Alan Hughes has slammed the €1.3 million promotional spend on RTÉ’s Toy Show: The Musical.
Earlier this year, the musical – which took place in Dublin’s Convention Centre last December, became the focus of public scrutiny amid the RTÉ payments scandal – as it was believed the infamous barter accounts were linked to it.
According to documents provided to the Oireachtas Media Committee, the stage production cost less than expected in management, pre-production, rehearsal and running.
However, marketing and press for Toy Show: The Musical actually cost more than double what was predicted.
RTÉ made a €2.2 million loss on the stage production last year.
It has since been reported that RTÉ spent an eye-watering €1.3 million on promotion of Toy Show: The Musical.
Taking to Instagram on Wednesday, Ireland AM’s Alan wrote: “1.3 million was the ad spend on Toy Show the musical.”
“While producers in the entertainment industry including ourselves were trying to get back on our feet, paying huge amounts on ads, to compete with RTE’s juggernaut; they used 1.3million themselves, to advertise their own show,” Alan criticised.
“It’s not only against fair trading standards but morally wrong.”
“This is the figure we kept asking Rte for last year because I knew it would be huge but this is beyond belief and they say they are allowed to promote there own shows with free airtime, does this mean they turned down 1.3m in actual revenue from others.”
“The workers in RTÉ many who are great friends of mine must be sick with these stories coming out and some as we saw yesterday getting 24k a year and exec boards getting pay cuts reinstated it’s an outrage 😠.”
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