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HOW THE NEGOTIATION process for Ryan Tubridy’s contract with RTÉ differed from negotiations with other top earners is revealed in documents released by the broadcaster yesterday evening.
After the revelation that RTÉ failed to disclose €345,000 worth of payments to Tubridy since 2017, it released a 9-page statement yesterday in which it outlined its understanding of how Tubridy received the undisclosed payments following an external review by Grant Thornton.
RTÉ’s statement details the broadcaster’s account of how it typically negotiates the contracts of its ten most highly paid presenters and what differed in Tubridy’s 2020-2025 contract negotiations.
The full Grant Thornton review gives additional details about the process of negotiating Tubridy’s contract.
The Chief Financial Officer is ordinarily responsible for conducting the negotiations for the top 10 presenters with advice from RTÉ’s legal department, according to the RTÉ statement.
The relevant editorial lead, such as the Director of Content or the Director of News and Current Affairs and the Director of Audience Channels and Marketing, provide input on the services required, like programming and commitments to hours of broadcasting.
The Director General then gives the final approval on the fees to be paid to the presenters.
In the negotiations on Tubridy’s contract, the RTÉ statement asserts that then-Director General Dee Forbes was “directly involved in aspects of the negotiations”.
Subsequently, only Forbes and RTÉ’s commercial director knew of the two €75,000 invoices in 2022, the payment of those invoices through the barter account and the circumstances surrounding those invoices, the statement laid out.
However, the commercial director has said that “her knowledge of those matters was limited to the instructions received by her from the DG in connection with the payments in question”.
The Grant Thornton review, citing the Director General, outlines: “In early 2020, RTÉ began discussions around the Talent’s contract renewal. All of these discussions involved RTÉ’s then CFO, a Solicitor from RTÉ’S legal team, and from time to time regarding programming details, the Director of Content and the Director General.”
There were effectively two contracts in the negotiations – a ‘five year contract’ between RTÉ and the presenter and a ‘tri-partite agreement’ that also involved Renault as a commercial sponsor but which was guaranteed and underwritten by RTÉ.
At the time, RTÉ had committed to reducing the earnings of its highest paid presenters by 10%. Tubridy’s contract had included an ‘end of contract’ payment clause that was due at the end of 2020, but it was agreed that this would not be paid and that RTÉ would instead guarantee the €75,000 payments from the commercial partnership.
“The terms of this potential agreement were set out by Talent’s Agent and these were discussed and considered by all parties, including RTÉ ‘s legal and finance departments,” the Grant Thornton review states.
“Over a long period of time an agreement was drawn up between the Talent, the Commercial Brand and RTÉ. The Director General was not involved in the drafting, signing or implementation of this [tri-partite] agreement.”
The full timeline of Tubridy’s contract negotiations is available here.
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A captive portal that requires a code that lasts only 30 mins, get a code with every cup of coffee (or whatever) bought. Problem solved.
Or just use the Wi-Fi hot spot on your phone.
I never go to cafes in ireland unless I am getting a coffee to go. They are overcrowded and people don’t seem to respect personal space.
One way to stop it. 30 minutes free internet with every purchase. You will find the code on the receipt. That’s what I would do if I ran a coffee shop. The spongers can go sponge someplace else.
Dear jaysus let’s hope so, we are turning into a nation of zombies. Ironic that I post this using my phone all the same
Monty..It would only be ironic if you were using that phone in Starbucks after sitting there all day..
I know this is going off on a tangent here, but reckon 3G / Wifi signals should be blocked in some cases in public places!! The pub scene is ruined with groups of people, heads down staring into phones!?! The chat n banter will be a thing of the past in the pub at this rate!
Me & 3 mates waiting 20mins for seating in Star-B’s last week.
Finally got one tiny high stool spot.
We Had 2 coffees each & chat.
We were In & gone within 45 mins.
Crammed into one tiny spot.
Entire time this guy was sprawled out at comfy 6 seater on his tod with an empty coffee cup. His head stuck in a lap top which was plugged in..
Daft isn’t it. I’d have sat beside the sponge.
Maybe the church should embrace wifi, might fill up the place more :)
That was me!
I was in Belfast a few weeks back and more people outside a Starbucks on phones than people sitting in the shop. Obviously using the free internet. The owner pulled the plug on the modem they all walked off.
Turn it off in all pubs!! Talk to each other!!!
Ahh relax the kaks!
I agree with mick it’ll ruin the craic in pubs if everyone inside is logged on.
Sorry , Mike
I’ll admit I once sat outside the Maldron hotel in Smithfield for 2 hours to rob their wifi when I Locked my self out!!
All you can eat data for me. Hate to be smug about it, but aside from holidays abroad, it makes no difference if a place has WiFi or not.
30 minutes per purchase seems a fair approach to deter the wifi spongers in taking up valuable seating space. There’s a lot to be said for interacting with people around you as opposed to getting lost in the virtual world of social networking. I type this while alone just home from watching the hurling double header in my local, for those wannabe troll naysayers. :)
‘a market niche for not having wi fi’, is there no end to corporate greed?
No
Feck it. I have a 4g connection with an ‘unlimited’ (15gb) plan.
I have no need for their slow, insecure wifi.
Have to turn it off going into some places now.
It must be scary being old
It is Reagan.
Turn it off on trains and look out the widow.. :-/
.. at the graffiti and rusty shopping trolleys?
Leave the widows alone. They’ve been through enough.
Ah feck off. Should people not read books or magazines on trains too? Should we just look out the window for the whole journey?
Would ya ever go away and done be annoying me.
Even when it’s dark outside?
Great Idea!
Look! This is a load of tosh…cafe’s can easily monitor overuse by insisting the customer buy’s more product.
Any A-Hole hogging the wi-fi for hours on end should be shown the door…
I refuse to use a place if it doesn’t have wifi. Recently complained to Costa about it…. logged in to check whether the person I was meeting was on the way…. grabbed a coffee (waited in line) there was only 10 mins left on the timer when I got back. Ffs.
I get it about ppl hogging seats…. but they used to do that b4 wifi… sitting around a cold cup of coffee for ages. That’s not new.
If you don’t offer the service in this day and age then you don’t get my business.
Why didn’t you just ring the person, or text them?
Because that person might be driving, for example.
What ever happened to the Dublin Free WiFi? Never works…
Pointless pointless waffle, if businesses are trying to increase customer volumes they are really scraping from the end of the barrel with this angle
Wifi is free in most public libraries – for as long as you want!
How would the girls get in touch with me Tinder??
People have WiFi at home and most likely a data plan on their smart device. So…. Coffee shops are for coffee and maybe even shock, horror,- talking to someone?
Wifi is a basic right.
There are cafés here that have free wifi?
In all fairness, most public wifi spots are so slow you are better off using your own phone’s 3g. If you have 4G there is no competition or point on using a public wifi spot unless you have reached a data limit or so.
I think that public laptop users in Ireland may have a higher regard for manners. I am one of the owners of August First the cafe described in your article. We always felt that if lap top users had a sense of manners it would never have been a problem. Once they see people coming in and wanting a table to eat at, they should know that it’s time to leave. But I watched over and over again as people would come in and leave because there were no open tables while several tables had zombies staring at screens. Even though we would only have 2 or 3 at a time, it had an effect on the overall culture of the place. Our biggest surprise was how much the culture of the space improved when there were no longer any screens. A very happy change!
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