Neither Ryan Tubridy nor RTÉ will welcome the comparison, but there are some parallels between this week’s dramatic events and Fox News’s firing of Tucker Carson earlier this year. Fox’s most popular presenter was removed not for his race-baiting demagoguery but because, as internal memos showed, he had come to believe he was bigger than his employer.
That’s a flashing red light for any broadcaster, particularly one facing into a financial and reputational firestorm, as has been the case for both Fox and RTÉ.
The comparison ends there, but the butting of heads between employers and “top talent” has always been a feature of the broadcasting world. Budding stars are identified, developed and polished until they’re ready for prime time, then relentlessly promoted as the faces of the organisation. No wonder there’s some confusion over who gets to call the shots.
But when an existential crisis as profound as the one facing RTÉ emerges, the question assumes a symbolic power far greater than the minor savings involved in one star’s pay cut. This, after all, is one of the reasons offered for the astronomical sums paid to on-air talent: their positions are insecure and subject to the fluctuations of a volatile industry, the whims of a capricious audience or the changing strategic needs of the broadcaster itself. It’s an unforgiving business (although not so much in Ireland, where many presenters make it safely to retirement).
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When Tubridy reaffirmed his position that the original statement of his income from RTÉ for 2020 and 2021 had been correct, he may have felt he was simply restating what he had already told two Oireachtas committees. But he was also choosing to contradict the clear position of director general Kevin Bakhurst and the RTÉ board on the subject at the centre of the scandal: his own remuneration.
[ Tubridy and Bakhurst: What caused the breakdown of trust in RTÉ talks?Opens in new window ]
Why he chose to do this remains unclear, but it can only be assumed that this was a point of principle on which he was not prepared to bend. A relatively small point, some might argue, and too minor to lead to a parting of the ways. For RTÉ, though, it was an unacceptable act of hubris.
It’s not always a good idea to base your hiring decisions on a straw poll of your own employees, but in this case Bakhurst was probably right to be seen to take on board staff concerns
It’s striking that this all comes in the wake of the second Grant Thornton report, which found not just that the presenter and his agent were entirely blameless in relation to the misreporting of his income between 2017 and 2019, but that their attempts to get that misreporting rectified had been ignored. Arguably, Tubridy and Noel Kelly should have been getting an apology this week from RTÉ, but there was no sign of that.
So has Kevin Bakhurst made the right call in showing him the door or is the decision unfair? Opinion will inevitably be divided. Polling at the height of the controversy in July suggested the public was evenly split on whether the presenter should be allowed to return, even though most blamed RTÉ management more than Tubridy for the whole affair.
Badly treated
Not surprisingly, there was more support for him among habitual RTÉ listeners than in the population as a whole. But there is no doubt there are many who will feel he was badly treated.
There is another constituency to which Bakhurst has been highly attentive since he took over as director general six weeks ago. RTÉ staff have been vocal in their anger about the misreported payments, with much of that anger directed towards excessively paid presenters in general and Tubridy in particular. That anger has not abated and is unlikely to have been assuaged by Tubridy’s words this week.
Speaking on Prime Time, the director general told Sarah McInerney he had consulted widely with staff, including those who worked closely with Tubridy in Radio 1, and that there was “a strong division of views” on his possible return. “Views in the team in Radio 1 were strongly split, and when I told Ryan that he was quite surprised,” he said.
It’s not always a good idea to base your hiring decisions on a straw poll of your own employees, but in this case Bakhurst was probably right to be seen to take on board staff concerns. Discussions over Tubridy’s return to work seemed to go almost too smoothly over the past few weeks, which didn’t quite fit with the new regime’s claim to be implementing robust and radical change.
If there had been a successful conclusion to the talks then the presenter’s reduced pay might have been enough to quell dissent. But the decision to end the process so abruptly sends a clearer, tougher message to the public, the staff and the politicians who will decide RTÉ's future.
In his many recent media appearances, Bakhurst may have spoken softly but we now know he also carries a big stick.