Ireland’s national broadcaster RTE is facing a crisis – and this is why
Ireland’s biggest TV star Ryan Tubridy will be grilled by politicians today, as a secret payments and “slush fund” scandal threatens the very existence of RTE.
From Champions League final tickets to complimentary flip flops, Sky’s Ireland correspondent (and former RTE staffer) Stephen Murphy explains how the crisis is enveloping Ireland’s national broadcaster.
Who is Ryan Tubridy?
Genial, bookish and with a geekish passion for US politics, the 50-year-old Dubliner has risen through the RTE ranks to become the broadcaster’s highest-paid star and one of Ireland’s most famous faces.
He hosts a daily morning radio show and until stepping down in March, presented the world’s longest-running TV chat show, The Late Late Show.
Tubridy has until now been well-regarded by colleagues within RTE, who find him approachable and affable despite his exalted status as the station’s favourite son.
So what happened?
Like the BBC, RTE is funded by a TV licence fee (although it also sells advertising as part of a dual-funding model). So, in the interest of transparency, it publishes an annual list of its top 10 earners.
Tubridy has topped that list for years, and was officially paid €440,000 (£375,500) in 2021. That may not sound huge by UK media standards, but his pay is considerably more than the likes of Jeremy Vine and Nicky Campbell (who have much larger audiences).
Now, as part of an audit, it’s emerged that the RTE public figures understated Tubridy’s earnings by a total of €345,000 (£295,000) between 2017 and 2022.
The highest-earning star was – unknown to the licence fee-paying public – actually being paid a lot more than everyone thought.
And what’s more, Tubridy has been criticised for not correcting RTE’s published figures.
How did that happen?
Some of the overpayment remains to be explained. But we do know that an unusual deal was struck with a commercial partner and sponsor of The Late Late Show, Renault Ireland, which would pay Tubridy an additional €75,000 a year for three years in exchange for personal appearances at Renault events.
RTE – for reasons yet to be determined – agreed to underwrite the deal, so when the carmaker decided not to renew the arrangement after one year, the station paid Tubridy the remaining €150,000 (£128,000). It was routed through a London-based RTE barter account.
Barter accounts are commonly used by media companies to trade surplus advertising space for goods and services, rather than just cash. It was, critics say, a blatant attempt to keep the extra payments off the books.
But what’s the big deal?
The revelation of secretive overpayments to a star already earning top dollar, by a cash-strapped broadcaster partly funded by the same public given false wage figures, immediately sparked intense anger both from outside and within the organisation.
At the time of the overpayments, staff were being given pay cuts, and resources were being slashed. RTE News correspondent Emma O’Kelly recalls TV remote controls in the newsroom not working, as they couldn’t be replaced. “We are told time and time again that there’s no money,” she said.
Yet money was found for topping up Tubridy’s wages… and, it would emerge, many other expenses.
The director general of RTE Dee Forbes resigned last month over the Tubridy payments
So the Tubridy money was just the start of the revelations?
As reviews were announced, and RTE executives appeared before Oireachtas (Irish parliament) committees, lurid details of further barter account spending emerged. There now appeared to be three barter accounts, which were used for lavish expenses.
€138,000 (£118,061) went on Ireland rugby tickets at the Aviva Stadium. €111,000 (£94,962) was spent on a client trip to the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan, with expenditure on the Champions League final between Liverpool and Spurs the same year costing €26,000 (£22,243).
Bizarrely, nearly €5,000 (£4,277) was spent on 200 pairs of Havaianas flip flops for a summer party for clients. Many thousands more went on tickets for Bruce Springsteen, Garth Brooks and Harry Styles gigs, as well as hotels, and expensive restaurant meals.
Almost €8,000 (£6,844) was allocated for a Spice Girls concert. €2,000 (£1,711) went on balloons. It was clear, aghast parliamentarians repeatedly said, that the barter account was in fact a slush fund.
Rory Coveney resigned as RTE Strategy Director earlier this month
How has RTE defended the spending?
The broadcaster says that around €1.6m (£1.4m) was spent in this fashion, but has to be set against commercial revenues of around €1.6bn (£1.37bn) generated from clients over the same period. Despite this, the broadcaster recognises the breach of public trust.
The director general of RTE, Dee Forbes, resigned on 26 June over the Tubridy payments. Director of strategy Rory Coveney resigned on 9 July.
He was responsible for a failed musical that cost RTE €2.2m (£1.88m) in losses. Some of the executives’ performances before the parliamentary committees have been appalling.
Infamously, RTE’s chief financial officer Richard Collins told politicians he didn’t know what his own salary was.
How are the rank-and-file reacting in RTE?
Morale has “gone through the floor”, one RTE journalist told Sky News. “I didn’t think it could have gotten any worse in that place, but it has. People are disgusted over all that’s emerged … there just seems to be no end to it.”
