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A Kingfisher on the Dodder River, Rathfarnham in Dublin.  Photograph Nick Bradshaw
A Kingfisher on the Dodder River, Rathfarnham in Dublin. Photograph Nick Bradshaw

RTÉ Toy Show the Musical’s planned shows too few for break even and sponsorship overstated - report

The number of showings planned for the RTÉ Toy Show the Musical was never enough to break even while the amount of sponsorship secured was overstated, a new report into the controversy has found.

Minister for Media Catherine Martin has received the Grant Thornton report which examines governance around the Toy Show the Musical, which went on to record losses of €2.2 million. The show ran over several weeks at the Convention Centre, Dublin, in late 2022.

Three senior sources have said the matter is being viewed as extremely serious within Government and that it comes at a sensitive time when Ministers were due to weigh up future funding models for the broadcaster.

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Valentin Ivancenco of Fairmental with a selection of his fermenting chilli hot sauce at 10 Grand Canal Street. Photograph: Alan Betson
Valentin Ivancenco of Fairmental with a selection of his fermenting chilli hot sauce at 10 Grand Canal Street. Photograph: Alan Betson

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  • Sports Illustrated gets the cold shoulder from a new generation: A decade has passed since talk turned in my college freshman class to how students might improve their own writing by reading more. I suggested they pick up magazines in the Penn Station newsagents when catching the train out from the city to the campus and threw out recommendations like Rolling Stone, Time and The Source. They stared back at me. Genuinely perplexed. Almost intrigued. The idea of paying several dollars for a thick mound of coloured paper on any subject was completely alien to these 18- and 19-year-olds. They had never imagined anything so preposterous. I might as well have asked them to take notes with ink and quill rather than MacBook.

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