RTÉ's €2.2m loss on Toy Show The Musical a 'disgrace' and a 'scandal'
Centre Picture: Of A Run Assumed A Shows Rté Sell Andres Convention Total Audience 107,000 Out Its Dublin’s At 54 For Of Poveda With Entire
RTÉ’s lost €2.2m for the broadcaster after just a month’s worth of performances, new figures provided to the Oireachtas media committee show.
The ill-fated venture, which ran last December but was beset with problems including cancellations due to illness and low ticket sales, had been projected to bring in revenue of roughly €4.1m.
That assumed a sell-out for its entire run of 54 shows, with a total audience of 107,000 at Dublin’s Convention Centre.
In the end, just 27 live shows were held, with ticket sales of 20,262. Only 11,044 of those tickets were actually sold, the rest being complimentary tickets or competition/giveaway prizes.
Revenue of just €496,000 was recorded, €2.7m less than had been projected, according to the documents seen by the .
Despite the curtailed number of shows, seats sold for the musical came to just 41% of the available capacity, with 22,303 tickets sold against the total available of 53,865.
Cancellations, meanwhile, led to the loss of 6,743 audience tickets, at a refund cost of €251,000.
The losses represent a catastrophic commercial misjudgement on the part of RTÉ, which had already been in dire financial straits ahead of the live show.
Speaking at the Oireachtas Media Committee Fine Gael TD Brendan Griffin has said the €2.2m revenue lost was a “disgrace” and a “scandal”.
He questioned how RTÉ Director of Strategy Rory Coveney could say they were proud of the failed production.
Mr Coveney said “clearly it wasn’t a commercial success,” but that they were given no advise that it was a bad idea.
Mr Griffin said the loss of €2.2m accumulates to the TV license fee for every household in Tralee and Killarney and “you went on to say you are proud of the achievement, if that’s what you’re proud of, we might as well all pack up and go home,” he told the media committee.
At the Public Accounts Committee last week, Mr Coveney said he was not in a position at that time to inform the committee as to the scale of the musical’s losses.
“We entered into a whole series of commercial relationships in relation to this project which are sensitive, with third parties involved,” Mr Coveney said.
He acknowledged the return on the musical had been “not great” and “not successful”.
“It was always envisaged to be a multi-annual project. We have decided not to proceed with it this year,” Mr Coveney, brother of Enterprise Minister Simon Coveney, said.
“We are looking at other options for it into the future and we do not want to compromise our capacity to negotiate with third parties in relation to those arrangements in the future.”
“While audiences were lower than we had hoped for, we are very heartened by the reaction of those that did attend, particularly children,” the broadcaster said.
RTÉ added that in terms of the musical’s future “fundamentally we believe we have much to build on for subsequent years”.
Speaking on RTÉ radio on Wednesday, Labour spokesperson for Media and Arts Marie Sherlock said she was "gobsmacked" by the figures.
"So, I know the phrase 'flop' has been used, but that's more than a flop," she said.
"That is an absolute disaster in terms of the planning that went into that show and how it could have failed so badly and public money at stake."