €2200 per show = €352,000

Now Dee Forbes can say John took a cut in remuneration when it actually increased by 10% per show and he got an extra 4 weeks for the breakeens.

hawley

Brendan O'Connor's payments are an absolute joke. 245,000 for maybe 80 two hour shows. No wonder he's terrified of getting involved in any controversy.

NIMAN

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120244726#Comment_120244726

He might be earning his money the easiest?

Over 3k per show. Not bad for a part-time job, and also getting a good wage from the Indo.

RoTelly

note that Finucane and O'Rourke make up most of the 16% decrease or 686,001 v a reduction of 506,333

hollymount

Are any of these actual employees of RTE or are they all contract workers where there is greater flexibility surrounding their tax options, how and when they pay themselves and in funding their pension.

brokenbad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120244805#Comment_120244805

I get you now 😉

sligeach

Borrowed the image from a Reddit thread. Ray @®$€¥ isn't a good anything. He's spoofing a living. And if he was a pill, he'd be a suppository.

NIMAN

How could they justify giving CB a 25% pay rise?

RunningFlyer

Thought it at the time but those figures prove it really did pay certain individuals to keep the COVID gloom going…

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120244924#Comment_120244924

Did he take fewer holidays??

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120244924#Comment_120244924

She tookover the Today show and she had a TV show. I hear she stepped back from the TV show due to work life balance. Or was it she didn't get a pay rise or was asked to take a pay cut! We will find out in 2 years time... when Jenny Z is on the list for 2FM and DWTS ... I am surprised she's not on the list for 2021, but she moved radio show mid-2021? I think Eoghan McD tookover on the breakfast around that time and I think he left soon after!

notwhoyouthink

There is no evidence to support the claim that Joe Duffy is taking more breaks.

I agree with you all with respect to talentless presenters, specifically Turbidity and D'Arcy.

Others are providing a real public service with real impact - and quite honestly, this is something to be cherished. I think the current salary actually undervalues Joe.

The others are not having beneficial effects, Joe is. Why cant people see this?

So please don't treat these top paid presenters as all the same - they are not.

ButtersSuki

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120244880#Comment_120244880

MOST of them are contractors.

ButtersSuki

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120244938#Comment_120244938

CB is female. Did you just misgender her?

ButtersSuki

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120244999#Comment_120244999

Indeed Funny Friday is the best entertainment that can be had - not just in Ireland, but likely on this planet. Joe’s fees should be doubled. At least!

if laughter is the best medicine, Funny Friday must cure cancer. The HSE should contact Dr. Duffy to arrange for Funny Friday to be pumped into all the oncology centers in the country. It would save lives AND reduce costs.

archfi

The mind boggles that even with a 32% pay reduction D'Arcy is STILL robbing a living @ 305k!

What a station!

😳

NIMAN

Maybe he got cut a grand every time he hit the wrong button?

hotmail.com

Claire Byrne has mentioned a couple of times that "We're all worried about our electricity/gas bills".

She's on 350,000 a year.

Ninap

Get a grip. 10 people at the top of the tree broadcasting-wise. Graham Norton gets paid 4.2m Sterling for how many shows per year? Tubridy and the rest work for their money. No one on here could do the job; it’s like lots of things - looks much easier than it is

zell12

..

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120245268#Comment_120245268

The brass neck of her!!

As for Ballsy O'Connor who seems to have been castrated when the money landed in his lap... someone really needs to get on that show and toast him.

hotmail.com

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120245378#Comment_120245378

Yeah his show couldn't get any blander.

That's Irish radio for you. Bland.

Jarhead_Tendler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120245268#Comment_120245268

She must have an electric private Jet

StevenToast

Thats some top level propaganda out of Dee Forbes, aided and abated by NKM....

Ryan Tubridy has absolutely NOT taken any pay decrease.....the only thing to decrease is the hours he works....the man has about 4- 5 months off every year!!

Joseph Goebbels himself would be proud of the tactics used here by Dee Forbes.....

dxhound2005

One of the posters on Boards used to do a count of how many days Joe Duffy worked each year. To prove the claims that Ryan Tubridy or other presenters are getting reduced salaries because they are working fewer days would need a similar count. Not vague stuff like "it's been noticeable" or "the man has 4-5 months off every year". Real day by day counts.

https://www.broadsheet.ie/2019/09/13/no-show-like-a-no-show/

Gen.Zhukov

I don't believe we're seeing anything near reality here. I wasn't too far off the mark with my predictions on how this would play out. It's the 3 card trick laid bare.

These freeloaders don't take decreases in fees - not the contractors, not the agents. There's shenanigans going on in the background, mark my words. Before anyone goes 'links?', these are my thoughts only.

