RTÉ admits paying Tubridy €345,000 more than declared

You can disagree with me if you want, but your comment about funding him is clearly not sincere. You’re not being very nice, just because I liked Ryan’s programme and you didn’t.

I don't see many celebrities or politicians coming out to support Tubs. It's quite telling.

I might start watching the Late LateShow agiain now that pretentious gobshite is gone. Kielty was part of the recent once upon a time in Northern Ireland documentary and he came accross quite well, dare I say likeable.

Yeah Sheahan's arguments are weak as water as well.

He tried to make the disingenuous argument yesterday that Bakhurst's refusal to deal with Kelly was tantamount to an employer refusing to deal with a Union Rep. Conveniently ignoring the fact that RT is not an employee nor is Kelly a Union Rep.

Like Sunny Disposition his arguments would only sway the ill-informed and appeal only to those who are wilfully ignorant as to Tubridy and Kelly's wrongdoing.

At least Sunny deserves some credit for being consistent in his/her views. Sheahan's position has flip-flopped on the key issues to the detriment of his own credibility. Anything he writes on this subject should have an asterix after it.

No you are not. You know Ryan doesn't need my money, you probably can guess I don't know him personally. Really you are not being nice at all. Anyway, it's up to you how you behave. I won't argue about it with you further.

I don't think that he expected it to turn out like it did. IT was a scoop when the Indo got the story but it has mushroomed into a crisis for RTE including resignations and PAC and Media committee appearances. The former board of RTE also got attention. Now, other RTE talent are in the firing line for salary cuts including Brendan O'Connor. And, of course, Tubridy lost his job.

Regards...jmcc

It’s not about “being nice”- we have totally different views on Ryan’s contribution to Irish broadcasting- you’re making bizzare claims about Ryan’s “successful” tenure as custodian of the show that don’t stack up.

The average audience for the 2015/16 series of The Late Late Show was 583,300 and the average share of the available audience was 42.1 per cent. This compares to an average audience of 599,900 for the 2014/15 series and a share of 41.6 per cent.

So even back then, the show was losing viewers.

Roll on 9 years later and many episodes failed to reach even 390,000 viewers with figures as low as 350,000 for some episodes.

Tommy Tiernan on the other hand had a range of 365,000 to 385,000 viewers.

My point being, viewers will tune in to shows they want to watch- with all the budget and famous stars and production crew it takes to produce TLLS they can still barely beat a one man show with complete unknowns as guests- that’s not proving that Ryan was a great broadcaster.

Now can you see the risk involved in investing in Ryan without the backing of a massive RTÉ production team?

Media committee discussing the GT report today. (Private meeting.)

Regards...jmcc

1.2mill, 996k and 700k respectively are the figures I’ve got from a quick Google

You would have to contrast these with actual average viewing figures for the year they left to make any sense out of those statistics as viewership figures are down anyway over the last 30 years

Yeah I posted those stats on the previous page but all they indicate is declining numbers which we know anyway - TLLS was declining even when the “great” Gay Byrne was signing off- it was a shadow of its former glory days.

Pat Kenny’s version was uneventful and was more like Kenny Live than TLLS - again, the industry as a whole were seen declining viewership as many alternatives, not least of which were bootleg videos/dvds of tv shows and films and a younger audience just not interested.

Ryan probably had the biggest challenge in that the captive audience were declining - there aren’t many programmes whole families watch together anymore- the internet and smart devices have segmented this audience further - you could have 5 people in the same room all watching something different on their “devices” - not an easy challenge I grant you, to maintain viewership, coupled with an aging population who will likely be found out dining in town somewhere on a Friday night, leaving grandads and grannies as the main audience profile- not exactly an advertisers dream is it?

An interesting statistic to find out might be, just how many people over the age of 65, purchased a brand new Renault in the last 10 years? 😀

"he is a good journalist when he puts his mind to it"

You're certainly damning him with faint praise there.

Not that I'd disagree. And as the editor of a major national newspaper, one would have thought that he would have been more subtle about his agenda, at the risk of compromising his perceived objectivity. Which he has clearly done.

Was interested in a benchmark for the changing audiences. Most of the Irish market hasn't been two channel land since the 1970s. This is because the main cities in Ireland all had cable television networks by the 1980s. That meant that viewing habits changed. Another factor in the change was that the price of television sets fell as cheaper components and sets became available from Japan, China and other countries.

With the start and middle of the Gaybo era, most homes had a single TV set. When that began to change, a lot of the younger viewers were not forced to watch the LLS on the family set. As these viewers grew up, not watching the LLS became a habit but the older viewers kept watching the LLS. The effect of Video Cassette Recorders (VCRs) started to hit in the 1980s as well and this continued into the 1990s and early 2000s with DVDs. Kenny was more Current Affairs than Light Entertainment but he didn't do a bad job. Tubridy was the wrong choice. He may have appealed to a diminishing market but RTE made a very bad decision in giving him the flagship show when he had made a mess out of every opportunity he had been given.

Regards...jmcc

‘That has served his country so well’

What is that guy on about ? What planet is he living on ?

That’s the type of hyperbole I’d expect from someone living in his own reality but it’s not anyone else’s

Another fool who can’t read the room (country).