RTÉ admits paying Tubridy €345,000 more than declared

Viscount Aggro · 16-12-2023 7:56pm

Theres more than a few people who have dropped the licence fee.. opting for other methods of entertainment.

I know people living rural, no TV.

Are we saying everyone should be made pay, collected at source by Revenue?

Pelvis Parsley · 16-12-2023 8:13pm

Keep up the good work jmcc!

Emblematic · 16-12-2023 8:15pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121503931#Comment_121503931

The people with no TV will have to pay. I'm quite surprised more people are not angry about this. The one good aspect of the current model is that you can legally walk away from paying RTE salaries though the somewhat drastic action of getting rid of your TV. This final legal option is being removed.

It is really the only thing holding RTE accountable; the idea that if they mess up really bad, people can walk away from them. When this option is finally removed, we can expect more scandals like the Tubridy payments scandal. RTE will become a bit like the HSE, a perpetual failure but one where top salaries are paid out year after year regardless of failure.

jmcc · 16-12-2023 11:37pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121503931#Comment_121503931

It is a serious problem with no easy solution. The "broadcast" tax has been floated for decades by whichever government was in power. The problem for broadcasters like RTE is that their market shares have been falling continually and the way that people "consume" media has changed. Originally, RTE had the Irish TV market to itself and there was minimal competition from the UK and NI channels. Along comes cable TV in the 1970s and the figures begin to drop. The cost of television sets remained quite high so most homes didn't have two TVs. Then the costs of the TVs started to fall in the 1980s and families began to buy second TVs for the kids. The kids didn't want to watch RTE. Satellite TV kicked in towards the end of the 1980s and began to be carried on the cable TV networks so it was more competition for RTE.

The radio side of things for RTE was even worse. In the 1970s, the Pirate Radio stations started up and almost every town in Ireland had at least one pirate radio station and people listened to them instead of RTE. To try to deal with the problem, RTE launched 2FM and it was, for a while, popular. The FF local radio legislation nearly killed off a whole industry. Some RTE DJs proved that they could survive in commercial radio. Could Tubridy have survived in such a competitive environment? No. As soon as he got Gerry Ryan's slot (G Ryan being one of a kind), the slot lost about 40% of its audience. The way that Irish broadcasters weren't falling over themselves trying to get Tubridy with huge salaries showed how screwed up RTE really was in terms of both management and salaries.

The big problem with a "broadcast" tax is that it is unfair and is not based on consumption. Someone with no TV would have to pay it and someone who has no radio would also have to pay it. There's no feedback system in it that would allow for consumption of media to be measured. (It might be possible with Virgin's cable network but that would create a lot of privacy problems.) The way that TV and radio audiences are guesstimated have their own problems. If Tubridy was as popular as the RTE/NKM propaganda claimed, the audience for the radio slot should have dropped like a stone after he was removed. It didn't.

There are two possibilities for that. The first is that the way that audiences are measured is not accurate. The second is that many people don't so much listen to radio as are subjected to it as a background noise. Someone on a bus trip might be considered a "listener" but they have no control over the choice of station. That's generally up to the bus driver.

The FFG government already has a lot of problems and a backlash against a broadcast tax would probably equal that of the protests against the Water Tax. RTE's credibility and that of its management was destroyed this year. At this stage very few people would want to pay to keep people like Tubridy paid the salaries that they had come to expect. The licence fee revenue was down 20 million Euro this year according to an article in the Indo. People may not want to pay the licence fee in 2024. The upside for Tubridy fans is that they will be able to listen to him in January without having to contribute to his salary.

Regards...jmcc

alzer100 · 17-12-2023 1:55am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121504636#Comment_121504636

Just to add on the radio side of things for those who may not be aware. Pirate radio in Ireland especially during the 1980s was a major thorn in the side for RTE. Referring just to the Dublin area alone, Dublin's 'superpirates' were considered to be such a threat that RTE commenced an STL (studio to transmitter link) jamming campaign during the mid 1980s in an effort to put them off the air. By the mid to late 1980s both of Dublin's 'superpirates' had introduced highly aggressive American CHR type music formats that were essentially destroying Radio 2 (2FM) listenership figures particularly in the 15-34 age group.

By 1988, 2FM found it very difficult to compete in the Dublin area, hence the introduction of The Gerry Ryan Show. They basically had to create a 3 hour talk show and put it on what is or what was regarded as a music station. With local radio legislation coming around the corner, the 'superpirates' were informed that they needed to be off the air by December 31st of that year. From January 1989 until the end of July, RTE had the best opportunity to grow the listenership figures of The Gerry Ryan Show and 2FM as there was nothing but static from 96Mhz to 108Mhz on FM. For the radio listener there was very little choice!