Lets say Duffy's fees (paid for and declared by RTE) were a certain amount in the past. To avoid these fees having to be declared now, a particular show/series gets farmed out to an external production company instead of RTE. The same fees go to Duffy, only it's hidden now because it becomes buried in a farmed out programme cost (which we are not privy to)

Never trust a word RTE comes out with - it's smoke & mirrors and one of the greatest scams ever inflicted on the Irish people

I presume the likes of Byrne, Tubridy, and Duffy bring in multiples of this in advertising? Like I mean you could replace Duffy with some loudmouth moron who worked his way up through local radio to host the dial-in show on Mucksavage FM, but what would happen to the audience? Willing to take 90k and some appearance money to fund his divorce settlement and the petrol for his 3 series BMW.

There's a profile and stickiness there. People with a public profile should be paid more.

I personally know a few fairly average managers in well-known firms that make almost as much as the likes of Moloney, and I'm certain they don't have to open up Twitter to be told how shít they are at their job (very unfair in the case of Moloney, as he is an outstanding soccer and GAA commentator).

Expunge

George Lee?

180,000 for 2021?

Mother of God.

What do the other corrs get paid?

newcavanman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120244999#Comment_120244999

How is Joe value for money? There might once have been a point to this programme but now it's just a vehicle for Joe to blow his owns trumpet. He likes to pick an easy subject with a readily obvious Badguy.

When he gets caught out, he's like a petulant child. A few weeks ago he dipped his toe in the Refugee Protests water. It was the predictable RTE line, ie, there's no such thing as a bad refugee. When he finally had to allow a contrary voice on, Malachy Stevenson, he was beyond rude. A professional would have been polite. In the world of RTE, Free speech is only free when it's the ' right' kind of free speech

hamburgham

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120244862#Comment_120244862

Top 4 are laughable and I don’t even recognize all the other names in the ‘top 10’.

walterking

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120245039#Comment_120245039

Which mean RTE don't have to pay employee prsi and nor do they have to contribute to pensions.

What people hate to accept is that all of these presenters, whether you like them or not, are large NET earners for RTE. The Late Late Toy show alone more than pays for Tubridy's salary.

The commercial money they earn for rte then goes into children's programming, arts programming and mostly sports programming where GAA coverage is the most costly of all TV and is hugely subsidised by the programmes of the top earners and the licence fee

2smiggy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120247107#Comment_120247107

net earners ??? hahahaha. They advertise each others shows in the advertising slots, or one of the two RTE concert orchestras. BTW they are paid as contractors into 1/2 person companies not for RTE's or the license fees payers benefit. It is to pay as little tax as possible. Any one with a basic understanding of our tax system could understand this.

It is nice how RTE accommodate all these 'contractors'. Any other contractors in normal walks of life have to price actual work, and lose it if too dear or incompetent (see the top 10 list for any combination of these)

leath_dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120247107#Comment_120247107

I am skeptical about that, to be honest. If you listen to the advertisements, particularly during liveline, they are by and large promos for other RTE programs, TV licence ads, RTE Orchestra, "Toy Show, The Musical 😁" etc - very few commercial adverts. in fact one could argue that Duffy costs RTE advertising revenue by the amount of free promo opportunities he gifts to his friends, etc on the show

walterking

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120247185#Comment_120247185

Due to RTE getting the bulk of licence fee, they have strict limits of advertising of average 10% of broadcast time with max of 9 minutes in any specific hour. (Virgin don't like when this is pointed out nor do the commercial radio station)

Commercial stations can have 18% of broadcast time as commercial advertising.

RTE will make up for it in more station promos as most TV programmes are made for a one hour broadcast time inclusive of 17-18min commercials. That's also why a lot of shows that go onto Netflix are 42-43 min long.

SuperBowserWorld

Job requirement: be false, fake, populist, bland, controllable, safe, boring, predictable, sell products.

pjordan

"Which mean RTE don't have to pay employee prsi and nor do they have to contribute to pensions.

What people hate to accept is that all of these presenters, whether you like them or not, are large NET earners for RTE. The Late Late Toy show alone more than pays for Tubridy's salary.

The commercial money they earn for rte then goes into children's programming, arts programming and mostly sports programming where GAA coverage is the most costly of all TV and is hugely subsidised by the programmes of the top earners and the licence fee"

If one adopts that logic then one would expect Carville, Jennings and English of Morning Ireland (by far and away the highest listenership on Irish radio and presumably advertising revenue draw) along with Curran of The Business and Ronan Collins to be well up the high earners list, unless of course they are direct employees of RTE with different "arrangements". Equally one supposes the TV news presenters apart from George Lee are also all in the very high earnings bracket just below the top 10

However, I would beg to differ that it is the star presenters that draw listenership. The slot has much more of a draw than the presenter as can be evidenced by the departure of the likes of O Rourke and Finucane. Whilst it might not warrant putting on a bog standard presenter sourced from local radio as mentioned above (Although there are many in that sector perfectly capable and competent to take on such roles) I believe putting any of the range of available RTE personaties into a particualr slot will retain most of the listenership.

