Comedian David McSavage outside court this morning and his handwritten statement
Further to comedian David McSavage saying he wouldn’t pay for a TV licence because of his dislike for RTÉ’s taste in humour, he appeared in court earlier today.
Breaking News reports:
A TV licence inspector told Judge O’Neill that he called to the entertainer’s [David McSavage’s] home on May 7 last and McSavage confirmed he lived there and was in possession of a television set but had no licence.
However, a licence was taken out on March 31 this year leaving arrears of €115, the inspector told the court.
…Judge O’Neill adjourned the case until June 16 and told him that if the arrears were paid by then he will not have to attend the hearing and the case will be struck out.
After court McSavage told reporters he has not bought a licence and he did not know who had got it for him.
“Unless,” he added, “Ray D’Arcy bought one for me, he said he would.”
Previously: ‘The Rubberbandits Are Now As Mainstream As Ryan Tubridy’
Pics: Tom Tuite
Update:
Ray D’Arcy talks with David McSavage this afternoon post-trial.
Good man Mr.McSavage. The thing about state broadcasters are;they have outloved their original purpose. RTE air Eastenders, Champions League Soccer. They pay mediocre staff and contractors way above their ability.
RTE should be completely slimmed down, its ‘campus’ sold and it’s ‘talent’ off loaded
‘outlived’
its
RTÉ also show Prime Time and the RTÉ Investigation unit, Nationwide, any number of home made childrens programmes (all ad free), Tracks and Trails, Airtricity league soccer, GAA, numerous documentaries of Irish interest and plenty of Irish current affairs programming. I consider it well worth the €160.
RTÉ showing the Champions League FTA is a good thing. They’ll also show all Ireland’s Euro 2016 games FTA which is also a good thing. THey have been cutting back which is why they no longer show the EPL or the European Champions Cup and are sharing Euro 2016 with TV3.
Agreed but most of its programming apart from what you mention is produced by contractors, why do they need 1800 staff? I’d be happy to pay the license fee if they slimmed down to one TV channel of domestic quality programming with no commercials.
I don’t know how many they should have exactly (& I suspect you don’t either) but they have had a lot of redundancies over the last decade as part of a reorganisation.
You suspect wrong.
Domestic programming is much more expensive to produce than foreign programming is to buy. Foreign TV attracts ad revenue which helps pay for domestic programming. If you want quality domestic programming with no commercials then the TV licence fee needs to increase substantially.
I have no idea how to run multiple TV and radio stations covering everything from the ploughing championship to the All Ireland to the Rose of Tralee to every count centre in the local and general elections. Add in the investigations unit and the childrens department and the concert orchestra and I imagine they need quite a large staff.
And you get the benefits of all that for €160.
I would pay double that for quality programming. I am all for independent public service broadcasting, let’s leave the product placement and shows like “the Voice of Ireland” to commercial operators.
Are you mad.. Gaa is on TG4 and sky. RTE provide results and game analysis, past tense stuff, very few matches! Even the 6 nations rugby. Basically anything really worth watching is on other channels! Typical state run organisation.. Rip off! Or the brain washing channel as I call it!
The Sunday game will be back next month with coverage of the All Ireland Championships. What station is that on?
All of the above I have no interest in.Profiling you leads me to believe RTE doesn’t deserve my money.
Profiling me? Jesus wept indeed.
That’s all very well that RTE show all the above, but for me that doesn’t follow soccer, football; soaps, nation wide etc it’s not a good service., what I wouldn’t mind paying for is good interviews on prime time , proper media coverage of news not the mickey mouse media crap they expect the irish people to believe.
TG4 is run at 1/10th of the price. And it has Irish shows.
You forgot the word ‘service’ from your narrow minded statement there. Not just public television. It’s public service television. RTE is one of the last bastions of decent public service TV in the world. They at least have a remit to provide shows which inform and enrich our lives, programming which is reflective of the Irish and unique to our experiences. Would you rather have something like TV3 as the main channel? Giving the audience ‘what they want’ with celebrity tit-bits and tabloid news? RTE has to cater to a wide audience and it can’t appeal to everyone all of the time.
