RTÉ cuts top presenter pay by 15% as Ryan Tubridy, Ray D’Arcy and Miriam O’Callaghan see earnings drop

Ryan Tubridy took a pay cut of €55,000 or 11 per cent between 2019 and 2021, bringing his pay down to €440,000.

The Late Late Show and Radio 1 host still remains RTÉ’s highest-paid person, new figures published by the public broadcaster show.

Tubridy, a contractor who is paid through his company Tuttle Productions Ltd, was paid €495,000 in 2019 and €466,250 in 2020, according to the breakdown of on-air talent remuneration.

Ray D’Arcy, who was the second-highest paid individual at RTÉ in 2019, saw his fees drop from €450,000 that year to €305,000 in 2020 and 2021, reflecting the fact that his Saturday night chat show came to an end. D’Arcy was the third-highest paid presenter in 2020 and the fourth highest in 2021.

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[ Ryan Tubridy bores into Wonderful Life stories ]

Joe Duffy has climbed from third to second spot in the top 10 list, although his earnings have also fallen. In 2019, he was paid €392,494. This dropped to €360,650 in 2020 and then €351,000 in 2021, or a decline of about 10.6 per cent over the two years.

Claire Byrne, who was seventh on the list in 2019, rose to fourth in 2020 and third in 2021. Byrne, who succeeded Sean O’Rourke as the presenter of Radio 1’s mid-morning current affairs programme in August 2020, saw her fees increase from €250,000 in 2019 to €282,917 in 2020 and then €350,000 in 2021. She also presented Claire Byrne Live on RTÉ One during this time.

While the pay bill for the 10 highest-paid presenters at RTÉ rose from €3 million in 2016 to €3.2 million in 2019, the latest figures confirm that following a phase of contract negotiations with some of its biggest names, RTÉ achieved its pledge to bring down the total fees and salaries paid to this group by at least 15 per cent.

[ In the face of horror, Claire Byrne is calm, Ryan Tubridy uncharacteristically emotional ]

The top 10 pay bill, which represents less than 1 per cent of its total operating costs, fell 16 per cent in 2020 to €2.71 million. It nudged up to €2.72 million the following year, however, taking the overall reduction to 15 per cent.

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The promised cut formed part of a broader agreement made between RTÉ and the government in late 2019 as the broadcaster sought and received additional public money to fulfil its remit.

“Our presenters play an important role in RTÉ’s provision of vital news, information and entertainment to audiences right across the country and enable us to generate commercial revenue which is essential to fund RTÉ’s public services,” said Dee Forbes, the outgoing director general of RTÉ.

“We are aware that the fees of high-profile presenters attract considerable public interest. Over the past 15 years, RTÉ has reduced these fees by circa 40 per cent. We continue to keep them under review.”

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Prime Time and Sunday with Miriam presenter Miriam O’Callaghan is in fifth place on the 2021 list, up from sixth in 2019, though her pay has also declined. In 2019, she earned €320,000 from RTÉ, but this fell to €263,500 in the two subsequent years.

Brendan O’Connor, eighth in 2019, is now seventh. His pay of €220,000 in 2019 rose to €238,753 in 2020 and then €245,004 in 2021. In March 2020, O’Connor succeeded the late Marian Finucane as presenter of Radio 1’s mid-morning shows on Saturday and Sunday. Before her death, Finucane was the highest-paid woman at RTÉ, receiving €358,013 in 2019.

While the first six presenters in the top 10 for 2021 are all contractors, the remaining four are employees of the State-owned broadcaster. They are Radio 1 News at One presenter Bryan Dobson (€209,282), Morning Ireland presenter Mary Wilson (€196,961), sports presenter and commentator Darragh Maloney (€183,738) and RTÉ News environment correspondent George Lee (€179,131).

Morning Ireland presenter Áine Lawlor was in 10th spot in the 2020 list, when her salary was €183,662, but as she was not in the top 10 in 2021, her pay for that year was not disclosed.

The level of top presenter pay has been a lightning rod for criticism of RTÉ in recent years as it has sought to shore up its public funding amid sustained pressure on its commercial revenue. It has also proven controversial within RTÉ itself.

In late 2019, the RTÉ sub-branch of the overall Dublin broadcasting branch of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) passed a motion at a meeting urging RTÉ management to move immediately to reduce payments to top presenters so that none earned more than €208,000, the salary of senior secretaries general in the Civil Service.

In December 2022, the RTÉ Trade Union Group accepted a proposed 6 per cent pay increase over two years in what is the first pay rise for rank-and-file staff in more than 16 years.