Another senior correspondent told me of finding out about the Tubridy overpayments at the same time RTE was quibbling over a distance of two kilometres in their monthly mileage claim.
Hundreds of RTE journalists who are affiliated with the NUJ union protested outside their own newsroom in Dublin, as well as regional offices.
It’s emerged that after RTE News closed its London bureau office at Millbank in Westminster (where Sky News and others have bases), its then London correspondent Fiona Mitchell, at the height of the Brexit saga, had to record bulletin-leading TV and radio voiceovers in cafe toilets.
But at the same time, RTE executives spent around €8,300 (£7,100) on membership of the exclusive Soho House club for their meetings with clients. The anger among many RTE staff is intense.
New RTE director general Kevin Bakhurst
What will happen next?
All of this has been trundling on for three weeks.
Today, Tubridy himself will appear before Irish TDs (MPs) to face a grilling over how his overpayments occurred, and why he didn’t correct the public record. He will be accompanied by his agent, Noel Kelly, Ireland’s showbiz “super-agent”.
New director general Kevin Bakhurst, an Englishman who has worked at the BBC and Ofcom as well as a previous spell at RTE, has taken over the top post this week and faces a mammoth task to restore credibility and public confidence.
He started by immediately standing down the entire executive board. He was also noticeably lukewarm on Tubridy’s future at RTE, saying “we need to see how this week plays out”.
The Irish government has launched a wide-ranging external review of RTE’s governance, amid speculation the broadcaster could be split in two. And ominously, nearly everyone involved in this saga says they expect further financial revelations to emerge.
In the words of the new boss: “I suspect there may be more stuff to come out.”
Entertainment
Dance artist Moby on the destructive force of fame – and why he’s content being that ‘weird old guy’
He is the man behind the biggest-selling electronica record of all time, but the success of Moby’s album Play came with some unwanted side effects.
His fifth record, the album charted at 33 upon its release in the UK in May 1999, and fell out of the Top 40 after just a week. But despite the lacklustre initial response, Play started to pick up steam, slowly climbing the chart until it reached number one in April 2000.
It stayed there for five weeks and remained in the Top 40 until March 2001, re-entering the Top 100 several times over the next few years.
While Moby had experienced success with Go, the breakthrough 1991 single from his self-titled debut album, Play was next level. Even if you don’t know the album, you’ll know at least some of the songs – Porcelain, Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?, Honey, and Natural Blues. The record was ubiquitous and fame hard to escape.
Pic: Adam Warzawa/EPA/Shutterstock
“I think fame and fortune are, probably, empirically two of the most destructive forces on the planet,” he says, speaking from his home in Los Angeles. “I mean, if fame and fortune fixed things, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse would still be making records.
“I guess it’s a very easy system to buy into, especially in a place like… in New York, in Los Angeles, in these big cities that are driven by ostentation and consumption and the need for external validation. It’s hard to resist those temptations. But then… you look at the consequences of that.
“I’d rather try and live a rational life and not necessarily let other people’s concerns dictate what my concerns should be.”
Now sober and with a few years between him and those heady days of peak fame, in recent years Moby has been doing something few established stars in his position would do – giving his compositions away for free.
“I have a house, I have a car, I have some hoodies, I have food in the fridge, I don’t really need anything more,” he insists. “To live and work in a way where I’m not driven by money, why not use that as an opportunity?”
Selfless selfishness or selfish selflessness
Pic: Wael Hamzeh/EPA/Shutterstock
Over a decade ago, the musician came up with the quietly radical idea of making a free music licensing platform, MobyGratis. The idea was simple and rather exciting, he admits – to allow anyone unrestricted access to hundreds of his compositions to use them however they wish. From film scores to remixes, whatever.
“It’s either selfless selfishness or selfish selflessness, meaning I’m giving these things away but the benefit to me is I get to see what people do with it,” he says.
“There are a lot of things about the current digital media climate that are terrifying and baffling and confusing, but one of the things I love is the egalitarian nature of it.”
The idea of giving his music away for free runs somewhat contrary to the AI copyright battle many artists are currently speaking out over, with the likes of Ed Sheeran and Damon Albarn calling for greater protections in law to prevent artificial intelligence software from scraping their work to learn from it.
Remix culture and creative processes
“I completely appreciate and respect the concerns that other people have,” says Moby. “I think they’re incredibly valid… but for me personally, I don’t know. Maybe it’s naive and stupid of me, but I kind of just ignore it.
“I put this music out there and you sort of hope for the best, which probably is completely dim-witted of me. Part of remix culture is seeing how people reinterpret your work; sometimes it’s mediocre, sometimes it is bad, but sometimes it is so inspired, and I can actually learn a lot from other creative processes.”
