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.
O'Connor's TV show was consistently beating Tubridy's LLS, I think. RTE management being RTE management, they cancelled O'Connor's TV show instead of getting rid of Tubridy.
Regards...jmcc
It's still a very well paid job. And when you compare it to what Callan is getting for 5 hours of radio, you can see how well he's doing out of it.
He has grown on me over the years. I used to be disappointed when I switched on of a Saturday morning and he was filling in for Marian. Now I'm disappointed when I switch on and Dearbhail McDonald is filling in for him. And yes, he's better on TV than either Tubridy or D'Arcy.
Of course it is. But it's RTE, home of hyper-inflated compensation. They never seem to learn or change. New DG, same mess.
I worked it out before and it's €1560 per hour of on-air time which equates to someone working a 40 hr week at €3.25m pa
Radio only- Byrne and Duffy got more for TV stuff
That's bad enough, but he's an incredibly annoying presenter
Callans kicks nailed it a while ago:
Guest re the Dublin riots - 'Yeah it was terrible, with the broken windows and....'
OC (BOC) - 'Well we won't talk about that as there's no windows here to defend themselves'
😁
After working in the Indo on peanuts for years, I'd say Brendan O'Connor was in seventh heaven to get the RTE gig, with a payday that's a fantasy for most jobbing journalists.
But given his very light workload, one a hour a day. Probably 2 or 3 hours of preparation a day (being generous with that) - that adds up to a max of about 20 hours a week work for this job.
Given as well the very long holidays he will get (8 to 10 weeks off a year) and only 20 hours a week, he will be more than able to have other gigs on the side.
It's not like working 40 hours a week on building site and you're so knackered you can't do anything else.
Callan is overpaid, imo for the hours and the work involved. The 'new regime' should have started as they meant to go on. It doesn't seem like anything was learned from what has happened with Tubridy et al.
The others - Duffy, D'Arcy, O'Connor and the rest of them - are vastly overpaid, but as I said, unfortunately they are on ridiculous contracts since the good old days when money was evidently no object.
And we, the great unwashed, were assured that they HAD to get those salaries in case they left. 🥴
It would be funny if it wasn't so sickening.
The new reality in which Tubridy finds himself must be scaring them. Duffy may not be going for another contract. Turbidy is stuck in the UK until further notice and isn't on the same money as he was getting in RTE. The possibility that there will be an RTE contract waiting for him if he retruns decreases with every new RTE revelation about "exit" payments and other wastes of licence fee money.
With Callan's contract they were pushing an open door. I think they could've got him or somebody else for much less than €150k, easily. We now know that it doesn't really matter who's presenting these big RTE shows. All you need is somebody who's capable, and there are plenty of presenters out there who are that. Also, most radio presenters have egos and would like nothing more than to be sitting in front of a microphone in a studio. They should've used that to their advantage, not pretended it was still 2022.
It will be interesting to see what happens when these older contracts come back up for renewal. My feeling is that Joe Duffy will retire rather than drop down to a lower pay scale. He's in his late sixties now so retirement doesn't look that ridiculous for him. O'Connor and D'Arcy will be the litmus tests for the supposed changes in RTE. It's almost funny that the higher you move up RTE's salary scales, the worse the presenters get. It is laughable to think that any UK stations would want these people. RTE's negotiators are the biggest bad guys in this. NKM were able to negotiate these ridiculous salaries because they knew RTE would cave. You'd wonder now what would've happened if somebody had had the balls to say No.
Given the way that Turbridy was dumped, I think that D'Arcy is most at risk. Politically, in media terms, RTE needs O'Connor more than it ever needed Tubridy or D'Arcy. The Dublin media is quite incestuous and O'Connor is the editor of the Sindo Life magazine (I think). The last thing that RTE would need is more negative publicity from the print media.The way that the Indo/Sindo quickly shifted from "Tubridy as victim" to "Bryan who?" is an indication of how rapidly things can change in the media. Unlike O'Connor, D'Arcy has no such connections.
I liked Brendan O'connor when he a his own show on RTE, he reminded me of Piers Morgan, he became very tame after his show was scrapped. I always thought he was the whistle blower that was leaking information about what was going on in RTE, that was a few years ago, can't remember the name that was used, I think it was Undercover Producer, something like that. An insight into what goes on behind the scenes, It was very entertaining.
Everything that twitter account said was known in the media industry at large already, good chance it wasn't a then current staff member; if they'd even worked there at all
Switched on radio earlier, he was talking about Superquinn sausages. I'm sure that is interesting to a UK audience 😉.
I turned the dial, as usual, until 1 pm.
It appears he has no interest in the UK audience. This whole Virgin/Q102/local radio tie up is just a desperate attempt to keep him visible/relevant in Ireland
Yikes.
I thought to give him a few minutes today. Between 12.39 and 1.
