Poor mouths: RTE’s highest earners to swallow massive pay-cuts

High-earning RTE stars such as Pat Kenny, Marian Finucane and Ryan Tubridy will be told to swallow another pay-cut - and it's more take-it-or-leave than take-it-or-leave-it.

In a speech at Dublin City University, the Director General of the national broadcaster Noel Curran admitted that economic realities will force huge pay-cuts on some of its biggest names.

And if they don’t like it, he added – we’re paraphrasing here – then they can feck off somewhere else for work.

His actual words were, “We may, during this process of renegotiation lose some of our most talented and loved presenters to our competitors. That would be very regrettable, but if some choose to leave, we will adjust, find new voices and new ways to deliver services and programmes.”

Curran revealed that total pay-cuts from 2008 salary levels would equate to about 30 per cent, meaning a drop of almost €300,000 for the station’s best paid broadcaster Pat Kenny – who would earn “only” €665,000 in the future compared to the €950k he raked in three years ago.

With no competitor capable of paying such lucrative salaries, the likelihood is that all the big names will stay put, although there is a possibility that Tubridy will make a permanent leap to the BBC, where he filled in for Graham Norton on Radio 2 in the summer.

The sad part about that scenario is that Tubs would still be all-too-visible on Irish television screens, although if the BBC decided to hole him away on their Saturday morning radio schedules it would be a nice case of out-of-earshot, out-of-mind.

Don’t mind us, though. We’re only jealous.