He has a point, in fairness.
Is he not roasting?
Duh, it’s sunny. It… must…be….warm… duh.
It’s 10C right now.
That’s not a nice thing to say.
…maybe cousin Ryan paid it or one of your other family members in the Soldiers of Dynasty (thanks Frilly)
Since his busking days I have disliked David McSavage, ridiculing passer bys etc.
But on this I actually agree and applaud him.
I’m curious as to whether you like Billy Connolly?
I’ve not really watched Billy Connolly TBH… I’ve a vague memory of watching a sketch of his of when he used to go swimming in the North Sea as a kid.
Why?
I’ve seen him a couple of times live, he does the same thing sometimes with members of the audience. If somebody gets up to use the bathroom during his show he gives them a very hard time, but it’s very funny and just part of the show. I’m guessing that’s what McSavage was doing in his busking days…it is comedy after all.
Ah I see.
Not with McSavage. I remember him being nasty to people just walking by minding their own business. If it was a bit of mild banter, OK. But he was just bring nasty.
True. He was mean to people. people who weren’t attending a comedy gig
He doesn’t exactly say what he’d do different or how to work harder. It’s a bit like people saying they want lower taxes but more public services . . .
I’d imagine anyone living in the real world would start with the salaries
I’d agree with the salaries but “creative output” is a dodgy one. People like Mrs Brown – it’s not progressive or cutting edge but it caters to a large part of the public
Salaries in RTE are currently the same, proportional to turnover, as the majority of TV stations in Europe.
Next argument.
Clampers, Joe Duffy’s salary is €416,000. That is outrageous
Agreed.
I’m just pointing out that the ‘top 10 earners salaries as proportion of turnover’ is in par with the majority of tv stations across Europe.
Whether we get quality or not is a totally different matter. And no, no, no, no, no, NO! Joe does not earn or merit that salary, IMO.
‘Cept that Joe Duffy is massively popular & attracts huge ratings.
@Donger
Your name keeps reminding me of ‘The Gonger’; some unspecified thing that is mentioned in this mildly amusing animation.
http://youtu.be/EahvB_9Ins4
Hahah that’s gas
I think the title song goes on for too long. I like the second song though.
RTE operates in Ireland. They can’t afford to pay anyone 416K. They need to pay a lot less. If Joe doesn’t like it, they will find someone else to do it for the affordable price.
Improving a creative output is not as hard a concept to grasp as alternative revenue sources to run the country with.
RTE’s output is poor due to laziness and fear of anything different. Hire better, more progressive writers. Hire writers who are willing to try something different. Don’t just go for the easy option.
Giving a show like ‘Brigid and Eamonn’ the green light is a level of incompetence I can’t get my head around. That was basically a Daily Edge style list masquerading as a TV show.
They should just hire all the out of work genius writers that can’t get a job in tv that are lining the streets.
“He doesn’t exactly say what he’d do different or how to work harder”
He produced an excellent comedy show. Maybe you missed that.
Well I didn’t like Kenny or Cowan or Aherne so I guess I shouldn’t have paid my taxes that whole time. This might be the craziest reaction to rejection I’ve ever seen.
David is a genius in many ways but you can tell he is very sensitive in so many ways. What a dumb hill to die on. RTE is beyond help and above change.
It’s a closed shop of back patting and pocket stuffing. Money wasted all over the place and people thinking it will change.
Turn your mind to happier pursuits. RTE has won.
Pure coincidence that he has decided to rail against RTE and its waste of taxpayers money once his show got dropped.
yep not bitter at all.
Just for some context on this, he only seemed to get the hump with the standard of RTE’s programming when they didn’t choose him for their 1916 comedy programming and picked the rubber bandits instead.
While RTE were prepared to pay him for his comedy Sketch shows he didnt seem to have a problem with the license fee being imposed on others or benefiting from the salaries they pay. This is a personal gripe disguised as a noble hero fighting for the right reasons.
this
There’s a bang o john waters off oul Dave.
