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56 July-August 2023 July-August 2023 57
Tubridy is the totem for
RTÉ as an ideas-free
oasis that as a rule
avoids challenging or
subversive reporting or
analysis
RTÉ
is an ideas-free bundu and
as a rule avoids challenging
or subversive reporting or
analysis. This is most clearly and disappointingly
evidenced by the self-consciously banal daytime
gabfest of Radio 1. It ignores poverty and
inequality, working-class voices and even
unions. It has been horribly slow to recognise
the reality of climate change, typically covering
the environment in contrived and inflammatory
rows. In general it too often recycles its own
talentlessness on its jaded chat and politics
shows. It settles defamation actions too easily.
RTÉ shies away from serious allegations of
corruption against the government It has paid
its stars too much, though it has been
addressing that and there is no doubt there are
some people of exceptional talent or at least
unflappability among the timeservers. If the
goal is to be the Nation on the Airwaves, it
always appears like a clique.
In 2019, David Cullinane, a Sinn Féin TD, told
the Dáil: “There are issues with regard to class
in RTÉ, something I have raised with the director
general and RTÉ. I do not believe it reflects
modern Ireland or modern Dublin at all times. It
reflects what many see as a couple of postcodes
in Dublin but does it reflect working-class
communities? Do we hear their stories?”.
The incarnation of these structural problems,
at least for a magazine that is obsessed with
analysing power, is Ryan Tubridy.
Tubridy
The Tigger of Montrose (born 1973 but ageless
in appearance) has rarely made an unforced
error (unless you count appearing at an election
event for his younger brother Garrett), or
appeared hubristic over a 38-year career there
despite, perhaps because of, immense
confidence, relentless charm and peerless
emotional intelligence. That is a significant
recommendation and suggests a temperament
dramatically and perfectly suited to
broadcasting.
Career
Tubridy started in broadcasting at the age of
12, reviewing books for the then Radio 2 show
Poporama presented by Ruth Buchanan. He
hasn’t really stopped since. By 2004, he had
bagged ‘Tubridy Tonight’, a live Saturday night
chat show described by TV critic Hillary Fannin
as “sub-Lettermanesque”. From 2006 he had
been doing The Tubridy Show, on weekday
mornings on RTÉ Radio 1. In 2009 he
appropriated the Late Late Show and the next
year he took over his friend Gerry Ryan’s slot
after the bullish broadcaster’s premature
death. Unfortunately it is possible that 2010
was the height of it, Listenership dropped by
an extraordinary 40% and he returned to Radio
1. His 9-10am slot there showcases his
schmoozey fluidity. For a man who often
reminds his listeners that he is a reader and a
fogey, however, its content is surprisingly low-
brow and vapid. It is remarkable that Tubridy
has become so comfortable touting base
celebrity.
Personality
Tubridy has the skill of a Wogan or a Byrne but
he lacks their depth.
Tubridy,
Tigger
no more
Despite great
broadcasting talent,
Tubridy never
challenged power
and in the end lost
his bounciness so
that, when exposed
as not just Renault-
funded and greedy
but disingenuous, he
got little support
By Michael Smith
He is great with children, though perhaps not
Greta Thunberg (now an adult anyway). And he
loves their toys. He even likes young people and
keeps saying that he promotes their agenda.
This avoids him having to say that he promotes
their agenda of anger and stopping climate
change. That would be too far.
He has not always had support from his
colleagues though he is popular in RTÉ. Before
Tubs replaced him at RTÉ, Pat Kenny said, “He’s
a young man in a terrible hurry”. Gay Byrne
thought Tubridy’s TV show very disappointing
in its early days, though he was well-disposed
to Tubridy himself: “And he’s a lovely fellow, but
I think he’s as much to blame, because he wants
to adapt to whatever RTE1 wanted him to be and
that’s a pity”.
Politics
Young Ryan was a member of the Kevin Barry
Cumann of Fianna Fáil while in UCD and was
active in the UCD Students’ Union, as well as in
the Dun Laoghaire branch of Ógra Fianna Fáil.
His brother Garrett (their parents liked 1970s
voguish names) stood unsuccessfully for FF at
the 2009 local elections, in Pembroke/
Rathmines.
Like many Irish broadcasters, including Gay
Byrne, Eamon Dunphy, Pat Kenny and George
Hook he is dead to wokeness. The Irish Times’
radio critic, Mick Heaney wrote in 2017 that
Tubridy “regularly complains about the
supposed absurdities of political correctness in
public discourse while pouring scorn on
She knew
MEDIA
56 July-August 2023 July-August 2023 57
He has thrown his hard-earned reputation
out the car window because of a grubby and
greedy secret agreement
pretentious notions that deviate from the milieu
of having a few pints and praising the Beatles”.
He has said “I abhor political correctness”.
You can’t get past the car-park attendant in
Montrose unless you feel this in your cojones.
Nor are these views unusual for one of his
privileged and homogenous background and he
is said to carry them into his life o-air. In May
2011, the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland
upheld a complaint against Tubridy after he
called a paedophile a “monster” and “creature”,
read out his address and added: “From what I
gather these guys cannot be quote-unquote
cured. Only one way to deal with them, and
that’s physiological ... these guys should have
bits taken o”.
Tigger sounded for once a lot like Eeyore.
