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

Is Dee Forbes still on sick leave? - will she ever be brought before the PAC. Hopefully these latest payment issues will shine a light on her non-attendance as its well beyond a farce at this stage.

Crazy list of top 20 earner in RTÉ

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/rte-top-10-best-paid-stars-list-dominated-by-management-over-tv-and-radio-presenters/a373422924.html

Joe Duffy 351k

Adrian Lynch 292,285

Richard Waghorn 287,120

Deirdre McCarthy 281,187

Claire Byrne 280,000

Eimear Cusack 274,694

Patrick Kielty 255,657

KB4 339,954 (Wage 250k, Pension 62,500, Allowance 25k, other 2,454)

Miriam O'Callaghan 246,708

Brendan O'Connor 244,099

Gavin Deans 238,577

Ray D'Arcy 220,409

Mary Wilson 209,545

George Lee 195,939

Darragh Maloney 194,902

Dáithí Ó Sé 196,885

The article seems to be missing 4 names but I had said on several occasions that Dáithí would have been pay as much as we are seeing here He gets extra for the fada's on his name, seriously 196,885 for a Day time TV show!? that only runs for 8 months of the year, it would be interesting to know if his TG4 Chat show is a separate payment via the Indo company that produces it, and if the Rose Of Tralee festival pays him for presenting duties, increasing his fee significantly.

KB4 says

In 2024, there was one severance payment and includes a contribution to legal fees agreed with a former member of the previous executive board with a total cost of €475,000. In the comparative [2023], there were severance payment made totally €768,000 to previous members of the executive board.

Seriously Jimbo Jennings got €475K in 2024. And was he paid in 2023 during his illness. I suppose if he hadn't gone to the WRC he'd have got less!

It is also interesting that KB4 is put in number 2 place this year considering that his minions would also have sundries. I have moved him down in the list above.

2023 is the biggest gap between the 9th and 10th most paid presenter since 2002! What you could agrue the gaps between the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th are at their lowest in 2024.

Green those on under 200K, note that 2024, shows them at just under 200K, yet 10 years ago just number 6 was on that level while the next person on the list is on 179K.

I always felt it was a game,

"Another season done, summer months looking good, Am I on the top ten list…?"

"Yes"

"Oh, could you just bring slightly below the lowest paid"

While now its,

"Am I on the top ten list … ?"

"Yes"

"How much to get of the list"

"Alot less than your on now"

"Oh! ah make it just below the 200k and it won't look as bad, but sure, if I am going to be on it, I might as well get paid, see you in September."

Where's Dee???

The man on the moon knows there isn't a bloody thing wrong with her and never was.

She needs to see a jail cell and hopefully she will.

Shyster of the highest order.

I wonder if she'd take up another job somewhere. She doesn't need to but imagine she ended up or is already back in Discovery.

https://www.businesspost.ie/companies/revealed-exit-of-former-rte-executive-jim-jennings-cost-broadcaster-almost-e500000-last-year/

I wonder about the word Revealed in a news article and for the Sunday Business Post to suggest they are revealing something that anyone following this story know doesn't already know.

1. Since the figure was announce we knew it was Jimbo that received the payment, it is hard to hide
2. The article says how Jimbo was Director of Content and a senior member of Dee's team
3. It doesn't state that Jimbo was on sick leave for nearly 2 years, rather he was not appointed to RTÉ's interim leadership team
4. Then in June 2024 the new chair said they were close to finalising the exit deal
5. Then in August it was announce he'd leave RTÉ, and that KB4 had agreed this with the WRC
6. The note in the AR does not give specifics (we knew it would not), just that it was to a member of the executive boar
7. THEREFORE - it must be Jimbo
8. The Business Post contacted Jimbo for a statement
9. while RTÉ said it could say no more due to the conditions of the WRC
10. It finishes off with the pay of the Leadership team.

An Exclusive / reveal would be something to show

1. That Jimbo refused to leave
2. That Jimbo was on Sick leave
3. That during his Sick leave he was on full pay from RTÉ
4. Or even that he was on a reduced pay with the remainder made up by the social
5. That Jimbo provide Sick notes to RTÉ
6. That RTÉ had their own doctor examine Jimbo while on long term sick leave.

But that won't happen. Much like the fact that in 2023 and 2024 Jimbo's renumeration was not stated on the RTÉ annual report unlike former members of the executive board and now members of the current leadership team.

