Dee Forbes banging the RTE TV licence drum again 60m uncollected fee *poll not working - pl ignore*

I don't think you are. See my post above.

Oh I know you are not a cheerleader for any of the current government parties. I was talking about the usual suspects on here.

Don't forget that there is also tax (Income Tax, Employee PRSI, Employer PRSI and USC) on the tax Kelvin is paying for Breda, as the payment of an employee's tax is a Benefit In Kind.

Sorry a rant on Irish Times … link at the end …

Again there is this perception that RTÉ and TG4 do not have stability, and that they could not have forecast their strategies.

I have been following broadcasting for years I have never once heard RTÉ or TG4 look for a multi-year guaranteed budget. I am open to correction on this.

Again she persists with the idea its really not a great deal because TV costs money to produce, and RTÉ have remits to make. From what i can see there are 3 remits under the act 1. A TV and a Radio channel that is of Public Service in Nature (RTÉ 1 and Radio 1), 2. A set percentage of the licence fee to go to independent productions (~€40m) and 3. The Irish Language. RTÉ seem to feel forced to do these things.

They talk about the collapse of the licence fee sales, but again never venturing into why people don't pay the license or why evasion increased over the last year, lets not dwell on the mismanagement of RTÉ… however later in the podcast they start talking about how both RTÉ and TG4 have failed to invest in their studios. A suggested €300m price tag to bring RTÉ studios up to standard, on top of any energy efficiency that they have to make for 2030. So what was RTÉ management doing with their building over the last 40 to 50 years, how much were maintenance costs over the last 14 years, why was this left so late in the day. To avoid having to up keep listed buildings? And it seems almost everything is moving to the TV centre a newer building on the site. (I am also surprised that few people are not bring up this issue, this is just as much of a scandal as the governance issues).

Again she suggest the headline figure is huge, but RTÉ had looked for more and had looked for a 5 year multi-year budget. Again this is new to me from any reports I had heard, and for journalists to start to suggest this was a normally requested even in Dee Forbes time seems a little like re-writing history.

As you have seen from my last rant … RTÉ over the last 10 years has had stability in funding, it is up to them as professionals with years of wonderful experience to forecast for a strategy, again anyone want to take out a strategy and point to any tangible commitments, even take a look at the current New Direction and point to any that you feel are tangible.

So the voluntary redundancy was over prescribe last time, only 25 people were given an exit payment from that, at least one may have been an executive, to me the Vol Redundancy are set up to facilitate retiring executives.

She underestimates the value of Fair City, she says 12m, but in fairness to her a number of articles put it at that. So lets take a look at RTÉ drama production for 2022.

Drama for RTÉ1 was €16m (plus 767k for 2, 1.2m for online*, 572k for Radio and 360k for TG4 support). This €16m on RTÉ1 is mainly for Fair City… lets take a look at their Commissioning annual report… Kin and 3 storyland shorts in total… at a cost of 2.5m (this is entirely for Kin and not the 3 shorts which aired on RTÉ2 cost 767k in total, though perhaps that also includes any live action children's dramas???). Taking this into account Fair City is cost €13.5m to make in 2022.

What is strange about the Commissioning report they don't mention the TG4 from the main annual report, only Kin and the 3 Storyland shorts).

On top of this spend on Drama RTÉ also have a number of co-production that will go through their Acquisitions / Co-Productions Dept, total spend on Irish imports was 4.5m … not all of this is Drama… RTÉ therefore spend between €5m to €7m on Drama outside of Fair City… a pittance and at most 2% of their total budget.

I will take a break from the rant :)

*1.2m for online drama again not listed in their Commissions annual report! Is this 1.2m partly for Fair City also?

https://www.irishtimes.com/podcasts/inside-business/despite-its-725m-funding-plan-are-there-still-storm-clouds-on-the-horizon-for-rte/

https://www.rte.ie/annual-report-2022/pdf/RTE_Annual_Report_YE22.pdf

https://about.rte.ie/commissioning/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2023/06/RTE-Independent-Productions-Annual-Report-2022-2.pdf

Ah sure while I am here and have your ear.

VMTV - It owned by a large corporation… they have some corporate responsibilities towards the community, perhaps they invest in their broadcast service.

VMTV from what I know … VMTV is split between … names maybe different

1. TV3 network ltd (VMTV ONE, and I suspect VMTV MORE and FOUR)
2. Channel 6 Broadcastings (VMTV TWO)
3. UTV Irleand Ltd (VMTV THREE)

Their turnover I work out at 80m (again generous) per year, both Channel 6 and UTV Ireland are profit making.

VMTV last year had 19.5% of the TV audience, ad revenue from TV came to 281.4m, 75% of TV channels sell air time in the Irish market meaning that VMTV has a potential total of €75m from ad revenue.

ITV programming costing 20m, 15m in staffing costs (being generous), 15m for Sporting rights (again being generous), may 5m on broadcast and player costs?

maybe your talking a 5m loss or a 20m profit!

Back of the envelop stuff, but you see my point.

^^^ or Toxic Symbiosis

oh yeah an RTÉ News are on their annual bus man’s holiday!

Well then thats even worse. What do they spend their drama budget on? It can't all be Fair City. Unless they are paying the actors Joe Duffy type salaries.

