Brendan Hoban: Tubridy pays the price for failing to say sorry               

Western People 29.8.2023

Of Ryan Tubridy’s predecessors – Gay Byrne and Pat Kenny ­– on RTÉ radio and television, Gay had effortlessly moved from one medium to the other but, like Pat Kenny, Tubridy were more at ease with radio. It seemed his natural home. On television Kenny seemed a bit clunky and Tubridy a bit giddy and insubstantial, a perkiness that sometimes moved into preachiness. But as the personalities anointed in turn by Montrose, they were expected to fill both slots.

Thus in turn, Tubridy was consistently promoted by RTÉ to the point where he had become the face and the voice of RTÉ. He now finds himself outside the fold that defined him. He voluntarily shed the Late, Late pulpit, weary after 14 years carrying that demanding role. But the radio programme, after eight years, was taken from him. It was, he said, ‘the job he loves’ and I suspect it is for him the greater loss. 

Now, no job. No severance pay. No token victory lap. No golden handshake. Even no nominal tribute. Only the large sum he had undertaken to re-pay. And only too, the perception of a difficult and embarrassing defeat: Bakhurst 5, Tubridy 0. 

After the lavishly over-paid, over-remunerated, over-recompensed incomes of a small cadre of RTÉ’s elite broadcasters – dubbed ‘the talent’ – it was inevitable that sooner or later the whole sorry cavalcade would run into the equivalent of a stone wall. It now seems clear that RTÉ, though not ‘the Talent’, realised that the blowout was imminent and sought to disguise its import.

Tubridy, the public face of RTÉ, quickly became the public face of the crisis that inevitably ensued as ‘barter’ accounts and who was earning what and when led to the shedding of RTÉ’s reputation, even to the extent of placing question-marks over its future. Both RTÉ, in what appears to be an effort to deceive the Irish public into believing that some of the talent were earning less than was publicly recorded, and Tubridy were caught up in a national crisis during the August media silly season.

In the fall-out from that crisis, Tubridy was centre stage as he attempted to retrieve the remains of his RTÉ career.

What was on offer was a salary of €170,000 a year for 5 one-hour programmes a week. It seemed utterly doable for a (relatively) young man of 50 who had carried the almost unbearable burden of hundreds of Late Late Show appearances and the added weight of Gay Byrne’s awesome mantle.

The deal was almost done when Tubridy found himself embarrassingly shuffled to the side-lines after a second gaffe with a second unwise statement to the media that seemed to undo the uneasy truce that was almost over the line. His first statement was widely viewed as an arrogant riposte to the untoward suggestion that the enveloping crisis had anything to do with him. The last confirmed the widespread belief that Tubridy was being badly served by his advisors.

There’s a wisdom that old heads recommend in such a crisis. Say very little. Don’t argue, even if you think it’s unfair. Don’t keep explaining because once you’re explaining you’re losing.  Keep saying you’re sorry.

In media terms it had been recently called the ‘Marty Morrisey’ option, from the cute Clareman who immediately said he was sorry and was back at work before the words were hardly out of his mouth. In religious terms it might be termed the penitent route which ends with a firm purpose of amendment.

Neither option suited Tubridy. His career to date was blessed with what seemed an effortless passage to a successful career path. As a boy prodigy, he was part of an RTÉ children’s programme and it seemed over the years as if doors opened if he just stood in front of them – all the way to the Late Late Show and the Ryan Tubridy Show.

It might even be said that he was the victim of his own success. He was used to winning. He was beatified by RTÉ, indulged by RTÉ, used (it might be said) to getting his own way as his profile as RTÉ’s main man was studiously built up, generating (it was said) €100 million in advertising revenue. As RTÉ’s indispensable ‘star’ Tubridy had arrived at the top through his natural ability and his sheer capacity for work and he took it as his right (in a market economy) to maximise his earnings.

But this time, for whatever reason, when it came to the critical juncture in the negotiations with RTÉ, Tubridy wasn’t able to say he was sorry. I suspect that it was because he didn’t feel he had anything to feel sorry about or maybe because saying sorry wasn’t part of his résumé.

Thus when the Grant Thornton Report exonerated Tubridy from blame for how RTÉ came to publish incorrect figures for his income for 2017-18-19, he welcomed the report but couldn’t resist adding a comment that undermined the trust that had been built up in his negotiations with RTÉ.

It was a massive misjudgement on Tubridy’s part and underlined his failure to realise the seriousness of the predicament RTÉ was in due to the level of earnings of RTÉ’s small ‘Talent’ pool. Tubridy was seen to be picky with numbers, still in effect saying ‘I was right all along’ when what was needed was to say sorry, but ‘sorry’ seems the hardest word.

Sometimes an admission of failure can be the road to a greater triumph. Having the last word, as Tubridy demonstrated, can be an expensive luxury. What’s left is the widely held perception that Tubridy blew it.

That said, his best days may well be before him. One day he may well thank RTÉ for the favour of letting him go. He’s still (relatively) young. He’s still as talented as ever. He will be okay.