Always was. Those who only know him from his tv show know very little.
+1
In fairness, the flip side to that argument is that McSavage has parted over one show with a body that would otherwise be well disposed to commissioning future productions off him.
McSavage is 110% right – he has done the public some service by getting coverage for the topic, even if it might piss off some people.
A poll today of circa 10,000 on TheJournal.ie indicates that 88% of respondents consider the RTÉ tax to be bad value for money.
In this era of GAA being provided by pay-per-view, rather than RTÉ, what is the purpose of paying for a channel that primarily relays content already provided by broadcaster who generally don’t charge?
Where was RTÉ last year when the Dáil was gagged by a certain businessman, only fielding his PR people on the airwaves – while refusing at the same time to relay what had actually been stated in the Dáil. Meanwhile, of course, it was Broadsheet, Village Magazine, and Politics.ie that were the primary places from which the people could get the facts.
As suggested elsewhere, the RTÉ lands in Donnybrook could be used to build maybe 1000 homes, the brand could be sold for 100s of millions of euro, and people would no longer have to pay an annual tax that the vast majority see as pointless.
Survey suggests people don’t like a tax?
While I’m stunned.
Private TV will not provide the niche coverage that a public broadcaster does.
Should be “Well I’m stunned” but I was too stunned to type correctly.
Happily all sorts of eh, ‘niches’, are catered for these days on something called d’interweb – which is leaving the old TV broadcast model as useful as canals were when railways came along.
People don’t like paying a tax for an entity which may well have once served a public purpose – but these days has been superseded by technological progress, and is no longer needed.
The annual TV tax is an affront to most reasonable minded thinking people these days – hence the 10 to 1 majority in favour of its abolition.
You make for such depressing reading The Dude. I guess with the like o’ you in charge it’ll be wall to wall Kardashians.
And I don’t mean the good lookin’ ones from the Delta Quadrant.
So there’s an internet version of Ear to the Ground dealing with Irish farming issues?
An opinion poll on the journal is no basis for setting policy.
Clamps we’re both going to sit here until you correct your mistake.
*taps foot*
Have you ever spent time on the BAI website going through what your TV licence money pays for?
I’ve had debates on this numerous times. TheJournal poll I’m going to say is knee-jerk ill thought out nonsense. A few points I’ve learnt….
– I know for certain that the vast majority of people have absolutely no idea what the TV licence money is actually spent on.
– Many use RTE services but will start their argument by saying they don’t use ‘any’ / ‘ever’.
– Many also use local radio services who also get TV licence money.
– I know for certain that the vast majority of people have some deluded idea that a hit tv show should be completed every time a new tv show is made.
That’s who is voting in your poll…. the gormless.
I agree with you on the GAA… I find that gaa-lling!
Wish I knew where RTE was. A problem with independence of our national broadcaster is not reason to stop supporting it. It’s reason to fix it.
Selling off RTE. Selling off a national broadcaster? Really, you have that much faith in the greed of the commercial sector of TV that it will provide a better service? Seriously, it’s backward useless thinking like that that sees the vote in TheJournal going the way it did. Sorry mate, you iz deluded on that one.
There are plenty of reasons as to why I have learned not to ‘support’ the state broadcaster – not least being when I had to learn from the BBC and Sky News of the IMF bailout of the state, as listeners were being mislead on RTÉ.
When this state was crashed, as its citizens, we were effectively been fixed with mass financial guilt – exacerbated as the ECB/EU saw our weakness as their opportunity to fix us with an amount that some have estimated equated to 43% of the total cost of the Eurozone financial crisis.
Where has been the accountability regarding all of this? Where has been the state broadcaster? Doing stories about bad weather, second hand cars, and lost pets.
The result, in my opinion, is that following the imposition of mass collective financial guilt, and with the absence of accountability and good governance which facilitated that imposition, there is now a mass cognitive dissonance among contemporary Irish civic society as to these facts. In my opinion, RTÉ bears no small part in such a state of affairs.
