RTE were going to pay Sean O'Rourke 200k for 40 hours work per year.

Silentcorner wrote: »

I remember one friday night flicking through the channels...stopped at the Late Late Show...this band were on, they were god awful, the kind of band a publican wouldn't subject his customers to...at the end, Tubridy thanked them and in particular the lead singer, Gerry Ryans daughter.

I sometimes think we should outsource our TV output to a proper nation, one that isn't riddled in insular mindsets and nepotism.

Where would you find a nation like that though?

I give up...

This pandemic led me to watch and listen to RTE, probably for the first time. Generally coverage has been good but I don't get the extraordinary salaries being paid out for Mediocre presentation skills. If anyone wants to see how wrong things are at RTE, playback the last Claire Byrne show last Thursday, it was astonishingly bad stuff, check out the mock up of a dummy getting the vaccine also, a few weeks back.

Also telling is the exodus of main. Presenters since last Monday, anyone would think there's no news. Don't get me wrong, everyone entitled to a holiday but you'd think a national broadcaster paying obscene salaries who expect its, main presenters to be present with major news to be shared, it's shocking.

On the bright side, it is worth commending relief presenters and reporters who've filled in and if anything is obvious, it's the fact we don't actually needed these high profile, highly paid and currently highly invisible presenters.

Meanwhile, Joe Duffy being a plank on his traditionally bland Christmas eve show, Yawn!

In 2009 Marian Finucane was earning 500k for 4 hours work per week, this went down to a paltry 300k for the same hours in 2016...... RTE is built on self delusion

RTE was run into to the ground so hard they had to sell lands and axe children's programming and OMG Lyric FM too before Leo had the tax payer bail them out to the tune of 50M! This was unopposed by FF.

Few weeks later we got an election debate between FG and FF with no one else allowed to partake. SF and others called RTE out on this bull**** - RTEs excuse was that these were the biggest parties and the others were all too small (they never even mentioned all the free money they just got - definitely had nothing to do with it).

Few weeks after that SF got more 1st place votes than ever!

RayCon wrote: »

The other night I was flicking through the channels ... RTE 1's evening schedule was:

7pm - Rory O'Connell (I think that's his name) - Christmas Cooking type thing
7.30pm - Catherine Flavio - - Christmas Cooking type thing
8pm - can't remember what was listed
8.30pm - Nevine Maguire - - Christmas Cooking type thing

FFS :rolleyes:

Cheap to make and, believe it or not, popular with viewers.

Viscount Aggro wrote: »

The 2 orchestras are not value for money. I have seen them live a couple of times. Its elitist crap, average age of audience c. 65 years.

AFAIR the two orchestras cost 12 million a year to run which is an astonishing sum, in comparison less than 2 million is given to Irish made drama by RTE.. Im not sure where that 12m goes as their performances seem to be largely in the National Concert Hall. I know salaries for musicans are in the 40-60k range but even if you had 100 of them across 2 orchestras on an average of 50k that would only account for 5 million of it.

Regards Sean o'Rourke its pretty amazing that RTE were willing to pay him 200k for a very part time job of an hours broadcasting a week. This is pie in the sky stuff, what other media organisation in the country would have been willing to pay him that? None is the answer so why are RTE throwing money around like theres no tomorrow.

Apart from that O'Rourke must be mighty pissed off he missed out on that 200k per year over the Golfgate incident. It was to be the easiest money of his career and he blew it.

No where to go due to Covid, but yeah we have repeats of killinascully and Mrs Brown to keep us entertained.

purifol0 wrote: »

RTE was run into to the ground so hard they had to sell lands and axe children's programming and OMG Lyric FM too before Leo had the tax payer bail them out to the tune of 50M! This was unopposed by FF.

Few weeks later we got an election debate between FG and FF with no one else allowed to partake. SF and others called RTE out on this bull**** - RTEs excuse was that these were the biggest parties and the others were all too small (they never even mentioned all the free money they just got - definitely had nothing to do with it).

Few weeks after that SF got more 1st place votes than ever!

Not an SF fan myself - but point accepted here 100%. It's sick and we pay for it.

RayCon wrote: »

The other night I was flicking through the channels ... RTE 1's evening schedule was:

7pm - Rory O'Connell (I think that's his name) - Christmas Cooking type thing
7.30pm - Catherine Flavio - - Christmas Cooking type thing
8pm - can't remember what was listed
8.30pm - Nevine Maguire - - Christmas Cooking type thing

FFS :rolleyes:

Do the Allens get the morning cooking shift?

How many f ing Xmas recipes do people need, assuming most people eat the Trad Xmas dinner anyhow?

whisky_galore wrote: »

Do the Allens get the morning cooking shift?

How many f ing Xmas recipes do people need, assuming most people eat the Trad Xmas dinner anyhow?

Remember reading an article a few years back that said the vast majority of people who watch cooking shows never actually make any of the food shown on it, they are watching it only for the food porn.

Cooking shows a few years back used to actually give you the recipes ingredients/measurements on screen but now they dont bother as they know most people arent going to make it. The article said there was huge disparities between viewship numbers of Nigella Lawsons programs and those actually searching the website to get the recipes she was making.

ted1 wrote: »

Do you honestly thinks he would rock up without doing abs preparation for the show? Id say that 40 hours is slot more.
Regardless , does the pay reflect what he can bring in via advertising as opppose to what a minimum wage worker could ?

Well, I'm in the coveted 18-40 age bracket and I have never encountered this guy or his radio show, so I'm going to guess that the advertising revenue from old people products wouldn't really be affected by whoever is reading the script or going "hmm, yes, go on" to the caller's.

JDxtra wrote: »

How can someone retire from an organization (with pension), and then go back to work for that same organization? Never mind the fact that it's a cushy little number and a huge salary. Either you're retired or you're not.

Because he comes back as a contractor, via a third party agency, owned by himself, but handled via an agent. All of the "talent" does it, so RTE is not paying SoR directly, it's paying his agent, who "contracts" SoR to do the job. That way, RTE pays a smaller number of permanent job high rollers and the rest are connies, who can get the "connie's crucifix" any time. Also, RTE forced a lot of the presenters and broadcasters to become connies a few years ago, which suited a lot of them very nicely as it's more tax-efficient....................Don't forget, TDs do it all the time. They retire from the Dail and come back on Monday next with a lobbying contract in their hands and if they don't want to be seen in public, they simply dig out the diary and start making phone calls. Lucinda Creighton is the classic example.

McGaggs wrote: »

Old people don't matter of you're trying to follow advertising money, which rte seem to say they are doing to justify their expenditure.

I would have to disagree with you there, no mortgage, pension and lots of time on their hands. The hotel industry would die on it's arse, if it wasn't for retired people on midweek breaks.