Wednesday, June 28, 2006

RTE Salaries

Next time you are looking at TV and thinking there is never anything on just be glad you are getting the best RTE celebrity money can buy. Pat Kenny, working on a contract basis, earned €899,00 in 2004. That's €411,508 more than the next highest earner Gerry Ryan who earned a comparatively paltry €487,492. Marian Finucane came a close third with €439,265, but may have lost out this year having lost her radio slot to Ryan Tubridy who earned €216,150 as the great young hope for the future of RTE.

Another way to look at Pat's salary is that it takes the license fees (€155 for those who are chancing their arm and hoping the license inspector wont call) from 5800 homes to pay for it. The 2002 census tells me that Pat's income therefore would be the equivalent of the license take from Clonmel. Clonmel! You would think a great, world class, media personality like Pat would be at least worth a Kilkenny or maybe even a Drogheda.

The next time Pat comes to RTE with the begging bowl out asking for a cost of living increase or, God forbid, benchmarking they should tell him to piss off and go to TV3 if he thinks they will match his salary, or maybe NewsTalk 106 if he fancies a challenge. Incidentally a cost of living increase for Pat would be €31,465 assuming an inflation rate of 3.5%, for those keeping track the average industrial wage in 2005 was €29,200).

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bigger market but you should take a look at what the American guys earn. CBS play David Letterman $31 million a year and that's just the start of it

I think it's time to make the jump into broadcasting Declan. Go for it...

Declan said...

jesus ciaran, you know I have a face for radio and a voice for text :-)