Mick Clifford: Bakhurst is a safe pair of hands who's shown he's willing to get down and dirty
Kevin Bakhurst's actions speak of somebody who intends to lead by example rather than platitudes.
Last April in this newspaper a piece was published about the new director general of RTÉ, Kevin Bakhurst. His appointment came with a coating of controversy.
Some members of the RTÉ Authority were in favour of appointing another candidate, David McRedmond, who had a track record in the commercial world. Bakhurst was a journalist by training, having previously served in the station as a director of news.
A source who had known the Englishman during his former stint was quoted in the piece. “Bakhurst is a safe pair of hands, no question about it. The problem is the last thing RTÉ needs right now is a safe pair of hands.”
Where stands that assessment in light of Bakhurst’s decision to effectively terminate Ryan Tubridy’s employment with RTÉ?
The director general could have handled things differently. On Wednesday, Grant Thornton published its second report into payments from RTÉ to Tubridy. This dealt with the period 2017-2019. The report found that the understatement of Tubridy’s salary over that period was the fault of RTÉ and that neither he nor his agent Noel Kelly had anything to do with it.
This was a good result for Tubridy. In the immediate aftermath, the mood music suggested he would be back on the air next month. Then he had to go and spoil it all by returning to the scene of earlier grime.
The first Grant Thornton report published in June dealt with 2020 and 2021. This confirmed the fees Tubridy had received officially through RTÉ were in line with those publicly declared at the time.
There was, however, the little matter of the extra €150,000 he had received using a ‘barter’ account, channelled through Renault, sponsor of the Late Late Show. Officially, this was not part of the RTÉ salary. In reality, it was money being paid to him by RTE through Renault, money that would not be publicly declared as part of his salary.
Tubridy and Kelly have maintained, including in evidence given to Oireachtas hearings, that this €150,000 was a separate commercial deal with Renault. The claim is simply not credible. RTÉ paid the money, half of it through a credit note. The idea that RTÉ would end up footing the bill for a private commercial deal between a presenter and a programme sponsor makes no sense. Yet Tubridy and his agent have never shifted from that position.
Enter Kevin Backhurst, his safe pair of hands fast getting dirty in the new job as he clears up the mess. The buzzword liberally used by both Bakhurst and Tubridy in their attempt to mend fences was “trust”. Tubridy was asking RTÉ and its listeners to trust him, despite maintaining a position on the receipt of the €150,000 which was not believable.
He was willing to return the €150,000 to RTÉ, despite maintaining that his receipt of it was from a commercial deal that had nothing to do with RTE. Yet Bakhurst was willing to fudge the issue in order to get the show back on the road. As it was to turn out, Ryan couldn’t leave well enough alone.
On Wednesday he welcomed the Grant Thornton report with the words: “I am committed to re-establishing the confidence and trust of my colleagues and listeners” before going on to spoil it all by adding that his “actual income from RTE in 2020 and 2021 matches what was originally published as my earnings for those years". The claim inferred that the €150,000 from RTÉ had nothing to do with his salary.
There was no pressure on him to revisit that matter. He could have let it lie, gone back to work and got on with rebuilding his reputation. Instead, once more he was trotting out a line that attempted to portray himself as an innocent abroad who bore no culpability for the mess in which he’d landed.
And once again, the position he was taking simply was not credible. Bakhurst could, at that point, have handled things differently. He could have kept the head down, completed the deal with Tubridy, quickly moved onto more urgent issues.
If he had been from a commercial rather than public broadcasting background that would have been the most obvious course to take. If he was the kind of DG willing to make a special deal for the top “talent”, as was done with the Tubridy-Renault arrangement, he would have quietly let the latest missive from Ryan pass without comment.
As it turns out, he wasn’t prepared to do that. He did seek clarity on the statement and was told that there was nothing to clarify. And following that he decided to invoke some values, to show that “trust” had to actually mean something if RTÉ was going to get out of the jam it is in.
He had to show his employees that the tail of the organisation, as represented by “the talent”, was no longer going to wag the dog. He could have handled it differently, but instead his actions speak of somebody who intends to lead by example rather than platitudes.
Meanwhile, there is understandable sympathy for Tubridy. He is a talented broadcaster and, by all accounts, a decent person. He made a mistake, lost the run of himself. It can happen to the best of us.
There is nearly always a way back, and particularly for somebody who had enough credit in the bank with both his employer and the public. Yet from the very first days of this controversy he has handled it appallingly.
Maybe it was hubris, poor advice or simply an inability to comprehend that the game, as he has known it, has changed completely. Maybe it was a combination of all three. One way or the other, if he wants to apportion blame he need look no further than a mirror.
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