In my view, keeping people stupid while keeping their mates on ever increasing massive pay has become in recent years particularly apparent as their modus operandi. As Darwin said, ignorance is a lot more likely to breed confidence rather than intelligence – and this is being actively applied to the nation.
In days gone by, there may have been an argument for reform. However, with technological progress that day has well passed – and the most logical thing for the state to now do is to realise the cash worth by sale of the entity so that the cash can be used in the best interests of its citizens for other genuinely needed services – and also that citizens could be released from paying a tax that the vast majority consider pointless.
+1
An opinion poll on the journal does not represent the vast majority of the citizenry.
Everybody thinks RTÉ is biased against them. Every government thinks they get a hard time and every opposition thinks the government have it easy. That suggests they have the balance about right. Even with that, RTÉ’s news coverage is only a fraction of what RTÉ does.
RTÉ’s wage bill and prodcution costs have been decreasing year on year.
TV3 and UTV Ireland have shown us that we will not get quality coverage of local issues through private companies. RTÉ will investigate abuse in care homes and creches or film corrupt local politicians while TV3 will sensationalise pick pockets.
Selling RTÉ and expecting the entire population of Ireland to just seek their information on the internet makes no sense. Do you really think bachelor farmers in their 60’s want to go searching YouTube for reports on the marts? RTÉ may not be relevant to you but you are not representative of the entire Irish population.
I am not representative of th eentire Irish population either and there is plenty on RTÉ that doesn’t interest me and there is plenty about RTÉ that angers me but I wouldn’t even consider getting rid of it. Public service broadcasting is an absolute necessity and paying €160 for it is not much to ask. It’s €200 less than people happily pay Sky, for example.
In fairness, an opinion poll of over 10,000 identifiable respondents is actually a good gauge of popular opinion – despite what PR ‘maestros’, brainwashers, and spivs might try to convince us of on other channels.
If people wish to pay €200 to watch Sky, they do so voluntarily – note; they are not threatened with the maximum sanction available to the state as punishment for not doing so, namely incarceration.
And indeed, alone in 2014, 411 Irish Citizens were imprisoned and given criminal records for not paying the TV tax – in contrast to zero criminals from the banking sector imprisoned in the same year.
Isn’t it funny how someone can be party to crashing a state and there’s no penalty – but avoid paying the TV tax, and the maximum sanction is applied? Such odd priorities for a state to have – if that state is supposed to be functioning in the best interests of its citizens.
As to the couple of county councillors reported on a few months ago in the much vaunted exposé about planning corruption, those parties are minnow that are disposable to the bigger interests. That programme, in my opinion, only acted as a foil to indicate the almost total lack otherwise of such programmes on the state broadcaster. Funny enough, by being broadcast a while before the general election, it could be seen that that programme provided some PR cover for a broadcaster that is otherwise regarded by many as having totally failed in outing alleged rot and corruption – and a broadcaster that others assert is deeply politically biased against parties that to date coincidentally have had no role in making nominations to the same broadcaster. Funny that – but, qui bono?
Dude we also have commercial, independent TV, in the form of TV3. If you think RTE is keeping people stupid, what is TV3 doing? Do you really think commerical stations are the solution to this ‘stupidity’?
Amusingly enough, your quote from Darwin does more for Clampers than you, he seems to have more information and a more nuanced approached, you’ve less facts but absolute certainty that you’re right
An opinion poll of over 10,000 identifiable respondents certainly has strength as a survey instrument, the journal poll is unfortunately not that
I took a survey recently of 100 people in the pub and over 98% of them liked alcohol.
We really need to relax our licensing laws as a result of this totally scientific and damning poll.
It takes a bit more evidence to convict someone of culpability in crashing the national economy than is needed to convict for not having a TV licence.
When RTÉ exposes corrupt politicians it’s a propaganda exercise because they’re not doing it every week? How easy do you think it is to catch corruption on camera?
