Noel Kelly: Who is the behind-the-scenes agent, seen as RTÉ's ‘real director general’?

“People would call him the real director general of RTÉ and I would put a lot of weight on that,” a senior insider at the national broadcaster says of Ryan Tubridy’s agent, Noel Kelly.

When RTÉ executives and board members appeared before two committee hearings in Leinster House on Wednesday and Thursday, the focus was as much on Kelly as it was on Tubridy.

On Thursday, Fianna Fáil TD James O’Connor queried the reasons for Kelly’s “God-like power” within RTÉ at a dramatic day at the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC). That same day, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar told reporters at a European leaders’ summit in Brussels that he believed Kelly needed appear before an Oireachtas committee to answer questions.

A very public spotlight has landed on a man more accustomed to quietly representing those television and radio professionals in the light in his role as agent to Tubridy, RTÉ's long-time highest earner and whose hidden payments of €345,000 have embroiled the broadcaster in its worst crisis in years.

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Evidence emerged as controversy grew, showing Kelly playing a pivotal role as the conduit of two undisclosed €75,000 payments to Tubridy. The committees heard evidence of how the payments were erroneously presented as “consultancy fees” on invoices to RTÉ through a UK “barter account” – “an act designed to deceive,” according to Siún Ní Raghallaigh, chairwoman of the broadcaster’s board.

RTÉ reported on Thursday night that, when asked about the invoices, the then director general Dee Forbes said they related to work done for the broadcaster by Kelly at a cost of more than €1,200 per hour.

Earlier that day, the broadcaster’s chief financial officer, Richard Collins, told PAC that after he was first alerted to an issue around the invoices by auditors Deloitte on March 7th, he spoke to Forbes who told him the money was paid to Kelly for services and advice “in relation to how we restructured” and dealing with sponsors. He relayed this back to Deloitte, who said the explanation was not adequate.

At the centre of all of this is Kelly, who has yet to make public comment about Thursday’s testimony.

Among senior Montrose sources who spoke to The Irish Times, Kelly is seen as a controversial figure among broadcasters at the station and is known for expressing a low opinion of RTÉ management.

[ RTÉ pay crisis: Taoiseach suggests accounting rules and company law may have been breached ]

“He would say stuff like, ‘The people in RTÉ don’t know what they are doing. They don’t know business. You have to tell them what to do’ – that’s how he talks. [He would say] ‘They aren’t able to think for themselves,’” said one insider.

The comment chimes with much of what was said at the Oireachtas committee hearings this week and evidence that subsequently emerged of Kelly drafting agreements he wanted RTÉ to sign.

He was painted as a highly influential figure representing a large roster of broadcasters, celebrities and RTÉ personalities and holding sway over senior management at RTÉ.

“It seems very clear,” Fianna Fáil senator Malcolm Byrne, a member of the Oireachtas media committee, said at the hearing on Wednesday, “that Noel Kelly seems almost to be able to dictate contracts to RTÉ and they are simply accepted.”

“Is there a monopoly there with Mr Kelly, in terms of negotiating deals involving taxpayers’ money?” asked Shane Cassells of Fianna Fáil at the same meeting.

Kelly is a successful agent, working with broadcasters such as Claire Byrne, Joe Duffy, Pat Kenny, Ivan Yates, Matt Cooper, Caitríona Perry, Carl Mullan, Cormac O’hEadhra and Ciara Kelly, as well as Tubridy, as part of his agency, NK Management.

“People regard him as the best in the business,” says the source at Montrose, who has had dealings with him. “But I don’t like him. I find him very abrasive.”

Kelly, says the source, tends to speak disparagingly about broadcasters who are not clients of his, using strong language and pointed, personalised criticisms. He is also widely believed to brief the media negatively about broadcasters at the station who are not his clients and are perceived to be his clients’ competitors for top jobs.

“My view is that he takes all of this very personally. He does regard the people who work for him as family, I think, and he fights for them like family and anybody who is not for them is against them. That would be his outlook on life,” says the insider.

Ivan Yates, who hosts award ceremonies and other events for corporate clients, is represented by Kelly and other agents.

“They get 15 per cent of what they earn – that’s their business model. Whether you are a soccer agent or a Hollywood agent, that is the kind of business model they do so they are totally incentivised to drive income. They are completely in the commercial market [and] absolutely dedicated to working for people,” Yates told The Irish Times.

Kelly is 60 years old, lives in Foxrock, Co Dublin, and has a background in sales and marketing.

