RTÉ has published the earnings for its ten highest-paid presenters in 2022, along with the restated earnings for 2021.
Following Grant Thornton’s report into Toy Show The Musical, which found that the project made a loss of over €2.2 million and that the RTÉ Board gave no written approval for the production, RTÉ have published a list of presenter earnings for 2022, and restated earnings for 2021.
In February 2023, RTÉ published the earnings for its highest-paid presenters in 2020 and 2021. The latest list includes the correction of information RTÉ previously provided to the public regarding Ryan Tubridy’s earnings from RTÉ during the period 2017-2022.
According to RTÉ, the cost of their highest earning presenters represents less than 1% of their total operating costs.
The top six presenters on the list are all contractors with RTÉ, with the remainder of the list consisting of RTÉ employees. RTÉ employee remuneration in the table below represents salaries, employer pension contribution and related benefits.
Ryan Tubridy received the most in 2022 and 2021, earning €515,000 both years. Joe Duffy received the second-highest amount, with €351,000 both years. Claire Byrne received €350,000 in 2021 and €320,833 in 2022. Miriam O’Callaghan received €263,500 both years. Ray Darcy received €305,000 in 2021 and €250,000 in 2022. Brendan O’Connor received €245,004 both years.
Bryan Dobson received €209,282 in 2021 and €209,681 in 2022. Mary Wilson received €196,961 in 2021 and €197,643 in 2022. Darragh Moloney received €183,738 in 2021, and €184,501. George Lee received €179,131 in 2021 and €179,821 in 2022.
Contractor remuneration in the table above represents ‘fees payable directly by RTÉ for services provided to RTÉ only’ in 2022. This excludes VAT, and fees that ‘may have been paid by independent production companies for programming or content commissioned by RTÉ’. Contractors don’t earn salaries, and RTÉ doesn’t make any pension contribution on their behalf.
“Today we are publishing the total earnings from RTÉ by our highest-paid presenters for 2022 along with the restated earnings for 2021,” said RTÉ Deputy Director-General, Adrian Lynch. “As previously confirmed by Kevin Bakhurst, going forward, details of RTÉ’s highest paid presenters will be published annually as part of RTÉ’s Annual Report starting with RTÉ’s 2023 Annual Report which will be published later this year. While RTÉ has committed to reducing the cost of its highest paid presenters to ensure that no contractors or employees will earn more than the Director-General, 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.”