LW, if you care to more closely read my posts rather than misunderstanding or misrepresenting them, you will see I have not said anywhere that TV3 provides any a better service to RTÉ.
It’s just that unlike the state broadcaster, I am not forced by threat of incarceration to pay for TV3.
nd if it ever were to occur that payments were to be mandatory for TV3, I would equally resent that as much as I do that of the RTÉ tax.
It is unfortunate that you seemingly have resorted to criticisizing the style of my assertions, rather than the substance – as this does not seem to do much for the advancement of discussion.
A poll of 10,000 on TheJournal shows undeniable sizable interest – while 411 Irish citizens having been pointlessly incarcerated and criminalised in one year alone are facts and figures some parties would obviously rather see not debated.
It’s just a pity that the same party who have the greatest vested interest in not seeing the matter debated is actually the entity purportedly entrusted by the state with advancing public debate and informing opinion. Funny that.
You do realise that it’s a TV licence and not an RTÉ licence, yes? If you are watching TV3 on a TV or even if you only have a TV to watch the old Betamax video of your parent’s wedding you need a licence. How much RTÉ is watched is irrelevant. Also, TV3 do get a portion of the licence fee.
Sorry Dude, when you said you had to go to Sky to get your news, I thought you were saying that while RTE was keeping us stupid, Sky wouldn’t.
But you misunderstand yourself what I was saying about the poll – you say they are identifiable, they are not. There is nothing to stop someone answering the poll multiple times on the same machine. There’s also a sampling issue, the sample is composed entirely of people who use the internet, heavily skewed towards journal readers, and people who give a shit about taking online polls. This is not representative of the entire population.
I don’t love RTE, I particularly dislike Tubridy, and I feel they give too much voice to the two big political parties. But some of the prime time investigates stuff has been excellent, and far from keeping us stupid. Similarly things like that sugar program a few months back. And people seem to get into Love/Hate and that thing with Dermot Bannon in a big way.
On the subject of selling it, who do you propose they sell it to? How attractive a buy do you think it’ll be if they abolish the license fee?
Ok grandad we get the picture. You like things just the way they are and getting an official view of things. You’re part of the problem
Haha alright whippersnapper, I defer to your youthful energy and wisdom
The Dude said: “Where was RTÉ last year when the Dáil was gagged by a certain businessman, only fielding his PR people on the airwaves”
They were in court fighting it… you idiot.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/0612/707582-denis-obrien/
And reporting on the fact they weren’t allowed to report on it by LAW.
This is called a fact.
So although you didn’t have a question mark at the end of your question…. that’s WHERE they were.
Ah Jay, there’s no need to be rude – it does little to progress your perspective.
Other parties – Broadsheet, Village, Politics.ie, blogs etc – published while the case remained untested in the courts. However, it was not simply that, but also that RTÉ also gave over their airwaves for PR people to make sustained attacks on an elected T.D. – and all the while without actually relaying what was on the public record of Dáil Éireann, upon which the attacks were being based. Remarkable stuff.
That’s the way I remember it anyhow – up there with the time Sky News and the BBC were reporting the IMF were in town, while it was being asserted otherwise on RTÉ…
LW, I take your point about on an online poll being more potentially prone to manipulation – but at the same time, the numbers are over 20,000 and 9 out of 10 are apparently seeing the t.v. tax as a waste of money. Them’s can’t all be cheaters.
In terms of acquisition / investment potential, the broadcaster is by far the dominant player in the Irish market, and hence has a huge natural commercial advantage. It would naturally be best positioned to continue leasing the broadcasting infrastructure off the state in future arrangements, with that infrastructure remaining in state ownership. One option could be to look at a full or limited flotation of the RTÉ entity on the stock exchange. In the meantime, there seems little to stop the land at Donnybrook being used for new homes.
It could also be possible that some of the money recouped could be used to set up a broadcasting commissioner for programmes of Irish interest – and then all channels would be able to compete, in an open manner, proposing the most relevant and best quality product for Irish viewers.
