Broadcaster Eoin McDevitt and his four colleagues from the Second Captains podcast shared a bumper production fee pot of €715,000 last year.
Accounts just filed for the company behind the podcasts under the multi-award winning Second Captains banner, Second Captains Ltd, for 2024 show that connected companies owned by McDevitt, Ken Early, Ciarán Murphy, Simon Hick and Mark Horgan were each paid €143,000 in fees for production work carried out on behalf of the business last year.
The €715,000 paid in aggregate fees was a 2 per cent decrease on the €745,000 – or €149,000 each – paid out by Second Captains Ltd to the five firms during 2023.
The five also shared an aggregate €114,000 in pay to directors last year – an average of €22,800 each and up on the average of €14,400 paid out the previous year.
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During 2024, the company’s cash funds were €27,700 lower at €454,880.
After the payout to the directors’ firms and other costs, the company recorded a very modest profit of €1,067 for the year in keeping with the trend in 2023 when profit of €4,711 was recorded. Accumulated profits at the end of last year stood at €52,196.
The company employed seven people last year – five directors and two production staff.
The five Second Captains directors each hold a 20 per cent share in the company, which generates the bulk of its revenues from paying subscribers to its podcasts. The accounts state that the principal activity of the company is online content, radio, television, publishing and live event production.
The company also runs live events, with two shows scheduled for the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin on October 13th and October 15th, the latter of which is already sold out. The Dublin dates follow Second Captains live event at the Earth Theatre in London on September 24th.
The podcast launched its paid subscription service back in February 2017, attracting 2,500 subscribers in just one day.
Subscribers pay €5 + VAT per month and the podcast now has 18,694 paying followers, which translates to estimated annual subscription revenues of €1.1 million.
Second Captains was among the outside firms to deliver programming for RTÉ radio last year, producing nine hours of material in total. It returned this summer to produce Second Captains Saturday on RTÉ 1 Radio.