Best Irish drama of recent times, that is not Kin? Bad Sisters. Produced by? AppleTV.

Listening to Pat Kenny this morning, it seems the top earners in RTE are now management. I recommend listening to the segment on the podcast, or catchup.

Considering I agree with everything you said in previous rants, I really don't mind 😂

I'll just leave this here for your perusal as FS discusses "The Ryan Tubridy scandal" and profane fees and salaries

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/revealed-the-real-rte-top-10-earners-as-executives-match-star-presenters-pay/a1281585951.html

It's a stomach churning read - Lots of standout points in there. I love this one -

The report was presented to the ­Cabinet last week, but curiously was not published alongside the unprecedented RTÉ bailout of €725m worth of public funding. The accounts for 2023 were approved by the RTÉ board at the end of January.

Also,

Claire Byrne is next on €280,000, down €41,000 on the previous year as she reduced her TV work to focus on her radio show.

However, on the 26th June 2023 (as The Ryan Tubridy scandal was beginning to peak) Claire Byrne came clean on radio and said that she was paid 280k for radio AND 25k for TV work (crappy quiz show recorded at VM studios) giving a total of 305k

Around 7:30 mins in

https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/today-with-claire-byrne/programmes/2023/0626/1391187-today-with-claire-byrne-monday-26-june-2023/

The quiz first aired on the 02/04/2023 - The entire series was recorded in just one weekend and I'd guess that w/e was in 2023

As the figures mentioned in the Indo seem to be from the 2023 a/c's - I'm confused

_____________

The above was saved as a draft earlier. Then I remembered the scam I had predicted would happen a couple of years ago after some big deal announcement from RTE about freezing fees or something did happen, and it seems to have played out as I suspected

So what we have here is Claire Byrne's figs being reported at 280k but the reality is 305k

This obviously brings all the reported figures into question - The whole place is a rotten, disgustingly corrupt organisation and they've just been given a 725m bailout by the Govt

@Gen.Zhukov independent tv programme, doesn’t show up on their pay packet, as I said many years ago, there is no way when Catherine Thomas was presenting The Voice, Op Trans and Fittest Family (plus as a radio stand in) that she was not a top earn at RTÉ.

Each macaron had an RTÉ logo imprinted on the shell.

They were sent out on Wednesday, while the Coalition was signing off on an unprecedented three-year multi-annual public funding of €725m.

The €160 TV licence for every household was also retained.

The anecdote about the queen of France during the French revolution is cited as an example of an elite being oblivious of the daily lives of ordinary people.

RTÉ says the timing of the gifts had “no connection to the funding announcement” and was a “thank you for your support of RTÉ’s Olympics coverage”.

lolz

I know. Apples and Oranges - KT doesn't have a regular gig for 40 weeks pa, CB does. KT has nothing to do with the conversation tbh

CB declares, live on-air, that her fees are 280k + 25k for 2023. It's then reported officially as 280k. This [outsourcing] was a special move for Claire following the announcement of changes for the 'heavy hitters' made a few years ago, and why that quiz was farmed out for Claire, for the first time, as all other shows were 'in-house RTE' previously, meaning the figures had to be included in the reported fees paid

Easy on the pedantry fella, you're not the only one that knows what a corrupt, basket case of an organisation RTE is

Pat Kenny said on his radio programme last week that when he started at RTE he was a low level radio announcer and the DG told him, if he wanted to be a "top star", he had to leave RTE emplyment, and be a contractor. He said, he imagined there were a lot of long time RTE workers who would appreciate their salary being pensionable.

I work as a contractor in IT, and Ive had a few companies screw me around. One place fired me in December and tried to rehire me in Feburary, because there end of year figures looked better without my invoices. With RTE having so many contractors, theres all kinds of ways to cook the books. Employment Payment can get masked as Business Expenses or Broadcasting Consulting.

I wonder are the published figures in any way accurate.

I used to be a Garda. I had "fights" with my Sergeant/Chief who pushed me to investigate a few incidents without complainants "in the public interest". So I've asked the Press Office why they're not investigating RTE in the public interest. Will update with their reply, if they bother... I may have suggested Harris is in on it.

Ive heard it said a general complaint to the gardai isnt worth much. However if you demand a "criminal complaint" is made the gardai are obliged to follow up. Maybe @Potential-Monke can give an insight.

“We haven’t received any complaints.” The Commissioner said the force would only examine the possibility of an investigation if a complaint was made to it by executives in RTE.

https://www.dublinlive.ie/news/gardai-launch-criminal-probe-rte-27228019

Govt don't want anybody looking under that particular rock - Bad, nasty things live under it

Why only the Execs? Because except in exceptional circumstances, this does not happen:

Jenny Z & Doireann would both have been contractors of RTÉ back in Feb & March surely their DWTS earns would need to be released even if anonymously. Right?

Jesus H Christ... are there any other organisations outside of RTE who pays well above and beyond for such incompetence? You think the Director of Operations and Technology for Virgin would earn as much if the Virgin app was just as terrible? (It may be, I dunno, but I doubt it)

Yum

Not a lot for €132 though

….

He's in good company then, because I dont think Ive ever used it successfully either.

What makes it more frustrating, aside from watching the same ad for the 6th time, is that, by playing ads, it demonstrates that it can actually stream video, just not the content you want to watch.