Ways To Punish RTÉ For Tubridy Scandal
WHILE the concept of accountability and consequences can be immediately discounted as this is Ireland after all, there are alternative ways to punish national broadcaster RTÉ for breaching the public’s trust in its payment of secret top up payments to Ryan Tubridy:
Replace the Angelus with images of money and the cha-ching of a cash register.
More broadcasts outside of Dublin. Being forced to host radio shows in far flung rural backwaters and speaking to locals? RTÉ presenters would rather be on the frontlines in Ukraine.
Announce an eternal-external investigative audit of the external audit which will then be subject to a review by an independently appointed independent panel of external experts. Nothing strikes fear into a public body like a toothless review.
Sack the junior staff.
If anyone is to blame for this it is the low earners who had nothing to do with any of this.
Banned from producing glitzy property porn shows for at least a year. Okay, maybe that’s too hars, just limit them to 50 property porn shows a calendar year.
Call their bluff.
If high-earning on-air talent are really paid eye watering sums because they would be ‘poached’ by rival broadcasters at home and abroad then call their bluff, and maybe when they get turned down for the chief coffee making intern on Channel 5’s Most Haunted Toilets In Britain they might be open to reducing their RTÉ pay packet.
Make them show movies at 9.30pm.
There’s nothing RTÉ hates more than showing some of cinema’s most acclaimed and universally loved movies at a reasonable hour. Watch as they weep when being required to show The Godfather at 9.30pm on a Friday instead of 2.37am on a Monday as they desire.
Reestablish its scripted comedy department.
Just imagine their tortured expressions when senior execs learn they’ve been tasked with making something funny. A fate worse than death.
Reruns.
If there’s one thing RTÉ dislikes more than being truthful about their financial accounts it is having their TV schedule filled with repeats. Imagine their displeasure when they’re forced to show Father Ted again.