After almost three turbulent weeks, Tuesday’s appearances by Ryan Tubridy and Noel Kelly before two Oireachtas committees felt like a peak moment had been reached in the RTÉ scandal.
It may seem premature to say that the fever has broken, but the near-obsessive focus on the story to the exclusion of all else across Irish media, including from RTÉ itself, will surely begin to ebb now – unless, of course, some startling new revelation emerges.
Signs that it was all getting a bit ridiculous were visible on Tuesday, as newspapers and broadcasters dispatched reporters to interrogate hapless day-drinkers in the pubs of Dublin about the events unfolding on the screens above their heads.
As an experienced journalist, director general Kevin Bakhurst will be familiar with the rhythms of the news cycle, and will have observed how management failed so dismally to manage that cycle in the weeks before his arrival.
Bakhurst has made clear his determination to enact root and branch reform at the broadcaster, but another unspoken objective is surely to get this story off the front pages. His appearance with colleagues before the Public Accounts Committee on Thursday will be challenging in that respect; Tubridy and Kelly’s statements on Tuesday directly contradicted information previously supplied to the committees by serving and former senior managers. That may yet set off new fires in unexpected places.
Did Tubridy do enough to save his job? Tubridy made a strong case that he has been badly treated by RTÉ in recent weeks. But Tuesday’s performance was clearly designed to appeal to just one of the three constituencies that matter – the audience.
Some sceptical viewers may have winced at the saccharine-sweet talk of “the most trusted man in Ireland” and of his natural bond with the nation’s children, but it’s quite possible that this will play well with the older demographic which makes up the core audience for RTÉ One and Radio1.
Of the other two constituencies, the Oireachtas, to judge by the reactions of committee members on Tuesday, is far from satisfied with explanations for how the so-called tripartite deal was negotiated with RTÉ, or with Kelly’s acquiescence to invoicing arrangements that were clearly designed to conceal. But politicians don’t (and shouldn’t) have any input into who gets to present radio and TV shows.
It’s more difficult to gauge the mood among RTÉ staff, something which Bakhurst has indicated will play an important part in any decision on Tubridy’s future.
Having stepped down from The Late Late Show, Tubridy is now merely the presenter of a fairly fluffy hour-long morning radio programme
In an interview with Kieran Cuddihy on Newstalk on Tuesday, the director general seemed keen to draw a distinction between the actions of the presenter and the agent. “Ryan doesn’t negotiate his own deals,” he told Cuddihy, echoing Tubridy’s own defence.
Bakhurst made it clear that he held Kelly, along with some RTÉ managers who had “behaved shamefully”, responsible for the whole affair. “Whether RTÉ is fully to blame, I’m not sure I accept that,” he said. “There was more than one party to this agreement.” He also told the Irish Independent that it wasn’t healthy “for any country to have just one agent who’s so dominant”.
A major re-set on the relationship with Kelly seems certain but it makes perfect sense for RTÉ to allow a few weeks before reaching any decision on Tubridy’s future. And there may be a number of different calculations at play during this cooling-off period.
It’s worth noting that Tubridy is no longer “Ireland’s leading broadcaster”. Having stepped down from The Late Late Show, he is now merely the presenter of a fairly fluffy hour-long morning radio programme. He is hardly indispensable, and removing him might send a clear message that the days of “irreplaceable” talent are over. But there is also a danger that RTÉ could cause itself further reputational damage if it’s seen to be overly vindictive.
There was a contradiction at the heart of Tuesday’s double act. Tubridy presented himself as an affable lifelong entertainer who just loved his job and left the negotiations to his agent; Kelly talked about the hard-nosed realities of revenue generated by airtime, ad breaks and sponsorships. All this revenue, it was implied, was due to the star wattage and hard work of the “talent”.
Reliance on a handful of big-name presenters, fear of change and suspicion of creativity are hallmarks of the RTÉ experience
But, more than any broadcaster in Ireland, Tubridy is a creation of RTÉ, where he has spent his entire adult life. He was moulded to fill a Gay Byrne-shaped hole in RTÉ’s roster, although he has never displayed the same aptitude for the hard question as Byrne or Pat Kenny showed. For the past decade he’s been the inoffensive figurehead of a conservative, risk-averse broadcaster. That surely has to change now.
Try talking about this controversy to anyone under 30 who doesn’t work in media. It’s like explaining an obscure conflict in a distant foreign land of which they’re only dimly aware. Returning emigrants express surprise when they find the same schedules and formats still running on Radio1 that they remember from when they left two decades ago.
[ Feelings about fate of Ryan Tubridy ‘running high’ among RTÉ staff, says DGOpens in new window ]
Reliance on a handful of big-name presenters, fear of change and suspicion of creativity are hallmarks of the RTÉ experience described by insiders and outsiders, and experienced every day by viewers and listeners. The sterile debate over how to reanimate the corpse of The Late Late Show just illustrates these deeper problems.
At times of crisis, radical solutions are proposed. Sell Montrose. Sell 2FM. Get rid of advertising. Outsource all production. Whatever their merits (and Bakhurst has said some might be on the table), none goes to the heart of the matter: what, and who, is RTÉ for?
