Four hours of scrutiny before the Oireachtas Media Committee ranged from the state broadcaster’s finances and malaise to radical property proposals.
Deep inside the broadcaster’s latest data dump lie years of internal documents highlighting issues with procurement, tendering, unapproved spending and rogue taxi bills. Here’s what we found.
The state broadcaster’s top sources of revenue are the licence fee and TV advertising, but both were in decline last year. As RTÉ heads into another bail-out, its governance record will come under increased scrutiny.
The commercial deals of RTÉ stars have come under scrutiny since the Tubridy payments debacle kicked off, yet the station is now approving ads for expensive cosmetic procedures on presenters' personal social media accounts.
Listening to Michael Parkinson that evening, journalism, radio, and television in the England of the 1970s appeared to reflect an emerging dynamism, free-spiritedness, or even bolshiness of younger generations in northern England.
Just when RTÉ and its highest-paid presenter were about to extinguish the pay controversy that had engulfed them, he decided to re-ignite it. For his new boss Kevin Bakhurst, it was too much.
Noel Kelly has emerged as a central agent to broadcast stars through the RTÉ payments controversy. But what does Ireland's other super-agent, Louis Walsh, think of the whole saga – and how does he see it ending?
European private media is consolidating into efficient, professional groups while digital multinationals hold the keys to the audience public-service broadcasters need to access. Ireland is no longer immune to this reality.
Bengt Braun is one of the most respected names in the European newspaper business. He is the former chief executive and chair of the Swedish group Bonnier, which has recently bought into the Business Post. What’s the significance of the move?
It’s perverse to think that the people asking the questions of the state broadcaster over recent weeks are those who should also be answering them.
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