Following on from main thread in Current Affairs about Tubs in general (now closed and mod suggestion that Entertainment category is more suitable).
Indeed, entertainment in certain respects is what Tubs has provided, albeit perhaps in a way not intended. And still awaiting 150k payback to the licence fee holder.
And of course, his new career in Virgin Radio which is imminent.
copying some frequent posters from original thread.
@Brendan Bendar
@Gen.Zhukov
@tom23
@thesandeman
@chrisd2019
@Ash.J.Williams
@RoTelly
@hawley
@Loafing Oaf
@Beechwoodspark
@NIMAN
@odyssey06
@fritzelly
@sxt
@jippo nolan
@supereurope
@Tow
@alzer100
@tobefrank321
@jmcc
@Hyperbollix
Cat-Mod: See post here regarding off-topic segues.
But possibly not as much as an executive at Bauer or Global do. Otherwise they wouldn’t be a distant 4 runner in U.K. radio industry
just a hunch!
I sympathise with listeners of Q102 who have had the tones of Tubridy put upon them. His voice really lacks that lower frequency weight that can blend into the mix and produce an overall sound that can be consistent yet dynamic. His erratic type of presentation married with what is lacking in the lower frequency register can really be off-putting to the listener. There is no distinct signature of vocal quality that was present with broadcasters such as Gay Byrne, Terry Wogan, numerous deceased and living professional pirate radio and independent radio presenters. I realise why some listeners of RTE Radio 1 turned off or switched to another radio station during his 9 o'clock morning slot.
Virgin Radio and Q102's mid-mornings' programming content may very well end up in radio doctor land if it is not addressed.
Yeah but this is a radio forum. So what you are saying is nobody should comment on a radio station? I don’t quite get what your repeated postings of indifference are driven by?
Am I’m saying Virgin radio is a distant 4 in a 3 horse market so I’m not sure why you are so confident
More Everton than Liverpool FC with respect to your supremely relaxed confidence
Apparently Mike Cass, the PD of Virgin was fired from his Australian position.
This is Vauxhall conference league radio and not senior hurling!
Chris Evans knew he was on the way out at Radio 2 as he shed millions of listeners after taking over from Terry Wogan.
Graham Norton got a better offer and moved, yet he knew Helen Thomas was making sweeping changes.
Tubridy had nowhere else to go bar hospital radio.
Apparently the MD of News UK, Scott Taunton who brute forced this NKM Deal in overriding Virgin and Q102 management is known for being tone deaf and making unpopular decisions that are later needing reversing.
Oops!
Getting away from Tubridy what are Virgin trying to achieve in the 10-1 slot? James O’Brien does speech radio better than anyone and forced Talkradio to do several reshuffles in the same slot and still getting nowhere. Times radio in that time slot in very political Westminster bubble. Meanwhile GHR with Ken Bruce are going great guns and BBC radio 2 are refocusing on a younger post Bruce audience
what if anything is Virgin radio’s strategy
and don’t reply it’s better than having a drunk from some boozer running it. Try setting the bar a bit higher
Has anyone seen anything of how the indigenous & naturalised English audience are responding to him anywhere on social media? I can’t seem to find any comment at all 🧐
A strong enough hunch for a paddy power bet?
I sympathise with those who don’t know that you can either switch off a radio or change the channel. Yes that’s you I feel sorry for
Evans doing some defensive spinning this morning ahead of the Rajar’s for Q4 that get released at midnight to the public
They are losing listeners just on the hint of Tubridy appearing on the station? :) Seriously though, Replacing Eddy Temple-Morris with Tubridy may not have been a good idea but it will be the next RAJARs and JNLRs that will show the preliminary impact of Tubridy.
Regards...jmcc
It's like there is a concerted campaign to let people know that they can switch their radio channel. if there wasn't such a campaign the thread would have died a natural death. Guess everyone is struggling to get by.