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The dance artist also takes issue with how the act of giving and compassion more generally has come to be seen, and references Elon Musk‘s comments on Joe Rogan’s podcast in April, when the billionaire said: “We’ve got civilizational suicidal empathy going on.”
Moby says that while “we live in this world of fear, selfishness, desperation and viciousness”, he supports “anything that is a rejection of the manosphere… anything that rejects Elon and the idea that empathy is a weakness and reminds people that life can be simple and decent.”
He jokes: “I’m definitely becoming like the weird old guy that you’ll see in the mountains, sort of like not making eye contact and mumbling about chemtrails or something.”
This is a man who is aware his approach to fame, fortune and giving stuff away is somewhat out-of-keeping with the times we’re living in – but the thing is, Moby doesn’t seem to care.
Entertainment
Lawyer for Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs claims there was ‘mutual violence’ between him and ex-girlfriend
A lawyer representing Sean “Diddy” Combs has told a court there was “mutual” domestic violence between him and his ex-girlfriend Casandra ‘Cassie’ Ventura.
Marc Agnifilo made the claim as he outlined some of the music star’s defence case ahead of the full opening of his trial next week.
Combs has pleaded not guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy, two counts of sex trafficking and two counts of
transportation for prostitution. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.
Ms Ventura is expected to testify as a star witness for the prosecution during the trial in New York. The final stage of jury selection is due to be held on Monday morning.
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Why is Sean Combs on trial?
Mr Agnifilo told the court on Friday that the defence would “take the position that there was mutual violence” during the pair’s relationship and called on the judge to allow evidence related to this.
The lawyer said Combs‘s legal team intended to argue that “there was hitting on both sides, behaviour on both sides” that constituted violence.
He added: “It is relevant in terms of the coercive aspects, we are admitting domestic violence.”
A court sketch showing Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs (right) as he listens to his lawyer Marc Agnifilo addressing the court. Pic: Reuters
Ms Ventura’s lawyers declined to comment on the allegations.
US District Judge Arun Subramanian said he would rule on whether to allow the evidence on Monday.
Combs, 55, was present in the court on Friday.
He has been held in custody in Brooklyn since his arrest last September.
Prosecutors allege that Combs used his business empire for two decades to lure women with promises of romantic relationships or financial support, then violently coerced them to take part in days-long, drug-fuelled sexual performances known as “Freak Offs”.
Read more:
Diddy on trial: Everything you need to know
Sean Combs: A timeline of allegations
Combs’s lawyers say prosecutors are improperly seeking to criminalise his “swinger lifestyle”. They have suggested they will attack the credibility of alleged victims in the case by claiming their allegations are financially motivated.
The trial is expected to last around eight weeks.
Entertainment
Harvey Weinstein accuser says film mogul ‘took her soul’ during alleged sexual assault
An ex-model has tearfully told a court that being sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein when she was 16 was the most “horrifying thing I ever experienced” to that point.
Warning: This article contains references to sexual assault
Kaja Sokola told the film producer’s retrial that he ordered her to remove her blouse, put his hand in her underwear, and made her touch his genitals.
She said he’d stared at her in the mirror with “black and scary” eyes and told her to stay quiet about the alleged assault in a Manhattan hotel in 2002.
Ms Sokola told the New York court that Weinstein had dropped names such as Penelope Cruz and Gwyneth Paltrow, and said he could help fulfil her Hollywood dream.
“I’d never been in a situation like this,” said Polish-born Ms Sokola. “I felt stupid and ashamed and like it’s my fault for putting myself in this position.”
Weinstein denies sexually assaulting anyone and is back in court for a retrial after his conviction was overturned last year.
Read more: Weinstein is back in court – but what has happened to the #MeToo movement since 2017?
Weinstein denies the allegations. Pic: Reuters
The 73-year-old is not charged over the alleged sexual assault because it happened too long ago to bring criminal charges.
However, he is facing charges over an incident four years later when he’s said to have forced Ms Sokola to perform oral sex on him.
Prosecutors claim it happened after Weinstein arranged for her to be an extra in a film.
“My soul was removed from me,” she told the court of the alleged 2006 assault, describing how she tried to push Weinstein away but that he held her down.
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Ms Sokola – who’s waived her right to anonymity – is the second of three women to testify and the only one who wasn’t part of the first trial in 2020.
Miriam Haley testified previously in the retrial. Pic: AP
Miriam Haley last week told the court that Weinstein forced oral sex on her in 2006. The other accuser, Jessica Mann, is yet to appear.
Claims against the film mogul were a major driver for the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment and abuse in 2017.
Weinstein’s lawyers allege the women consented to sexual activity in the hope of getting film and TV work and that they stayed in contact with him for a while afterwards.
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