In those days, what if it was Ryan Tubridy and not Gerry Ryan? I think 2FM would have been facing a more onerous situation. Gerry Ryan and that particular show (although I was not a listener) did have the capacity to engage effectively with its target audience albeit a general age group that the radio station was not supposedly designed for. I don't think Ryan Tubridy would have been able to relate to that listener on the same level and 2FM's shortcomings would have become apparent much sooner.

As far as Ryan Tubridy and his new radio show on Virgin/Q102 is concerned, I have a wait and see approach. But if anything I think it should be, hmm, interesting.

lumphammer2 · 17-12-2023 3:14am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121463403#Comment_121463403

Brought to you by paying your TV licence .... Ryan Tubridy is James Bond .... in ....

Goldenflipflop

[Fake] Starmaker

Octotubbers

The Living Late Late Nights

Goldenboy

Starring:

Ryan Tubridy as James Bond

Dee Forbes as M

Joanne McNally as Octotubbers

Kevin Backhurst as Blofeld

Pat Kenny as Robosecretagent

Donald Trump as Goldfinger and Brad Whitaker

Gemma O'Doherty as Fatima Blush

John Waters as Dr NosuchthingasCovid

Doireann Garrihy as Q

Baz Ashmawy as Kamal Khan

Enoch Burke as Hugo Drax

Title songs sung by Imelda May

Produced, written and directed by Noel Kelly

Do not expect any invisible cars only Renaults not paid for ....

Rubberchikken · 17-12-2023 7:42pm

So the government intents to ride rough shod over the public and insist by legislation that people pay for tv and radio they may never watch or listen to.

Will the public allow this to happen?

Are we losing any possible backbone we might have been born with?

Rte /gov are going to step up their campaign in the new year to "remind" people that the tv licence is payable by law. Then they're going to work on getting revenue to do their dirty work and attempt to get another tax from us to support an organisation that has proved untrustworthy and wasteful and fairly full of their own importance.

RoTelly · 18-12-2023 12:38pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121498111#Comment_121498111

Ah now Sunny, I think you've very far into the Christmas "Spirits" at this point.

RTÉ have always put Fair City above all other drama (and comedy) over the years. It gets €15m for its production every year, and its actors as we have found out are very well paid.

RTÉ have also slashed and burned across their budgets over the last 10 years in the hope that people might notice the difference in their output, it never worked and people didn't notice. 75% cut to young people's programming, minimal spend to Independent Drama amounting to just under €7m in 2022 (and I am being generous with that figure), comedy development is a huge issue and always has been for RTÉ and so on.

RTÉ's 10 priorities have always been: -

At least pretend we are tackling wages and staffing levels
Fair City as Drama
2FM for the Yuff
Management wages
Management expenses
Management Cars
Summer Holidays
Playing the poor man for TV license increases
Suggesting that RTÉ out performs in comparison their counterparts in Europe on the budgets they have
Suggesting that RTÉ is public service media and must be funded correctly into the future

Fair City was a serious attempt to compete with the UK soap operas in the 1980s and 1990s. But that was all it was an attempt to compete.

I'd rather by cynical than naïve.

hawley · 18-12-2023 1:13pm

He did, however, described the morning of the committee meeting “like Christmas morning flipped. I’ll say something serious about that. I got a taxi in and we were driving along – just me, I was on my own,” he said, telling how they passed the front gates of St Michael’s College in Dublin, where there were flowers left outside the gate in tribute to students Andrew O’Donnell and Max Wall who died earlier this summer while on holiday in Ios.

"I looked at those, they were 18-year-old boys and I thought to myself in the back of that car, you know, having spent a few hours feeling a little sorry for myself and I thought: ‘My life is interrupted and those families’ lives are destroyed. Now, you cop yourself on, you’re going in to tell the story, you’re going in to tell them everything you know and then you’re going home. Think about that.’

"And that was a very good pep talk because I didn’t know the families, I knew a lot of people that did go to Ios and Greece and that all came home and that’s humbling in the extreme.

"I don’t know if those families have any relatives listening to your podcast, they probably do and I hope they’re doing okay. That’s what I’d say on that, that’s an important thing to say. In the middle of all this, that really did put manners on me.”

He told how Sinéad O’Connor rang him during that time and offered him a room in her London flat “to get away from it all”, adding: “She said, ‘You’ve been mugged by God in a hoodie.’”

https://m.independent.ie/style/celebrity/celebrity-news/ryan-tubridy-on-appearing-before-oireachtas-committee-it-was-christmas-morning-flipped/a1666631536.html

Don't know why he decided to bring these events into the discussion about losing his job. Does he realise that most people don't feel the slightest bit sorry for him? He's a privileged, multi millionaire who lost his job through his own greed. He still doesn't get it.

Agent Coulson · 18-12-2023 2:19pm

So he chose to leave because he wasn't feeling it anymore.

Nothing to do with the payment scandals or RTE not renewing his contract.

"I was so happy I chose to go when I did," Ryan said on the podcast.

"It was a little earlier than I was contractually obliged to go but I knew in my heart [the time was right]."