Tubridy has a particular lack of interest in
environmentalism and anti-consumerism. It
would be naive to think this isn’t fuelled in part
by the sponsorship of the Late Late Show by
Renault Ireland, the prevalence of ads on his
programmes by car companies and by his
€75,000 annual payment by Renault Ireland for
hosting three events, The razzmatazz giveways
on the Late Late Show smack of avaricious
abandon. But materialism and optimism won’t
do it for anyone in the age of Trump, Putin,
Climate Change and rent-oppressed radical
Youth.
Above all politically, and unlike the instinctual
Gaybo (though like Pat Kenny), Tubridy sees no
reason to challenge power and class structures,
the ones that have served him so well. He stays
out of trouble: some sort of political vanilla.
This, for me, constitutes a betrayal of his
privilege and, it is not too much of a stretch to
speculate, may account in part for the reason so
few people were fired up enough about him to
support him in his current travails.
There was an excruciating moment during the
tribute Late Late Show when Gay Byrne died
when an unusually consummate Tommy Tiernan
was asked to sum up the deceased broadcaster.
His comments climaxed with what appeared to
be a pointed reference to Byrne above all always
standing up to power. It was true, time after
time, as Byrne had stood up to the Church,
serried governments and his bosses in RTÉ. And
there is no recorded instance of Tubridy standing
up to power. What would be the point?
He gave the game away when attacking Paul
Murphy on the ‘Late Late Show’ in 2015 in what
broadsheet.ie described as “an unusually
hostile, poorly researched and unpleasant piece
of political chat showing.”.
Tubridy introduced the TD thus:“My next
guest is a man of numbers. He spent three years
as a member of the European Parliament, he’s
been a member of Dáil Éireann for just four
months but in his campaigning history, he’s
been arrested five times. Would you welcome
please, Paul Murphy, TD”.
It included exchanges like the following —
Tubridy: “Just looking at the things that you’re
anti. And I’m curious to know what you’re pro
because you’re anti water charges and anti
property tax and you’re anti bin charges and
you’re anti bailout and you’re anti college fees
and you’re anti austerity. So where’s the pro in
the Paul Murphy?”. Murphy: “I’m pro-
Socialism…”. And the following — Tubridy: “So
what are you doing [in Leinster House] then?”
Murphy:“Well, because I’m a Socialist activist.”
Tubridy:“Right”. Murphy:“Right. And I think we
can fight for fundamental change in society”.
Tubridy:“Right”.
Pay
Tubridy, who earned more than €723,000 a year
at RTÉ (plus outside income), in 2011, has long
been a totem for extravagance, with the
trajectory (downwards) somewhat pacifying a
populace too stressed to be indulgent of stars
overpaid by the public sector. Although he is
said to be personally generous, Tubridy was
criticised for his refusal to take his Depression
pay-cut in early 2009 even when colleagues
such as Pat Kenny and Marian Finucane had
lined up. He pleaded legal reasons (presumed
to refer to the agreement he has with his wife
from whom he is separated) but managed to
circumnavigate the issue and beat Gerry Ryan
(just) into avoiding national ignominy — though
not a Facebook hate campaign and a donation
to charity — by shedding 10% of his salary
His immediate problem
On 22 June 2023, it was revealed that, between
2017 and 2022, he been paid a total of €345,000
more than was previously publicly declared by
RTÉ, including by its bosses to the Public
Accounts Committee. Tubridy, disgracefully,
said he was “disappointed”. Tellingly it was also
revealed that he receives a great deal of money
from car companies for hosting their beanos, a
compromise that chimes with some of his
broadcasting deficits.
Tubridy has had remarkably few setbacks over
his long career in RTÉ, but sometimes a small
setback, just like an illness, can insulate you
from a bigger or overwhelming catastrophe
coming down the line. Tubridy has thrown his
hard-husbanded reputation out the car window
because of a single failure, a grubby and greedy
secret agreement. When it turned out the
trajectory of his payments was not what it
seemed, Tubridy became a totem for
untrustworthiness, terminal in a public service
broadcaster.
In 2019 I wrote: “Perhaps his unthreatening self-
deprecation has saved him from being a target.
It was easier to hate Pat Kenny for his
humourlessness or Gay Byrne for his smugness”.
That has proved no longer true.
The problem for RTÉ is funding. It won’t get it
until there is more public trust. RTÉ sold land at
its Donnybrook base for €105m in order to pay
for voluntary redundancy scheme and also
upgrade facilities at the station. It was hoping
to further reduce stang levels by ‘200 or 300’,
according to its pre-Covid 2019 annual report.
Some sceptics have diculties spotting where
there the costs axe has fallen.
A solution
Making the organisation ecient including
cutting salaries for the overpaid ‘talent’ and
accountable by firing the board and all behind
dodgy ‘barter arrangements’ is necessary but
not sucient. Its board should resign. In 2021
the BBC published an impartiality plan which
included: “thematic reviews” covering output in
key areas of public debate to ensure a breadth
of voices and viewpoints are reflected, with the
first to cover UK public spending and taxation.
We need something similar for RTÉ for there are
some indications that some of its journalists are
not quite serving the public interest in public
service journalism.
This magazine supports public service
broadcasting, but not overpayments to banal
ideas-free mediocrities.
The best gesture from RTÉ would be to accept
that Ryan Tubridy is a mistake and dispatch him
with his bounciness, his emotional intelligence,
his Toy Show and his avoidance of controversy,
including about those with power, to history, or
Newstalk.
vnill roylty
Pointing into eternity