I don’t think Tub’s is really the story unfortunately for all the folks who passionately don’t care about him or vice versa. The wider problems are with the Evans effect stagnating and the high cost of him and Norton relative to the audience they deliver and listeners to the 2 stars aren’t sticking around for the rest of the day
The only reason I’d read this sub forum is that it’s where all the old radiowaves posters migrated after it folded. Still has the radio jobs sticky at the top of the folder too
Perhaps they were sold a pup? On paper, signing Tubridy sounded like a no-brainer. They were taking on an experienced broadcaster who had reached the top of his profession in Ireland. Somebody who wouldn’t have become available if external forces hadn’t done their thing. I don’t hate Tubridy as a person but have always had an issue with how overpaid RTE presenters are. I honestly thought he’d do a much better job than he has been doing. I listen occasionally just to see if he is getting better or adjusting to a British audience. He isn’t, which is startling on a number of levels. If he’s such a great radio presenter, why are the vast majority of people interacting with him back in Ireland? Why aren’t British listeners taking to him? Why is there feck all trace of him in online chatter? By that, I don't mean this thread. The opinions of a handful of boardsies isn't going to make one bit of difference to how he fares in the UK, no matter what your paymasters think.
Virgin radio weekly reach down from 1.5 m to 1.4m in Q4. For comparison GHR now at 6.8m weekly reach. Magic radio at3.4m reach. LBC reach at 3.0m. Absolute radio weekly reach at 2.4m.
Evans reach at just under 0.9m is clearly the main reason why anyone is listening to Virgin radio.
these are all pre Tubridy. In Tubridy’s slot JO’B on LBC has 1.3m, Ken Bruce now at 3.8m. Vernon Kaye at 6.8m on Radio 2. Virgin was doing something like 100-200k in that slot
Since it launched in 2016, this version of Virgin has had a tiny audience, Even Chris Evans has less listeners than Atlantic 252 had in it's final day in 2002. I'm not really sure why rich owners like Rupert Murdoch are propping up all these digital stations with no audience, TalkTV and GB news are other examples of it. The bubble will have to burst someday. As for Tubs, I could see him coming home to Ireland in a year or so(saying he misses the family & Conamara too much) but staying with the Wireless group and doing a syndicated daily show on Q/96/95/LMFM, it wouldn't be mid-morning as that's kept for local pothole talk on most stations but perhaps breakfast (The Full Irish v2) or late afternoons. He is popular with Irish women aged 55+ so there is a market for him here,
Purely anecdotal but my barbers have played Q102 for as long as I’ve been going there (lad in his 50s so it’s diminishing returns each time) ..
went in yesterday at 11am and they were playing Nova.
The odd comment of Social Media have been somewhat negative. Others are from people baffled at him replacing Eddy Temple-Morris. Even VR's own Alan Partridge joke in its advertising (the king of mid-morning) is a very subtle jibe. It is like Tubridy is being greeted with a left-handed handshake.
That kind of shift would be deadly for Tubridy iand Q102 etc n the JNLRs because a large part of the audience hears radio stations and programmes as background noise rather than by directly selecting radio stations on their own radio. This isn't a single listener being lost. It is the set of customers for the duration of Tubridy's timeslot.
The effect on advertising would be worse as these places and shops are where people are more likely to hear radio advertising. I think that one of the reasons that people listen to their own local radio stations is that they don't want to listen to RTE. Imposing Tubridy like this may not work out well and there has been significant pushback in Cork.
Did I read or imagine I read in his last Mail column that he goes to a laundrette to wash his clothes? Surely his apartment has a washing machine at least?
It is a flat in London on 80k a year.
I have visions of Tubs spending his Saturday morning in the laundrette starring at the machine spinning and wondering where it all went wrong.
He did mention a launderette alright.
I will give him the benefit of the doubt, and say its entirely possible he did the same while living in Dublin. Its hard to imagine him washing his clothes, but then again that goes for all "celebrities".
"Quasi-student days", interesting turn of phrase. Almost implying all this is temporary, and the call from RTE will come any day now.
The Levi’s ad…..
I wonder in what way does he remember the ad?
or;
(I know, my photoshop skills are next level, so deal with it)
You know RT could have two different shows one for an Irish Audience and the other for the UK audience.
When UK are playing the play list he's chatting to the Irish audience and when the music plays on the Irish station he talks to the Irish.
Who in England knows TY or Transition Year?
Don't think that Tubridy is quite that talented. All he has is his RTE banter.
Does his manmy not do his washing then ?
Tubridy at the laundromat?
He's also gone from shopping at Brown Thomas to shopping at Mr Price.
Beyond doubt he'll be back in a year or two at most. Whether he'll return to RTE is something I'm not so sure about. His replacements are doing quite nicely and Radio 1 will evolve without him. He's also the public face of all that's wrong with RTE and the optics of taking him back would be terrible, especially if they still need government money. There will also be loads of lower paid RTE employees who never want to see him again, let alone work with him. I think he'll come back and work for Q102.
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