He had 3 and a half minutes talk time between songs and ads.
He read out 3 texts (all Irish). He mentioned Cork, Galway, Wicklow, Dublin and Dolphins Barn (which is certainly gonna have a lot of UK listeners scratching their heads).
He had 2 brief tales of being lovingly recognised in public. One by a woman in Hoggis Figgis (agian UK listeners wouldn't have a clue, he could've said Waterstones) who said her mother is a big fan and he was also quizzed by some Irish kids who were coming out of Abbey Road Studio.
A mention of his mammy coming to visit.
Oh and one name drop of a West End actor friend of his.
He tripped over the text number and the ads cut over the end of his words twice.
In one of a number of disjointed unfinished gobbledegook sentences he said one thing he's looking forward to is getting the Eurostar from London to... London. To see his sister who is working there. He meant Paris.
He's still talking about London as though he's a 15 year old that's been sent to his uncle in Croydon for mid term break.
I wonder will Chris Evans be getting a phone call from the execs asking him-"WTactualF were you thinking?"
If there was a ceiling of €100k per year for all RTE talent, guaranteed not one of them would leave. Where would they go to? They're not going to the UK and getting cushier than what they get at home. So why are they getting paid so much? A competent director general would try and get them as low as possible. Joe Duffy? 40K. Don't like it? **** off. Same with all the cronies behind the scenes. Why are they are all getting paid so much when RTE's output is utter shite and always has been? Put people in management for a lot less money than the overpaid flutes that are there now. They could hardly **** things up worse than what this shower did!
Some would leave for jobs in other areas in communications, advertising and media relations or go back to their pre broadcasting careers (if they had one). You are correct though, anyone that wanted to stay in broadcasting would just have to suck it up.
I wonder is it simply a way of creating a buffer between him and RTE for now? Being physically out of the country and working in a new job is a pretty good way of distancing himself from RTE. Not my problem now, I'm in London with this great new job etc. etc.
He may be in London but he's certainly not trying to cultivate his audience beyond his previous gig in rte.
In the beginning I thought it might be teething issues. Of course, he was also in the unusual position of being a very famous person in Ireland but virtually unknown in the UK. It was natural that he'd be getting engagement from fans and people who were curious about his new job. That this has never stopped, and that he's still behaving like he's sitting in a studio in Dublin are very curious. I now think appealing to UK listeners was never in the plan. Even somebody like Tubridy has to have the capability to tweak his shtick and know who his target audience is now.
I think the powers that be in Virgin might be happy enough with the engagement from Irish listeners and know that when he moves on, they can just plug somebody else in. They're getting sponsorship from Paddy Power that'll cover a lot of the costs and it's a minnow of a radio station anyway.
One thing is for certain - it's blowing all those old being in demand abroad chestnuts out of the water. I don't ever want to hear that excuse being trotted out again for any RTE presenter, let alone Tubridy.
Putting Callan on 150000 shows no change in rte.
I read an interview with him where he said he had to think about the offer.
Fgs stop playing us for fools.
Being a comedian, and I use the term loosely, in this country hardly Makes a person very comfortably off. So Oliver was very thankful to be offered an hour a day by the crowd who love giving away our money.
Ryan Tubridy is the "Face Behind the Voice" in next week's Radio Times... it's a one page interview with questions like:
first radio memory
favourite broadcasters
ambition - says he has mostly fulfilled them but would like to do something on TV involving Travel and Books.
Lots of Irish answers mentioning Gaybo and Wogan, but also some UK references such as Kirsty Young.
The show Tubridy wants to make on an annual basis for RTE:
Kirsty Young? He's definitely following this thread.
He's a 0.5 trick pony.
Last weeks was Matt Bailey presenter of BBC Radio Newcastle’s breakfast show. Martin Collins was featured a few weeks ago
Morbid curiosity has me listening to him for the last half hour, its cringe. Describing calling you teacher mum in error is described as a quotidian horror show, look at these big words I know! Struggled to get someone on for the coffee break song of your choice, still asking for someone to phone in at 10.55. Books and You Tube got a mention in a short non sequitor ridden monologue.
Penzance train journey again, JFK in Salthill, doesnt like auto biographies unless they are really good.
Drivel
Long train journeys can be a substitute for nothing to do.
It well be that he simply gets bored of trying to stay relevant in Ireland, and maybe then he might actually become interesting.
It's quite possible he's reached the bottom of his bottomless pit of witty/charming/interesting anecdotes, and has to start recycling old ones again...
I wonder has he mentioned at all that U2 gave him a scooter (I know he mentioned it when he appeared on Chris Evans show), but has he mentioned it yet on his own show? or is he saving it for a rainy day if he needs a bit of a dig out, like if the ratings come in and they're bad..
He'll have to put the Sinéad O'Connor story to bed soon too, so he might need the U2/scooter story to take it's place.
