RTÉ admits paying Tubridy €345,000 more than declared

So now Tubridy and RTE want us to focus on the waived 120k fee, and forget about the 200k+ or so he took for the bogus Renault gigs and underwriting of, paid for by RTE, and all the various costs of staging them and the barter account.

The 120k fee is a distraction.

He's been repeatedly complicit in suspicious side deals with RTE. How on earth can he be trusted going forward?

Who is in a position to verify Tubridy's claims that he's received lot of letters and cards and messages of support? What does that even mean? A half dozen a week to Montrose, who would know his home address off the top of their head. Or hundreds/ thousands of letters? It's meaningless.

I did write to him care of Donnybrook and advised him that he had deceived the public and to go. Did Tubridy count these letters too??

RIP Parkie, a master of the art. The Michelangelo to Tubridy's painter/decorator!

Where is the critical success? In fairness even Gay Byrne didn't get much critical success.

I think there is somewhere in-between on the feelings about Tubs. He's not my cup of tea and thinking critical without my own bias I don't believe he is the greatest chat show host in the world or in Ireland for that matter, and the same goes for his radio presentation.

There are things I love but I know critically and from a mass media level they would not be considered good by others, I can also see when other like something but its clearly not something that is either critically good or good for what it is, I am happy to like such things and happy for others to like their preferences.

There are even things critically acclaimed that I am happy that I will never get but I can see why it is critically successful.

I think TLLS and his radio show would have they audience that they have had even if he wasn't presenting, certainly people haven't turned off.

There appears to be a lot of misreporting regarding the €120,000 that was not paid to Tubridy. I don't know whether it's deliberate or because journalists haven't bothered to read the Grant Thornton report. Two important points from the report:

First, the €120,000 was for additional services that were not called upon and therefore not delivered during the period. The report gives examples of additional one-off specials on the Late Late and an additional TV series of eight 52 minute shows.

Second, the agreement to waive the fee was made as part of the back-and-forth of negotiations for his current contract period - so it was "quid pro quo", and not an act of charity by Tubridy. The concession would have helped prop up the fees he demanded for the period from 2020 onwards.

Is that different monies to the 'loyalty' bonus?

Undelivered services to the value of €120,000 were offset against an exit fee of the same value.

:/ Not sure of this reading: -

1. RTÉ failed to produce their annual list of top earners wages, this is because of the exit fee.
2. RTÉ agreed an exit fee of €120k, which tubs was entitled to, but RTÉ in their negotiations suggested that they shouldn't pay it due to work not done, NKM disagreed with this interpretation but it was used by RTÉ in contracting for the next 5 year period so it was agreed it would be waived.
3. All along RTÉ are trying to show that they have successfully reigned in the earnings of the top presenters, when clearly they never do.
4. RTÉ made the mistake of thinking that the two 50k's and the 20k had been added to his earnings and were only delighted to removed them from the over 500k he actually earned.
5. But what's even more annoying is that the only reason RTÉ were not producing the top earners on an annual basis was because of these exit fees.
6. For example if Claire Byrne's contract for the 5 years included an exit fee, RTÉ would have added that exit fee across those 3 years, rather than the final year when she received the fee, this is a crazy way of looking at the figures.
7. Therefore the 40% reduction in the past decade or so has large come from the exit of Pat Kenny, the retirement of Sean O'R and the deaths of Gerry Ryan and Marian F.
8. It was always RTÉ Management's decision to focus on these cuts and to show that these cuts were being made, when clearly they never made as big a cuts as they wanted us to believe they did.
9. IMO Kevin Bakurst was part of this deception, as he was present for the publication of Gerry's and Pat's earnings.
10. Tubs role was that he never declared otherwise, either because he wasn't aware of what had happened and didn't read the list or because he knew, either way he was not doing anything illegal.

Funny you should say that. My inlaws always asked me to pick up the RTE guide. Since this scandal theyve wanted TV Now instead.

We wont be paying the TV license fee ever again either.

Based on the comments about the RTE Guide and the licence fee protest, it seems that the RTE brand itself is becoming toxic.

Regards...jmcc

Mister RTE must be very upset. Every show that the gombeen management of RTE gave him subsuquently lost viewers or listeners. His career has been one of perpetual failure. It is curious that there were no expressions of interest from real broadcasters when Tubridy was removed from RTE. Even Radio Norwich wasn't interested.

Regards...jmcc

A: He hasn't the talent for US TV.

B: He hasn't the face for US TV (facial symmetry is important).

C: US TV stations are commerical broadcasters and are not supported by a licence fee.

Regards...jmcc

If you target the right people you get the right answer

Pure arrogance, very similar to uk politics at the moment.

“we know better than you, we are your betters, how dare you challenge us”mentality.

my renewal is in October, I will be removing all superheterodyne receivers and replacing them with monitors before then.

let “Thane direct” pay his wages…