Bakhurst not coming across great on Radio 1 here
In ‘The World According To Noel Kelly’, the excellent piece in this paper last week by Mark Tighe and Niamh Horan, it was mentioned that Kelly’s company, Century Merchandising Services, has a portfolio of corporate clients that includes Paddy Power.
For a moment I wondered why Paddy Power would be having a marketing relationship with anyone, given the fantastic scale of their own marketing endeavours. But then that mention of Kelly and the betting corporation in this setting triggered a recollection of an older RTÉ controversy involving Paddy Power and Ryan Tubridy.
Although it has not been mentioned in the current round of shenanigans, in 2018 there was the peculiar case of Tubridy’s radio show being broadcast from the Cheltenham Festival, courtesy of “our friends at Paddy Power”. You could say Paddy Power had become the official betting partner of the Ryan Tubridy Show.
While Tubs was open in his admiration of this successful Irish corporation — running a quiz for a trip to Cheltenham and interviewing Paddy Power himself — RTÉ felt obliged to issue a statement that this could not be defined as advertising.
This was in response to accusations that they should have declared Paddy Power was paying for all this fun — suggesting a certain lack of rigour in relation to our old friend, the public service remit.
There was another issue that was not raised at the time by most of the media, and certainly not by Tubs — perhaps because they were hardly even aware it was an issue.
By 2018, some of us had been writing for years about a global pandemic of online gambling. Yet here, effectively, was an extended tribute to a betting corporation on a leading RTÉ radio show. This was controversial in itself. Or rather, it should have been.
Around that time, a book was coming out called Tony 10, which told the story of the manager of the post office in Gorey, Co Wexford, who had stolen €1.75m to fund his addiction to online gambling — with “our friends at Paddy Power”. I should know, because I wrote that book with Tony O’Reilly, the man who had somehow come through that horrendous addiction and reached the other side.
In the weeks before publication, we were even under the impression that Tony would be telling his story on The Late Late Show, which publishers still regard as the ultimate destination. Such was the interest in Tony 10, we were having to turn away the likes of Marian Finucane — a truly bizarre state of affairs.
We didn’t invent this horrible system, but having gone along with the prevailing wisdom and submitted ourselves to the tender mercies of the Late Late, they eventually decided to “pass” on this story, which for weeks had had virtually the entire Irish journalistic community battering down our doors.
How long did it take the Late Late to reach that decision? Well, they were not to know this, in their busy lives, but it was just long enough for us to turn down everyone else.
We ended up on the Ray D’Arcy radio show — a kind of justice for Ray, who had been a singular voice addressing this problem of gambling addiction. We should probably have gone there in the first place.
We don’t rightly know why the Late Late, in their omnipotence, made that call, except to say: that’s showbusiness, baby.
There’s really no such thing as a cast-iron commitment to have anyone on the Late Late, and we understood that. And yet, it had advanced to the stage where Tony had done an interview out in RTÉ with a Late Late researcher, which by all accounts had gone very well.
The only negative vibe we could glean is that the Sunday Independent had done the first interview with Tony — as if I was ever going to give RTÉ priority over this paper, and as if it isn’t a different medium anyway.
Whatever happened to curb their enthusiasm, those weeks around Cheltenham 2018 have strong echoes in recent days of a culture exposed — one that at the highest level seems to be at ease with the manoeuvrings of the corporate classes while struggling to connect with the kind of crucial public service that Tony O’Reilly was bringing.
Still, it turned out this episode ended well, for all parties. Tony 10 has been a success anyway, in every sense, although we had another strange encounter with Corporate Ireland when the book was nominated for the An Post Irish Book Awards. That might have resulted in An Post handing us the trophy, even though one of us had stolen €1.75m from its office in Gorey, but they declined that opportunity.
Tubs and the gang had a great time at Cheltenham, celebrating all things Irish, but Paddy Power really hit the mother lode.
What might have been a black night for them on the Late Late never happened, but there was an extended celebration of Paddy Power, the corporation and the man, on RTÉ Radio 1.
Some guys have all the luck.
It says it all about this controversy that D’Arcy may emerge as the ‘alright sort’
Jennifer 
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Why so? I thought he came across very well. Clear and measured, responded honestly to the best of his ability to all the questions asked.
Pat Kenny accusing politicians of Schadenfreude - “Mostly from the political side, people who have lost probably €1.5 billion building a children’s hospital giving out about the price of flip flops.”
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Too many ‘I can’t disclose that information’ type answers
I have asked him to represent me in all future neogtiations with my missus.
Terrific & decisive start by Kevin Bakhurst. On Jack Charlton’s anniversary today too, Bakhurst could yet become Ireland’s next beloved Englishman if he can rebuild RTÉ.
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That’s reasonable enough in the circumstances, he was clearly as open as he could be and intimated his disposition, for example on reducing salaries a number of times.
I’d say you’d get a decent night’s sleep after a roll with her.
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Marty could be in more bother
Solicitor not allowed any interaction with Tubs tomorrow,only there to support. Reduces the potential for any You Cant handle the truth outbursts😀 Also himself and NK not giving their statements to the Committeee until the last minute. TDs won’t like that🥊
Assume Tubs will travel by public transport to show he’s an ordinary fella like everyone else
“Honour to host the Late late show”
“Privelage to be invited into people’s homes every Friday”
“RTE is in my DNA”
“Sorry can I take a moment, this is tough #bekind”
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I’d say they’ll go down the line of “we did nothing wrong here,no laws were broken.I got my client the best deal possible,that’s my job”
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“I’m lile to my clients”
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I wonder how Tubridy will play this, maybe make out he never asked for the extra payments.and that RTE insisted on them?
I can’t see him being back on air anyway.
Can’t see what he can do apart from give it the full sackcloth and ashes. Maybe wipe away a few tears as well. Possibly play the mental health card. And hope Ireland’s mammies feel sorry for him.
Super Agent Noel Kelly will probably give it big licks anyway. But he doesn’t have to care about whether the public like him or not.