Like the armchair investigators who fuel the true crime genre, RTÉ-watchers who try hard enough will be able to detect knock-on effects from the Ryan Tubridy debacle on the public broadcaster’s new season of programmes.
In truth, it is difficult to make the case for any impact at all beyond the obvious one: he’s not part of it. Television commissioning lead times being as long as they are, most of RTÉ's eclectic line-up of shows will have been in place well before the eruption of the media organisation’s hidden payments scandal.
An Old Song Re-Sung – a live television, radio and RTÉ Player concert to mark the end of the decade of centenaries – has been in the works for several years, for instance, while the most obvious and immediate financial woes affecting RTÉ's drama output are not its own, but those of Bron Studios, the Canadian maker of popular RTÉ series Kin that filed for bankruptcy in July.
‘There’s no farming without profit, it’ll be gone in the morning if there isn’t money’
Given he stepped down from the Late Late Show back in March, Tubridy is less conspicuous by his absence than he is simply absent.
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The erstwhile Late Late host was traditionally front and centre of Montrose’s autumn season launches, usually engaging in careful banter with other presenters. This year, three months on from RTÉ's admission that it repeatedly misstated his remuneration, there is no in-person event, no Montrose Class of 2023-style photoshoot and no jokey on-stage interviews to promote the schedule.
RTÉ employees and the independent production companies it works with are instead quietly getting on with the business of making television and radio, while Tubridy fields offers from rival broadcasters.
A decade later, after a disastrous end to the term of former director general Dee Forbes, the tone is much more subdued
Exactly 10 years ago, shortly after Pat Kenny defected to Newstalk, Oliver Callan introduced a radio event in Montrose by welcoming pews of assembled journalists “to Pat Kenny’s memorial service”. The satirist then invited attendees to “literally drink Pat’s salary back” by sampling the laid-on refreshments.
A decade later, after a disastrous end to the term of former director general Dee Forbes, the tone is much more subdued.
Many of the highest-profile television programmes, however, remain the same: Room to Improve, Operation Transformation and Dancing with the Stars are all shimmying back into living rooms in the months ahead. While the fallout from the Tubridy fiasco has widened to include a debate about the longer-term purpose of RTÉ, it is not about to jettison anything that could be branded “commercial” from its schedules. An obligation to separate the informative and educational from the merely entertaining could be an exercise in false distinctions anyway.
In the shorter term, the broadcaster will be hoping that the Rugby World Cup, to which it shares the rights with Virgin Media Television, is notable for Ireland going deep into the tournament
Call it a repeat, call it an old song re-sung, but it now falls to RTÉ director general Kevin Bakhurst to press the case for additional public funding on the basis that, if it doesn’t receive it, the organisation will eventually be forced to close services, lay off staff and strip back its schedules. Cue a vicious cycle of complaints.
In the shorter term, the broadcaster will be hoping that the Rugby World Cup, to which it shares the rights with Virgin Media Television, is notable for Ireland going deep into the tournament. While both broadcasters will show the final, if Ireland makes it to the semi-final, RTÉ will have that game to itself.
And if there is one thing that wouldn’t go amiss right now, it’s a huge audience or two.
