Newly released figures show both decreases and increases in amounts paid to top RTÉ talent in 2011, with the agreed 2012-2013 overall earnings of the top presenters predicted to be under €3 million (compared to €4.45 million in 2008). The eight men and two women who represent the organisation’s biggest earners are all due pay decreases this year, with only Pat Kenny – the second biggest earner in 2010 and 2011 – yet to finalise his 2012-2013 agreement with the broadcaster.
Ryan Turbidy receives the largest salary, with an income of €723,500 in 2011. Turbidy has agreed to a €495,000 contract for the next year, a decrease of nearly 32%. Pat Kenny at €630,000 and Marian Finucane with €491,770 were 2011’s next biggest earners, while Joe Duffy’s agreed €300,000 salary in 2012-2013 will see him overtake Finucane’s €295,000 agreement to be the third highest earner (assuming Kenny’s renewal sees him remain in the upper tier).
2011 saw Brendan O’Connor and Bryan Dobson enjoy salaries that promoted them to the top ten RTÉ earners at €228,540 and €197,936, respectively. Colm Hayes and Eamonn Dunphy are expected to have rejoied the upper echelons when the next set of figures are released with agreements of €170,000 and €106,000.
Savings
The expected salary decreases for top talent will see RTÉ saving approximately €1.5 million compared to 2008 figures. This is compared to 2011 which saw only minor changes over 2010, with both Turbidy and Finucane having earned more in 2011 than the previous year. Despite all-round cuts for 2012-2013, however, the public broadcaster is still fighting a deficit of well over €50 million.
Commentators are suggesting the current situation is untenable. Writing in the Irish Times, Laura Slattery argues the figures defy “market logic. The occasional Ryan Turbidy stint on BBC Radio 2 does not negate the fact that most of RTÉ’s highest-paid presenters are unlikely to be the subject of a bidding war from rival media companies.” Slattery further suggests a new, ambitious team of journalists and presenters could offer much the same service at a fraction of the cost.
BBC talent costs
The BBC, our neighbouring public broadcaster, does not release detailed breakdowns of salaries paid to their most prominent presenters, but outlines general statistics in their annual reports. 2011-2012 figures that around fifteen presenters received £500,000 (approx. €590,000), sourced from the corporation’s license fee income. The Guardian reports that those figures include less than ten ‘million pound’ earners, and the corporation saw the 2011-2012 top salaries drop to around €11.5 million compared to €17.3 million the previous year.
RTÉ compared to BBC
While the BBC may pay their top personalities more than RTÉ do, comparatively the figures do not reflect favourably on the Irish broadcaster. BBC take in over €4 billion in license fees compared to €196 million for RTÉ (RTÉ’s income is based on an approximately 50:50 split between license fees and commercial revenue). The UK audience for the BBC channels and radio stations, meanwhile, is more than 62,640,000 compared to 4,487,000 for RTÉ in Ireland.
Furthermore, the UK enjoys a much more competitive television broadcasting environment, with the biggest stars highly sought after by the likes of Channel 4, Sky and ITV as well as the BBC. In Republic of Ireland TV3 remains the only private competitor to RTÉ, alongside the state funded Irish language station TG4. Irish talent are often more likely to move to British television broadcasters than the local competitors.
Taking these statistics into account, and discounting the commercial wings of both organistations, the BBC earn over 20 times the public income that RTÉ do, and play to an audience almost fourteen times the size (not including the very wide international audience for Britain’s public broadcaster). However, the BBC paid their top talent only around three times the amount received by RTÉ’s highest earners.
Although several prominent BBC talents are reported to receive higher salaries than their Irish counterparts – 'Match of the Day' presenter Gary Lineker is thought to earn well over €2 million – the figures overall do not directly scale in terms of the relative sizes of the two organisations. The BBC, also feeling the effects of the financial crisis, face constant political and media pressure to decrease the wages of their on-screen personalities: a situation echoed in Ireland.
As RTÉ suffers from significant financial woes, the earnings of their biggest stars are likely to continue provoking annual criticism. While the purported decreases for the 2012-2013 financial year are necessary, the public broadcaster continues to face a perhaps unsustainable relationship with its most recognisable presenters.