I have no problem with people getting a car allowance as part of their pay if they need a car to do their job. But otherwise I think it was a waste of money and RTÉ should have known this back in the 1980s. It just shows that RTÉ was filled with waste and that nothing really is changing.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/rte-paid-570000-in-car-allowances-last-year-with-payments-to-four-staff-totalling-almost-100000/a1606054824.html

It goes way beyond the idea of a BIK to have so many people with car allowances in one company. Perhaps this is low. But for a company continually asking for more money they clear show that since they 1980s they had no real idea how cut costs.

At the beginning of 2023, there were 61 staff entitled to the car payment, he explained. The spokesman said: “[This is] a reduction of more than 26pc over the past two years.”

This from the instagram account of the former head of Young People's At RTÉ.

What is it about November in RTÉ? It was mid-morning, 9 years ago, when, as Group Head of Children’s Content, I was told without notice, that in-house production of young people’s programming would be very significantly reduced. Later, with production finished for the day, a group of managers informed our vibrant, committed, talented, and highly experienced teams that production of ongoing programmes and online content would cease before Christmas, run of programme contracts would not be renewed and other staff would be reassigned.

The shocking news and its aftermath were devastating for many of us who were committed to our young audience and had viewed RTÉ as a creative melting pot – a wellspring of ideas, a place where talent could develop and flourish, and where there was freedom to think, interrogate, and reinterpret the world around us. The documentary unit has long been another flagship area of production where people could explore ideas, develop skills, and make great programmes efficiently.

It feels terribly sad to see what seems to be the continuing diminishment of RTÉ’s creative heart. My thoughts are with everyone affected by this decision.

None of this was ever stated during that period back in 2016. She did not go to the press at the time and say hold up this is what happened.

"I was not informed, I was not consulted and it was not my decision, but for me I believe it to be a bad decision."

Instead she stayed in the role for another year as she wrote in the Sindo.

She tells her story of how she left, but nothing of the above. But she was lucky she got a redundancy payment when she left a year later, from a job that wasn't made redundant.

Why not speak up then? or when she was leaving, why leave a year later and not make a statement on they way in which you where treated.

And BTW D4bes and KB4 would have been part of that decision as DG and Deputy DG.

https://www.independent.ie/life/sheila-de-courcy-leaving-the-office-for-the-final-time-i-took-my-name-off-the-door-and-resolved-to-make-no-major-decisions-for-two-years/a1468739831.html

I agree with her Instagram post but in effect she turned her back on her colleagues 9 years ago.

You'll just have to keep an ear to Cork's 96 and 103, it has to be that bad!

That RTE strain of Affluenza must be terrible. Not only does it render those afflicted with it voiceless, it makes them disappear as well.

A few missed targets from New Direction 2025 - 2029

1. Digital Radio Stations due to close in 2024, delay RTÉ only put the application at the end of 2024
2. Sign on for RTÉ Player due in 2024 has not arrived
3. New RTÉ Player features in 2025, nothing announced
4. New Audio app in 2025 yet to launch
5. New News app in 2025 yet to launch

3, 4 and 5 will be launched for Christmas !

They also state they will publish a commission roadmap in 2025. I have not see this document. I assume they increase their spend to 55m as suggested but I didn't see this from their output this year.

How feckin difficult is it to meet a deadline of closing an online station?

The stations weren't just online, they were also broadcast stations on Saorview and also Virgin Media, so RTÉ couldn't unilaterally close them.

My suspicion is that during 2024 RTÉ didn't realize they needed to apply for the closure of the stations, as as you put it they are simple online.

Late last year they made their application to the department, that's not even going to move from the inbox of the civil servants in the run up to Christmas so I'd say they don't approach CnaM until they new year, then the CnaM make their recommendation, the Civil Service also have to carry out some work and then provide it to the minister, then its up to the minister to sign off on it, but RTÉ seem to forget that when they approached Eamon Ryan they had to wait for an interim FF minister to sign of on their initial digital TV plans, and then neither Rabbitte or White wanted to touch their plans for RTÉ2 and eventually RTÉ withdrew that application. Indeed to get RTÉ2 +1 (and to expand RTÉ +1) and OTV (yes its an RTÉ channel on Soarview) took at least a year for both applications to be approved AFAIR.

So in some ways you can't blame RTÉ fully, but surely once they had produced their new direction step 1 would have been apply to Department to close digital stations.

But then everything else on their list seems to be stalled. For example next year both RTÉ ONE and 2's schedules are to be refreshed, no press release for this new look RTÉ ONE and 2.

In the new year Coro St and Emmers are to move to 8pm Monday to Friday, in 3 months time RTÉ's Fair City on Tuesday and Thursday will be moved to 7pm. It takes them a while to catch on. It took them 3 months to move FC on Wednesdays to Friday nights after been beating in the ratings by the hour long Coro Street.