SOME telly personalities become extremely popular in a way that's totally baffling to many of us. I've friends who think Ant and Dec are the best thing since sliced pan, entirely deserving of their megabuck salaries and winning TV awards every year. I've never understood their appeal.
Similarly, Ryan Tubridy's popularity has been a total mystery to me. A bit too smarmy-by-half and far too pleased with himself. But, until news emerged of his dodgy pay arrangements with RTÉ, he was apparently well liked enough to front the Late, Late Show – which in Irish society is akin to being the Pope or something.
It seems like the national broadcaster was practising the sort of accountancy that was popular with the Corleones.
The last time we heard something as preposterous was when Bertie Ahern told the Mahon tribunal on suspect land zoning that he didn't have a bank account and that was why he had stacks of cash in his office. He was Minister of Finance at the time and, er... a trained accountant.
So RTÉ heads are rolling – well, the director general, Dee Forbes has resigned, a month ahead of her already planned departure. Some wag quickly dubbed the affair as 'Ryan's Private Savings', but it's no joke for the presenter to find himself up there in the popularity stakes with "disgraced" Phillip Schofield, who was himself recently bracketed with the execrable Boris Johnson, the worst PM ever, and the murderous Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
It's always difficult when you work for a public service broadcaster, as one of the great unwashed, behind the scenes folk, to see what the 'talent' gets paid, and contrast their eye-watering salaries with your own.
Us minions kept being told that the public-facing staff had to be given golden handcuffs or they'd be snapped up by that commercial lot for more dosh. Remember the hoo-ha about Jonathan Ross, who signed a three-year deal for £16.9 million as BBC bosses insisted he was worth the money and could get more elsewhere?
Read more:
RTÉ: 'Profound regret' over Ryan Tubridy misreported payments scandal
Taoiseach: It is not credible ex-RTE DG was the only one who knew about payments
Patrick Kielty and RTÉ remain silent over calls to reveal Late Late Show salary
Except he couldn't. When he was dropped by the Beeb after the scandal involving abusive phone-calls to the actor, Andrew Sachs, he ended up on ITV on a fraction of his earlier wage. His replacement, the much more talented Graham Norton, was also hired on a significantly lower rate than Ross.
Then there was 'dishy' Des Lynam, the smooth, moustachioed presenter whose departure from BBC screens when ITV doubled his salary was feared to be the death-knell for its sports coverage.
It wasn't. Away from Auntie Beeb, Lynam stopped being a household name, and was soon eclipsed by his replacement, Gary Lineker. The former England captain is a class act – though still not worth his £2m salary. And one day, he too will be replaced.
But as Schofield discovered and Tubridy will also learn, once you've lost the trust of the public, it's hard to regain it. It's hardly co-incidental that he quit the Late, Late just before the astonishing details emerged about his pay being 'enhanced' by extra payments of £295,000 which didn't appear on the broadcaster's books.
It seems the 'brown envelope' culture hasn't gone away, you know. Or maybe he's just guilty of not bothering about the details of his paycheque. Though didn't he also claim solidarity with his colleagues when he took two previous pay cuts because he "believed in RTE"?
When the people who're viewing him on the box are struggling to keep a roof over their heads and their kids fed, it's not a good look.
Luckily, Tubs must have plenty salted away for a comfortable retirement. Or maybe he could team up with Phil. It's time another cheeky duo challenged Ant and Dec.
Hey, Belfast International Airport, are ya having a laugh? The increased charge for dropping off passengers is bad enough, not to mention the lack of sufficient staff on security, and that annoying thing where you make passengers walk up and down behind ropes to give the illusion that the queue is moving. But when you are on the way to the exit and see the walls displaying the great and the good of the "wee province" and the county they come from, you come across this shocker: "Seamus Heaney, Poet, Co Londonderry".
Now there's a word that would never have made it into the Bellaghy man's lexicon. This is, after all, the one who famously said "The passport's green."
I think maybe your marketing department should have a word with themselves.
