RTE has revealed the salaries of its top 10 earners with Ryan Tubridy topping the list by earning £439,950.
This comes after a fiasco last year when the Irish public service broadcasters admitted they misstated their payment to a former star presenter. On June 22, RTE confessed it underpaid Tubridy which lead to a financial and management crisis within the company.
The executives faced tough questioning over fees, perks for presenters, money spent entertaining commercial clients and even £4,270 spent on flip flops. Further reports into events at RTE unveiled governance shortcomings connected to Toy Show The Musical, which suffered losses of £1.9 million in its single 2022 season.
To contain the chain of controversies, the Irish Government said changes are necessary at RTE to secure temporary funding and before deciding on a new long-term funding model for the channel. Kevin Bakhurst, the director-general of RTE, pledged to limit salaries at his level as part of his reform plan for the financially struggling station.
He admitted that high salaries paid to presenters had been a "toxic", "corrosive" issue and said their fees would be negotiated downwards as contracts came up for renewal. The RTE list released on Monday reveals that Tubridy, who has recently started a new radio show on UK station Virgin Media, pocketed 515,000 euro (£439,950) in 2022.
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The pay figures are all for 2022. Liveline's Joe Duffy was the second-highest earner, bagging 351,000 euro (£299,850); Claire Byrne was paid 320,833 euro (£274,000); Miriam O'Callaghan earned 263,500 euro (£225,100) and Ray D'Arcy received 250,000 euro (£213,570). Brendan O'Connor took home 245,004 euro (£209,300); News at One's Bryan Dobson, who announced his retirement in April, was on 209,681 euro (£179,125); Morning Ireland's Mary Wilson got 197,643 euro (£168,840); sports presenter Darragh Maloney earned 184,501 euro (£157,615); and environment correspondent George Lee was paid 179,821 (£153,615).
RTE also restated their fees for 2021 on Monday, with all contractors earning the same amount as in 2022 apart from Byrne, who earned 350,000 euro (£299,000) in 2021. All staff on the top 10 earners list were paid slightly less in 2021 than the following year, with Dobson on 209,282 euro (£178,785), Wilson on 196,961 euro (£168,260), Maloney on 183,738 euro (£156,960) and Lee on 179,131 euro (£153,000).
Oliver Callan, who is taking over Tubridy's weekday radio show for 150,000 euro (£128,140) a year, said this salary could put him in the top 10 earners list in the coming years. He mentioned that he had requested to discuss certain parts of the contract, but the response was generally 'no'. He also noted that this marked "the first post-new RTE contract".
RTE stated that the earnings of its top presenters makeup less than 1% of its total operating costs. Adrian Lynch, RTE's deputy director-general, said: "Today we are publishing the total earnings from RTE by our highest-paid presenters for 2022, along with the restated earnings for 2021."
He added: "As previously confirmed by Kevin Bakhurst, going forward details of RTE's highest-paid presenters will be published annually as part of RTE's annual report, starting with RTE's 2023 annual report, which will be published later this year. While RTE has committed to reducing the cost of its highest-paid presenters to ensure that no contractors or employees will earn more than the director-general, our presenters play an important role in RTE's provision of vital news, information and entertainment to audiences right across the country and enable us to generate commercial revenue which is essential to fund RTE's public services."
* An AI tool was used to add an extra layer to the editing process for this story. You can report any errors to webhomepage@mirror.co.uk
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