In many ways, the new proposition could help bring out the best in RTÉ.
@The Dude:
Rude or not: “it does little to progress your perspective.”
I don’t have a perspective. I have the FACTS.
“That’s the way I remember it anyhow” – well your memory is wrong.
My presumption that you didn’t bother clicking on the link in my previous posting that disproves your memory that “the case remained untested in the courts” – kinda shows that my rudeness is correct – because only an idiot would continue to sprout their memory when the actual facts are presented to them.
But please, continue to troll… and miss the most crucial flaw in your argument about RTE, which is that the organisation you remember as giving airtime to PR people and thus to DOB, was the very organisation who was in court arguing for press freedom and YOUR RIGHT to hear what was happening in the Dail, and not just on their multi-platform channels, but in every news medium.
If you don’t want to be called an idiot, do some actual research and not just rely on your flawed memory, especially when the link to start you off has been provided.
I pay for TV license every year, and I don’t even get access to its programming (the on-line player wants me to unblock ads). Given that I use my TV, which I pay the license for, only for DVDs, I wonder that if I hook up a small PC to it I can claim it’s a PC monitor and drop the fee altogether.
You know there’s a fix for that right? Player can work with adblock running on rte.ie. Just sayin’.
we looked into this at home and any device capable of receiving a publicly broadcast image requires a license. This even covers a broken television that can be repaired.
computer monitors are exempt as they are solely extensions of a computer screen. We spent a bit of money on a nice computer monitor (28 inch, IPS, LED) and run movies and the internet through it.
If you are looking at the return on your license fee then compare it to your Sky subscription and the money you hand over to Murdoch
Orr Tee Eee just needs to stop, it’s that simple. Just imagine the saving alone.
Think you don’t need a TV license, what are you?! Some kind of comedian?!?
McSavage picked up Becket’s banner of absurd and modernized it. Beckett didnt’ thrive in Ireland. Neither will McSavage, but respect for not emigrating. Yet.
“In his 1965 book, Absurd Drama, Esslin wrote:
“The Theatre of the Absurd attacks the comfortable certainties of religious or political orthodoxy. It aims to shock its audience out of complacency, to bring it face to face with the harsh facts of the human situation as these writers see it..” “…”The shedding of easy solutions, of comforting illusions, may be painful, but it leaves behind it a sense of freedom and relief. And that is why, in the last resort, the Theatre of the Absurd does not provoke tears of despair but the laughter of liberation.””
The Irish hate anyone getting under their skin.
Jaden,I’m in the same boat with the rte player and adblock. Can you steer me in the right direction to get it to run with adblock?
I wonder if the plumber analogy if apt given we’re about to nationalise water again.
I don’t use any services provided by rte. so why should I pay for a service I don’t use? I don’t see sky coming along and knocking on my door to get me to pay for their service.
It’s the usual stink of double taxation. Rte gets ad revenue, government hand outs and expects everyone in the country to pay for its running regardless of whether you use it or not.
RTÉ does not expect you to pay for anything. The state does.
They can continue to expect as they have for many years.
What’s your opinion on U2 and DO’Bs’ tax status then?
I think the criticism shown in the photo up there is a bit vague. I’d be interested in reading an in depth criticism from him. He seems like a talented guy.
Look he did not do it, though it has been done, he did not pay the license, though it has been paid and most important, he is hoping to get a new series of savage eye with RTE.
So that be it in a nutshell.
Irish comedy, off screen as there be none on screen, except ironically for savage eye.
Look get it out in the open, as the actress said to the ehh bishop, or maybe that be a different, ehh thing, to cut to the chase, abolisg RTE and have done with it.
Most of the one in the place can move out to TV3 and, the sports can move to sky or setanta.
Problem solved.
Payment is required to watch Sky and Setanta so no thanks to that suggestion. €160 a year is payment enough for TV.
Could RTE not introduce a new ground breaking concept, to be the first country in the known world, to introduce a scheme, whereby, ye get paid to watch television, namely Rte 1 and 2.
