Minister tells RTE to publish salaries of stars every year
COMMUNICATIONS Minister Denis Naughten wants RTE to annually publish the salaries of all its top broadcasters who earn more than €100,000-a-year.
Mr Naughten’s call will heap pressure on RTE to become as transparent as its counterpart in Britain, the BBC, which was forced to detail the salaries of more than 90 of its top stars last week.
Those salaries revealed a massive gender pay divide.
The Communications Minister’s spokeswoman told the Sunday Independent: “The Minister would be in favour of RTE publishing the salaries of its top presenters who earn more than €100,00 on their website annually.”
RTE publishes the salaries of the station’s top-10 earners every two years but the figures given are for amounts paid to broadcasters two years earlier.
Last year, RTE released details of salaries earned by broadcasters in 2014.
The figures showed the state broadcaster’s 10 highest paid stars earned more than €2.6m between them during 2014.
New figures are set to be declared publicly before the end of this year.
The host of The Late Late Show, Ryan Tubridy, is RTE’s best paid presenter, earning €495,000.
His stipend covers both his television and radio work and represents a significant pay cut from the €752,950 he earned two years earlier.
Joe Duffy is RTE’s second highest paid broadcaster. The 2014 figures show he was paid €416,893, an increase of more than €113,000 on his earnings the previous year.
Both Mr Tubridy and Mr Duffy were among five of the top 10 earners who are contractors, meaning they charge RTE fees for their work as opposed to earning a salary.
Marian Finucane, on €295,000, was the highest paid female presenter the last time RTE’s payments to its top talent were disclosed. This figure left her third overall but it is down on the €437,005 she received in 2012.
Sean O’Rourke and Miriam O’Callaghan rounded off the top five with incomes of €290,096 and €280,445 respectively.
Newsreader Bryan Dobson’s most recently published salary figure was €195,816. Agriculture and environment correspondent George Lee’s 2014 payment was €179,031. Journalist Richard Crowley was ranked eighth on the list with his €174,120 salary. Derek Mooney rounded off the top 10 by earning €168,871.
Radio host Colm Hayes was also included on the list but he no longer works for RTE. In 2014, his reported earnings were €169,992. The figures when they were published did not include Ray D’Arcy’s pay because he only re-joined from Today FM in 2015.