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

The BMW was not part of his pay package as I’m sure you know, it was a separate deal with BMW and nothing to do with RTÉ. I’m not sure if the BMW deal was arranged by NK or predated his representation of Mr. Kenny.

The Toyman topped €723k one year. Truly bonkers.

Indeed, the high moral ground is now occupied by hypocrites, many of whom work for the media.

Don’t be using facts to back up your argument!

Those contracts were absolutely outrageous and though technically legal they were immoral and could only exist in an organisation as corrupt and with no accountability with regards to its use of public spending as RTÉ. It did not represent anything approaching value for money and most certainly was not “right”.

Let me add a fundamental point which is often overlooked. RTE should pay its top stars many, many millions more - if only they proved they were worth it i.e. if they produced television of such outstanding quality that the world would pay RTE handsomely for their programmes. Then opportunities for our talented content makers would abound and Ireland's image would be greatly enhanced worldwide.

That's what I'd call public service broadcasting.

Then who would bother with a piddling licence fee?

Of course, the opposite is the case. RTE has never been able to even recoup its production costs through exports, it gave away the only mega-success that it, almost inadvertently, created (Riverdance) and on the rare occasions when it fostered real talent e.g. Gabriel Byrne, Dermot Morgan, it couldn't get rid of them fast enough. What do almost all the amazing array of the Irish talent in today's global movie/TV business have in common? They were blessed to have been untouched by RTE!

That is the real failure of RTE which should overshadow any debate about someone getting a hundred grand under the table.

Its the media committee that starts at half twelve tmw https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/committees/34/arts-media-communications-culture-and-sport/

CR1 https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/oireachtas-tv/cr1-live/

Great that Simon Harris was able to take time off from posting selfies and engaging in self-congratulation on LinkedIn and making Tik Tok videos to give a quote. This the same Simon Harris who after condemning the waste in RTÉ after The Ryan Tubridy Pay Scandal subsequently went on The Toyman’s Bookshelf Podcast. As did Micheál Martin. You couldn’t make it up.

I haven’t listened to that one. Did he retell the Sinead O’Connor “you’ve been mugged by God in a hoodie” story again? Did he drop in a (not so) subtle mention of The Devonshire pub in London? Did he do some casual name dropping? Did he say how glad he was that the thing happened and how he’s really enjoying being his own boss with all of the wonderful opportunities that are there for him now whilst simultaneously practically begging to get back into RTÉ? Did he plug the live shows?

It did actually! 🤣 I’d link it but I’d rather not be responsible for increasing its view count.

On Tubs and his historical and political buff claims - they are, like I always say about his voracious book reading claims, more fiction than fact.

I’d say anything he knew about Shackleton was taken from the Kenneth Branagh tv series from the early naughties…but as that was a multi episode series I doubt he would have had the attention span for it.

Why he was fronting this is anyone’s guess. He’s still popular with a certain type in that area who probably thought as a local celeb he’d be perfect to host such a dignitary. I b wonder did he ask for his usual fee? Loved the ensemble though - very nautical, very Partridge. I’d say he was trolling us but he’s not that clever.

RTE money to pay for the rights to things that most of us can get on Netflix anyway, for example, plus regular British/American TV.

20 - 25m a year on broadcast rights for US, UK and some Australian shows. An amount that has never been cut, even in the heyday of big international TV series RTÉ were putting many of them out after mid-night.

My Mam and Dad recently asked me who Drew Barrymore and why she was on the TV, and 3 hours of it in the morning (RTÉ air double episodes of Barrymore along with an episode of Kelly Clarkson).

Meantime, Daithi O'Se is off on holidays for the summer after becoming a staff member!

who’s there barber?

The price the price …. of …. of… Hooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnessssssssssssssssstttttttttttttttttttttttttyyyyyyyyyyyyy… oh! the drama of victimhood. How was I supposed to pay for my trophy house in 1988?

A lot of the explanations Bakhurst and Rooney gave were “management at the time” type answers. This ignores the fact that Bakhurst’s hand-picked executive team is broadly similar to the previous team bar essentially two retirements (Jennings and O’Leary) and two who were shall we say “let go” (Coveney and Collins). He went out of his way to retain the HR Director who was involved in redundancy packages for roles that weren’t being made redundant.

That answer should frankly be given short shrift if it’s expressed today.