Naturally, one would expect some programmes to be exempt from this concept, namely, the late late show, ear to the ground or, whatever to the and few others.
Get a fecking medal for watching, the dail proceedings.
While RTE deserves some form of a kick up the backside and organisational reform, McSavage’s crusade against the TV licence & RTE imperils the principle of public service broadcasting. The type of people who would love to see the end of RTE, BBC and the like are not your nice progressive centre-left social democrats but the Creighton’s, Ganley’s and David Quinn’s of this world. Nothing would please them more than to have television programming solely a private commercial enterprise and guess what, the people who can fund this sort of concern are generally not enthused by any egalitarian and “progressive” programming. RTE may have its flaws but abolishing the licence & the principle of public service broadcasting plays into the hands of folks of whom most broadsheet readers aren’t too fond. McSavage would have an infinitesimal chance to get his comedy to air with this lot…
DOB TV. RTE really does deserve a massive kick up the backside though.
DOB would likely fill the RTE gap with something no doubt ironically called “Independent TV” or “The People’s Channel”…Despite what you make think DOB is not fond of RTE & despite his animosity with Ganley et al, they all would love to see the end of RTE.
As not seen on the RTE Nine O’Clock News…
What is funny is McSavage labouring under the illusion he is a comedian.
Then he bottles his ‘protest’ and pays the license fee when he is summoned to court. Obviously the spirit of 1916 didn’t go far in this particular gene pool.
Mind you he is lucky to have his cousin Ryan Tubridy at the centre of RTE machinations – another bag of wind robbing a living at RTE.
He didn’t pay it. Someone paid if for him anonymously to keep him out of the slammer. He thinks it might be Ray Darcy – another bag of wind etc.
There’s a long list of really awful people being given airtime by rte. If they got rid of all of them I’d be more amenable to paying the licence. They should start with every single “comedy” actor they employ.
Okay, let’s take a different tack: who would you keep? I’d vote Keelin Shanley, Catriona Perry, Vivienne Traynor Emma O’Kelly and Oral O’Donnell.
This old argument, with the same easily pleased RTE defenders saying it’s all great and the Duffys & the D’arcys & the Finucanes all deserve their disgustingly high salaries, and RTE’s proportion of the license fee is deserved etc.
You want to watch and applaud RTE’s sh1111T333 output, fine, you pay for it.
At the end of the day your licence fee is being used to keep pat Kenny in wood varnish and the cast of fair city employed let’s face it they can’t act wouldn’t even qualify as toilet cleaners.all it has produced in the last sixty years is mind numbing poop that has sucked the intelligence out of the people .160 euros a year I would rather hammer four inch nails into my fore
head
…you do know that Pat Kenny doesn’t work for RTE anymore, right?
That nails-in-forehead thing must be working out well for you.
Rte, embarrasing itself, with that in mind, 2 little word spring or ring in my mind.
Namely, The Angelus.
Never mind the late late as no other fecker does.
Or the other dodgy items.
Or forced cringe, sloppy grin comedy.
Laugh ye have to or else would cry.
Try explaining the concept of The Angelus to a visitor from the planet mars or inded a visitor from the planet, commonly known as earth.
The Late stretched to a ten minute commentary on Ireland without a government last night. Last?? Not in any way important sot.
Gaybo is not dead so bring him back. Wheel him out with every old aged disease possible. Pay him nothing. Anything but this offensive fluff pretending to be a national broadcast.
Shut it down and put the revenue-sucking time-servers on the dole. Lemass saw the prospective state broadcaster as a tool for shaping the minds of the people (Tom Garvin – “Preventing the future – how Ireland stayed so poor for so long”). And that it is what it did, towing the official Ireland line since its conception.
This is the same rotten organisation that insists on broadcasting the Angelus, that shows pap such as “Celebrity Jigs and Reels”, “Celebrity bannister (or whatever a GAA coach is called)”, countless cookery programmes and myth-fueled cultural nationalist gaelic bollocksology.
We could do without Ireland’s version of Pravda, no problem.