"I heard before from certain presenters that 'if you’re not feeling it, don’t stick around.' And I started to not feel it.

"If I stuck around for another season, it would have been unfair to the team, to the viewers, [and] to myself.

"I was just out of juice," he continued. "[Presenting during] COVID whacked me. It just took so much out of me… the feeling was either we’re going off the air, or take on the virus."

HildaOgdenx · 18-12-2023 3:22pm

Jeepers when you think of all the workers who had to work in public facing jobs, obviously healthcare staff but also people in shops and so on, during the pandemic, and this tulip wants sympathy for being in a studio for an hour or two. 🙄

KevRossi · 18-12-2023 3:48pm

Seems that we are also bad eggs as we were critical of him during the Oireachtas hearings, a time when his own mother was ill.

I mean the guy is so out of touch, as are so many of the rest of the pack in there.

Host Doireann Garrihy admitted she asked him to return to the podcast as "Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without hearing from Ryan Tubridy”.

Agent Coulson · 18-12-2023 3:57pm

These presenters are deluded and live in a delusion world.

Then again they are deluded because some people actually listen to them and follow them on social media which funds their delusion.

supereurope · 18-12-2023 6:39pm

This popped up on my Facebook feed earlier. I don't know what's worse, the article or the many "Good luck Ryan, you deserve every happiness and success" comments. Some people really are complete idiots.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/people/arid-41292538.html

retalivity · 18-12-2023 6:48pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121510396#Comment_121510396

One Noel Kelly client interviews another Noel Kelly client, and spend the whole time licking each others holes.

Who listens to this shite?

NIMAN · 18-12-2023 6:49pm

“The future is so bright now, but I couldn't see that for a little while there recently and gosh, it was difficult,” he said, adding how many offers of work he has had since.

“Especially in the UK, the offers started to roll in. I mean, they rolled in here but when you've done the Late Late Show, it's hard to go anywhere else in Ireland and I don't mean that disrespectfully."

If I was a betting man, I'd say that's a lie. He took one of the 1st offers he got.

NIMAN · 18-12-2023 6:50pm

Wonder did he keep the receipt for that 'top of the range mixing desk' he bought to launch his own podcast?

supereurope · 18-12-2023 6:52pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121511212#Comment_121511212

He is lying for sure, but still found the opportunity to have another dig at Ireland as well. If they were "rolling in", I'd love to know where they came from, since he chose a radio station with a tiny market share.

Rubberchikken · 18-12-2023 6:55pm

He'd chew stones before he'd admit to be shoved out the door and we all know it.

He's that type.of arrogant boll@cks that will never admit to making a mistake or an error of judgement.

He's probably got a future in politics when his radio show, starting Jan 2nd btw brought forward due to demand😁(sarcasm) , bombs me thinks.

tom23 · 18-12-2023 6:55pm

Garrihy literally stealing a living

alzer100 · 18-12-2023 6:57pm

I don't know if this has been reported on this thread yet, but his show on Virgin/Q102 has now been brought forward to 2nd of January.

Hyperbollix · 18-12-2023 7:36pm

Host Doireann Garrihy admitted she asked him to return to the podcast as "Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without hearing from Ryan Tubridy

tom23 · 18-12-2023 7:43pm

i swear to god these people are living in a alternate universe…

hawley · 18-12-2023 7:46pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121511393#Comment_121511393

Funny how he says that the deaths of those boys in Greece gave him perspective. He never showed any perspective in relation to his privileged circumstances against the majority of people when RTE looked for a salary cut from him. Instead he ended up dragging the whole organisation down with him. Not an ounce of decency or sincerity. He says that he told the truth in front of the Oireachtas committee. Who does he think he's kidding?

hawley · 18-12-2023 7:55pm

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.irishmirror.ie/showbiz/irish-showbiz/ryan-tubridy-says-copped-on-31699510.amp

Did you ever think that those families might not want to be dragged into your petty games and justifications?

Hyperbollix · 18-12-2023 8:00pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121511422#Comment_121511422

All disingenuous crap. It's so transparent....

I thought of the kids and their poor parents - TICK

My poor mother in hospital, who thought about her? - TICK

I'm so happy now, all that old smalltime Irish shíte is behind me. I'm movin on up baby! - TICK

If I had to write a Tubs parody of that Doireann G interview, I'd insert the very same stuff.

fritzelly · 18-12-2023 8:00pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121511457#Comment_121511457

Absolutely no cop on to not use someone's tragedy to get a few inches in a rag

tom23 · 18-12-2023 8:13pm

The man feeds of tradegy. Like a vampire.

Hyperbollix · 18-12-2023 8:31pm

I'll be tuning in at 10am on the 4th. Have to see this trainwreck happen in real time!

tom23 · 18-12-2023 9:00pm

wouldn’t give him the steam of my piss. Nothing.

RTÉ admits paying Tubridy €345,000 more than declared

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