RTÉ admits paying Tubridy €345,000 more than declared

Yep, that's what I said - it's a minnow, and I throw up a little in my mouth everytime some one makes this out to be a major move. It's not.

People might be getting confused too with the "old" Virgin Radio, which was a big station in the UK in the 1990s and one that attracted a lot of publicity back then. That's now called Absolute Radio.

Missed the DAB/online part of your post initially. DAB is a lot more developed in the UK than Ireland but this is being spun in the media as if Virgin Radio is a massive station.

Regards...jmcc

Will he mention in passing when he is having a chat with Bob from Bermondsey that his grandfather was an IRA gunman who slaughtered his fellow countrymen for fun and tore up their beloved steam railways such was his hatred for the British

Yeah, he's pretty much a real life Alan Partridge now

Rent prices for upmarket properties in London probably double or treble what they are in Dublin.

usually a big move like that is made by someone in their 20s or early 30s not their 50s, someone up and coming, like Wogan or Graham Norton. Tubridy is not that. He has already had his big move up to primetime TV in RTE with LLS etc 20 years ago. Apart from the RTE scandal this would be a very strange move to leave a primetime TV and radio slot as a household name to start again at the bottom in the UK as a virtual unknown.

In fairness Tubridy was up and coming and fresh back in 2004/2005 when he had his own TV program on Saturday night, that would have been the period for a splash in the UK not now

So he has gone to work for the Murdoch’s then.

Tbh, I had thought he had landed a plumb job. I remember Virgin back in the day, didn't realise its not the same station as that. I thought it was a big deal but maybe its a small fry job.

If the station is so small, why are Evans and Norton on it? Does Evans own it?

Owned by Wireless, which is owned by News Corp, so Tubs works for Rupert Murdoch now.

I guess Chris Evans joined since he was able to go "off the leash", which was something he couldn't do on the BBC. Plus I'm sure the salary helped. And don't forget, his star is no longer what it was either.

Can't really explain why Graham Norton went there, but there was a lot of surprise when the move was announced. Might be the same as Evans...money and perhaps less restricted in what he can talk about.

I remember back in the 1990s and the days of "Cool Britannia", the old Virgin Radio seemed to be at the centre of things.

Of course, if he is getting paid £ 350k a year for a total of 5,500 average daily listeners, good luck to him. At least the Irish TV licence payers are no longer shelling out for Tubs.

Hasn’t the listenership gone up on his former shows time slot at RTE since he left?

Say more about the time slot than the presenters to me.

He has gotten a very good morning slot now on virgin and if he can grow the audience fair play but there is no way he is getting 500k a year at virgin for his first ever job outside of RTE.

He gets a fresh start and now he has to work for a company that will want advertising revenue targets and audience growth met.

He won't be able to get an MBE without a British passport...that's why Terry Wogan only took UK citizenship after he was given a knighthood. It was the only way he could use "Sir Terry Wogan."

Ugh, with a title he'd be really unbearable.

Yeah that’s what I’m getting when I listened to that slot yesterday morning for about 20 mins- A LOT of music - he’s essentially a disc jockey literally albeit a button pushing jockey in these modern times - the DJ or presenter bit is very low key

I think the key reason is likely to be (my guess) - Virgin Radio like all stations want to expand their market- I don’t think the daily show is the big news- I think it’s actually the syndicated weekend show that will help virgin radio generate revenue in Ireland and potentially expand their brand-how much revenue though who knows - small fry overall but selling a weekend show to half a dozen or so Irish radio stations must be worth 20k (4k per station per week X 5 stations) a week? say 30 weeks a year that’s 600k in revenue?

Feel free to attack my maths as I haven’t a clue but the weekend show is definitely a potential revenue generator in a market virgin UK didn’t exist up to now.