Your argument above along with a few others defending the payments sound like they come straight from the NKM PR department (who of course also handsomely benefit from a sizeable cut of all these payments!).

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120244999#Comment_120244999

Joe is not taking more breaks, RTÉ Radio can only air a max of 9min of ads per hour and an average of 6min across the day.

No I agree they are not but they are not value for money.

Radio5

The pay for George Lee in 2021 is extraordinary considering how little he does for it, even compared to the others.

leath_dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120247473#Comment_120247473

I'm sure he was talking about holidays, time off, etc - not advert breaks

leath_dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120247216#Comment_120247216

The point was made that the likes of Joe Duffy is a net earner for RTE. Where is the revenue coming from? There are sod -all commercial adverts during his show and I don't believe he has a main sponsor any more

NIMAN

Did some of the top 'stars' shows not struggle to get a main advertiser in in recent times?

Wasn't Tubs even without a sponsor for a while before Center Parcs came on board? Now if he is meant to be such an attraction for advertisers why did that happen?

And Ballsy O'Connors show, him on 245k per year, also had no sponsor for quite a while iirc.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120247556#Comment_120247556

They could be right about that. Tubs and CB get about 40 to 50 days holiday a year from Radio, I counted the last 2 years, I am sad like that. That like 8 - 10 weeks, they do very well on the Holiday front.

Re: George Lee, You also have to remember that other correspondents would be on similar wages and might just be outside to to 10. On top of that outside of Crime and Locals they seem to be on holidays when anything is happening.

Remember we have found out that Fair City's Tony Tormey is getting between 99,000 to 120,000 a year.

2smiggy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120248025#Comment_120248025

Tony Tormey wants a permanent number now, after 18 years of working as another 'contractor' for RTE. Maybe he can see the writing on the wall for his character.

Joe Duffy is a temporary contractor, that could be let go at any moment, on liveline for the last 24 years

ButtersSuki

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120246656#Comment_120246656

That was me.

TMFMS.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120248127#Comment_120248127

I would have though he's a contractor since he started in FC back in 1989. They don't know the market in RTÉ. From what I can gather Hollyoaks actors are getting circa £40,000 for a full time character, while FC is paying out circa €90,000!

2smiggy

RTE is a gravy train of epic proportions. I know it's easy to look on in disgust at the whole thing, but for those already on it it's hard to turn down the obscene sums of money.

People even mentioned camera and sound people working for RTE. Other stations what man be a 1-2 person job, with RTE it's a full crew of workers, all on top money. It's like the county council on crack

Expunge

I just did an attendance tot up for both Tubridy and Duffy for 2020 and 2021, using the the list of 'listen back' shows for each of them on the RTE Radio 1 website. It show the days they were on air and the days they were replaced by others. I think it's pretty accurate but might be out by a show or two.

I found that in 2020 Tubridy presented 211 out of 254 radio shows - "fees" that year 466,250

Joe Duffy presented 205 out of 253 Livelines - "fees": 360,650

In 2021, Tubridy again presented 211 out of 253 radio shows - paid 440,000

Joe Duffy presented 214 out of 247 Livelines - paid 351,000

Of course, they may have been 'working' on their dreadful TV shows on some of these missed show days.

Again, this might be a bit rough as a calculation, but this idea they're doing fewer radio shows doesn't seem to hold water. Someone at an Executive level has finally grown a pair of balls, it seems and has told Noel Kelly to lower his clients' expectations. It seems that some on that Top Ten know in their heart of hearts that they are close to stealin' a living and accepted their cuts.

Those two are still massively overpaid in my opinion and, sadly, any savings have probably been spaffed up against the wall after the Toy Show the Musical debacle.

ButtersSuki

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120245287#Comment_120245287

Except the UK has a population of 67.5million........you really are not comparing like with like. The TV Show is also shown on BBC America (and in other markets -I saw it on the listings when I was in Hong Kong). It even commands a sizeable audience when Virgin show it here as a repeat!

And Norton also as a BBC radio show.

Damien360

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120248200#Comment_120248200

Pat Kenny said this some time ago on his Newstalk program. Specifically the late late camera crews had it sown up because of union involvement. People holding the wires were paid same as a camera operator. A job that TV3 would have down to 2 people would be a 4 person job in RTE. In TV3 there would be a senior earner and a junior skivvy of sorts. The rte equivalent would all be on the same top salary. He long ago said ignore the salaries of the top people and start looking at the multitudes of middle people, that is where the waste is.