Ireland’s national broadcaster RTE is facing a crisis – and this is why

Published

2 years ago

July 11, 2023

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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.

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.

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.

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

Pete Townshend’s Quadrophenia talked about modern masculinity before Gen Z was born

Published

1 day ago

April 5, 2025

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Pete Townshend's Quadrophenia talked about modern masculinity before Gen Z was born

Despite The Who’s Quadrophenia being set over 60 years ago, Pete Townshend’s themes of identity, mental health, and modern masculinity are just as relevant today.

The album is having a renaissance as Pete Townshend’s Quadrophenia A Mod ballet is being brought to life via dance at Sadler’s Wells East, and Sky News has an exclusive first look.

As Townshend puts it, the album he wrote is “perfect” for the stage.

“My wife Rachel did the orchestration for me, and as soon as I heard it I said to her it would make a fabulous ballet and we never really let that go,” he tells Sky News.

“Heavy percussion, concussive sequences. They’re explosive moments. They’re also romantic movement moments.”

If you identify with the demographics of Millennial, Gen Y or Gen Z, you might not be familiar with The Who and Mod culture.

But in post-war Britain the Mods were a cultural phenomenon characterised by fashion, music, and of course, scooters. The young rebels were seen as a counter-culture to the establishment and The Who, with Roger Daltry’s lead vocals and Pete Townshend’s writing, were the soundtrack.

Quadrophenia the album is widely regarded as an essay on the British adolescent experience at the time, focusing on the life of fictional protagonist Jimmy – a young Mod struggling with his sanity, self-doubt, and alienation. 

Townshend sets the rock opera in 1965 but thinks its themes of identity, mental health, and modern masculinity are just as relevant today.

He says: “The phobias and the restrictions and the unwritten laws about how young men should behave. The ground that they broke, that we broke because I was a part of it.

“Men were letting go of [the] wartime-related, uniform-related stance that if I wear this kind of outfit it makes me look like a man.”

This struggle of modern masculinity and identity appears to be echoing today as manosphere influencers like Andrew Tate, incel culture, and Netflix’s Adolescence make headlines.

For dancer Paris Fitzpatrick, who takes on the lead role of Jimmy, the story resonates.

“I think there’s a connection massively and I think there may even be a little more revival in some way,” he tells Sky News.

“I love that myself. I love non-conforming to gender norms and typical masculinity; I think it’s great to challenge things.”

Despite the album being written before he was born, the dancer says he was familiar with the genre already.

“I actually did an art GCSE project about Mods and rockers and Quadrophenia,” he says.

“I think we’ll be able to bring it to new audiences and hopefully, maybe people will be inspired to to learn more about their music and the whole cultural movement of the early 60s.”

In 1979, the album was adapted into a film directed by Franc Roddam starring Ray Winstone and Sting but Townshend admits because the film missed key points he is “not a big fan”.

“What it turned out to be in the movie was a story about culture, about social scenario and less about really the specifics of mental illness and how that affects young people,” he adds, also complimenting Roddam’s writing for the film.

Perhaps a testament to Pete Townshend’s creativity, Quadrophenia started as an album, was successfully adapted to film and now it will hit the stage as a contemporary ballet.

It appears that over six decades later Mod culture is still cool and their issues still relatable.

Quadrophenia, a Mod Ballet will tour to Plymouth Theatre Royal from 28 May to 1 June 2025, Edinburgh Festival Theatre from 10 to 14 June 2025 and the Mayflower, Southampton from 18 to 21 June 2025 before having its official opening at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London on 24 June running to 13 July 2025 and then visiting The Lowry, Salford from 15 to 19 July 2025.

Entertainment

Russell Brand charged with rape and sexual assault

Published

1 day ago

April 4, 2025

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Russell Brand has been charged with rape and two counts of sexual assault between 1999 and 2005.

The Metropolitan Police say the 50-year-old comedian, actor and author has also been charged with one count of oral rape and one count of indecent assault.

The charges relate to four women.

He is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Friday 2 May.

Police have said Brand is accused of raping a woman in the Bournemouth area in 1999 and indecently assaulting a woman in the Westminster area of London in 2001.

He is also accused of orally raping and sexually assaulting a woman in Westminster in 2004.

The fourth charge alleges that a woman was sexually assaulted in Westminster between 2004 and 2005.

Police began investigating Brand, from Oxfordshire, in September 2023 after receiving a number of allegations.

The comedian has denied the accusations and said he has “never engaged in non-consensual activity”.

He added in a video on X: “Of course, I am now going to have the opportunity to defend these charges in court, and I’m incredibly grateful for that.”

Metropolitan Police Detective Superintendent Andy Furphy, who is leading the investigation, said: “The women who have made reports continue to receive support from specially trained officers.

“The Met’s investigation remains open and detectives ask anyone who has been affected by this case, or anyone who has any information, to come forward and speak with police.”

Entertainment

Tom Cruise leads moment of silence in tribute to ‘dear friend’ Val Kilmer

Published

2 days ago

April 3, 2025

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Tom Cruise leads moment of silence in tribute to 'dear friend' Val Kilmer

Tom Cruise has paid tribute to Val Kilmer, wishing his Top Gun co-star “well on the next journey”.

Cruise, speaking at the CinemaCon film event in Las Vegas on Thursday, asked for a moment’s silence to reflect on the “wonderful” times shared with the star, whom he called a “dear friend”.

Kilmer, who died of pneumonia on Tuesday aged 65, rocketed to fame starring alongside Cruise in the 1986 blockbuster Top Gun, playing Tom ‘Iceman’ Kazansky, a rival fighter pilot to Cruise’s character Maverick.

His last part was a cameo role in the 2022 blockbuster sequel Top Gun: Maverick.

Cruise, on stage at Caesars Palace on Thursday, said: “I’d like to honour a dear friend of mine, Val Kilmer. I can’t tell you how much I admire his work, how grateful and honoured I was when he joined Top Gun and came back later for Top Gun: Maverick.

“I think it would be really nice if we could have a moment together because he loved movies and he gave a lot to all of us. Just kind of think about all the wonderful times that we had with him.

“I wish you well on the next journey.”

The moment of silence followed a string of tributes from Hollywood figures including Cher, Francis Ford Coppola, Antonio Banderas and Michelle Monaghan.

Kilmer’s daughter Mercedes told the New York Times on Wednesday that the actor had died from pneumonia.

Diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014, Kilmer discussed his illness and recovery in his 2020 memoir Your Huckleberry and Amazon Prime documentary Val.

He underwent radiation and chemotherapy treatments for the disease and also had a tracheostomy which damaged his vocal cords and permanently gave him a raspy speaking voice.

Kilmer played Batman in the 1995 film Batman Forever and received critical acclaim for his portrayal of rock singer Jim Morrison in the 1991 movie The Doors.

He also starred in True Romance and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, as well as playing criminal Chris Shiherlis in Michael Mann’s 1995 movie Heat and Doc Holliday in the 1993 film Tombstone.

In 1988 he married British actress Joanne Whalley, whom he met while working on fantasy adventure Willow.

The couple had two children before divorcing in 1996.