The joke will be on us if we fall for RTE crying poverty
ABODY paying 500 grand a year to its top earner while at the same time crying poverty and looking for more taxpayers’ money sums up Ireland in a nutshell.
The sight of RTE director general Dee Forbes demanding the public’s laptops and smartphones be taxed to pay for the upkeep of the national broadcaster was breathtaking.
Apparently the station is in dire financial straits but somehow still manages to come up with obscene salaries for its top presenters.
Ms Forbes told the Dail public accounts committee the current TV licence fee funding model has to be changed to one that includes laptops and smartphones.
So Tubs and Ray are earning a fortune and Dee wants us to pay a tax to RTE to finance this.
Let’s get this straight – Ryan Tubridy is on around 500 grand, Ray D’arcy is on €400,000, Joe Duffy earns €389,000, Miriam O’callaghan gets €299,000 and Marian Finucane is given €295,000 (don’t even ask) for her four-hour week.
To help pay for what we might call the Forbes’ rich list we need a new licence fee model which will apply to most people even if they never watch any of the above or don’t even have a television.
RTE has never been great in the comedy department but they’ve surpassed themselves this time for this is one hell of a joke.
What is really being suggested is a second household charge because there will be a tax on the property regardless of whether or not there is a TV set. And let’s face it, who’s going to be watching RTE on their smartphone never mind their computer.
So what would be put in place is an actual tax on homes, phones and computers.
It’s the sheer audacity of the State broadcaster, which has the best of both worlds – licence fee and advertising – that will outrage those who are already struggling to meet bills and taxes.
Why I’m claiming it sums up Ireland is because the station is using the same old excuses for paying huge salaries and fleecing the public as did the banks and the health service.
Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy pointed out the station’s top 10 earners gave “the Ryan Tubridy is coining it in impression that RTE has shedloads of money”. She also made the point it is extremely difficult for RTE to argue it is short of money when the station is splashing the cash on its top presenters andexecutives.
But it was the excuse offered by Dee Forbes for paying out these huge salaries which made me suspect RTE is being more serious about comedy.
Apparently they will all flee the wellfeathered nest if we cannot afford to keep in them in the style to which they’ve become accustomed. The director general told the Dail committee there was a “competitive marketplace” for broadcasters who may go elsewhere. Like where?
This is a country of little more than 4.5 million souls, smaller than many UK and US metropolitan areas, with a handful of broadcasters and all of them find it difficult to survive.
Where are Ryan Tubridy and Ray D’arcy going to get a job which pays more than what they are getting at the moment?
Who’s going to better the salary being paid to Marian Finucane for four hours radio time a week?
Indeed what some of the RTE presenters take home would cover the entire wage costs of all the broadcasters at some local stations.
Defending the huge sums being paid Dee Forbes pointed out the salaries of the top presenters accounted for just 1% of the station’s cost base. We’ve been here before with this guff for paying huge wages to supposedly supertalented people who are crucial to their organisation.
Dee did a bit of entertaining herself, trying on the old pay peanuts and getting monkeys routine, obviously forgetting in the past we paid billions to the banks and got baboons and an economy left swinging from the trees.
Weren’t we told the obscene salaries – up to €4million a year to one of them – paid to the bankers were necessary because they might up and leave if forced to take a pay cut.
Jeezzzzz, now thought.
Imagine if Seanie Fitz and Fingers Fingleton had been headhunted to the likes of Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley. They could have crashed the US economy instead of ours.
The point being that paying big bucks doesn’t guarantee quality and indeed if the recent figures are to be believed, viewers and listeners either.
Indeed putting so much resources into a few top earners could well restrict the flow of up-and-coming young talent.
I seldom have a go at the national broadcaster as I firmly believe in public service broadcasting which is under attack from the Rupert Murdochs of this world.
But with younger people watching less terrestrial TV than ever, imposing a tax on their smartphones is not the way to promote it.
RTE has never been great in the comedy department
there’s a