According to his NK Management website, he spent sixteen years “nurturing and growing” his CMS Marketing business, before noticing a gap in the market for a talent agency business that would “promote the brand potential of the talent and work with them on their long term career goals”.

The company says that he “advises, negotiates and represents the best interests of our celebrity clients in all commercial dealings” and that he “sources and manages opportunities, seeing him match celebrities with relevant brands and companies to result in mutually beneficial partnerships”.

Kelly’s CMS Marketing, a business name owned by Century Merchandising Services Ltd, has a significant number of top brands among its clients, including Paddy Power, Heineken, An Post, Bank of Ireland, Irish Distillers and Tourism Ireland, according to its website.

Both CMS and NK Management are based in an office park in Ballymount, Dublin 12, in a premises half-owned by Kelly. Recent returns for Century Merchandising show it made a profit of €230,065 in the year to the end of March 2022. Another of his companies, Cleary Consultancy, made a profit of €404,085 in the same year. He also has other business interests.

A marketing executive who spoke to The Irish Times but did not wish to be identified said Kelly’s “near monopolistic position” representing top broadcasters at RTÉ was problematic.

“Too much concentration of power in one place is never a good thing. I’m not blaming the talent, or Kelly, I just don’t think it is a healthy situation. It means a lot of the talent is being represented by one individual so RTÉ is between a rock and a hard place if that particular talent agent, and I’m not suggesting he did, plays hard ball. He has a lot more leverage with all that talent at his disposal,” says the executive.

[ Tubridy tumult saturates RTÉ: ‘The consequences are felt every hour in this building’ ]

The end result, according to the source, is that when Kelly went to a meeting a few years ago with RTÉ's then director general Dee Forbes to discuss pay cuts for his clients, it is hard to say who was the more powerful person in the room.

Tubridy, through his weekday radio show and as presenter of the flagship Late Late Show, was bringing in a significant proportion of RTÉ’s commercial revenue at a time when the station was under significant financial pressure. So, someone in Forbes’s position would be anxious not to “rock the boat” with a top broadcaster who might decide to move to another station.

“There is always a risk that these people will go somewhere else,” insists the marketing executive. “So, an agent acting for Ryan Tubridy is in a powerful position.”

Having other top broadcasters working with the same station also on his books only increases that agent’s power.

“It is just the law of monopolies,” says the source.

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The fact that Kelly, by way of his CMS Marketing business, also works with significant top brands, most of whom use RTÉ for advertising and marketing purposes, further adds to the power of his position.

“He is very good at his job, obviously,” says the source. “But monopolies are generally a bad thing.”

At the Dáil PAC on Thursday, Ní Raghallaigh, the RTÉ chairwoman, was asked by Fianna Fáil’s James O’Connor a pertinent question concerning Kelly: why didn’t RTÉ replace the system of having an agent with so much power – and self-employed presenters who were paid so much more than other staff – with one where direct employees hosted the station’s major programmes?

“I know that’s the way we have to go,” she replied. RTÉ, she said, is looking at “whether we continue to deal with agents”.

The day before, at the Oireachtas media committee, when Sinn Féin senator Fintan Warfield asked whether there were competition concerns about the role Kelly plays in negotiating contracts for top names, the head of the audit committee on the RTÉ board, Anne O’Leary, chose to respond.

“I am concerned about those contracts as well and one of the things I am putting on the agenda for the next audit and risk committee is to get an internal audit first to get more detail before I may have to do a more serious audit,” she said. “I take the senator’s concerns and I am very concerned about it as well.”

It is not a happy position for the presenters concerned, though no one is suggesting there is anything awry with the contracts Kelly negotiated on their behalf.

“I would suggest his business is in really big trouble,” a senior executive with one of RTÉ’s broadcasting rivals says of Kelly’s position. “I would think he is pretty damaged.”

What all of the controversy will mean for Kelly has been the topic of many in-depth conversations at Montrose, according to the source at the station.

[ RTÉ pay crisis deepens over use of €275,000 from ‘slush fund’ for sports junkets ]

“There is a lot of chat about how this will affect his position. I don’t think anyone has landed quite yet on what the outcome of this is likely to be. But I think everyone agrees it is very damaging,” says the RTÉ insider.

One line of speculation, according to the source, is that Kelly – who believes “RTÉ is where it’s at” – might find it more difficult to sign new people to his agency.

“I wouldn’t expect Claire [Byrne] to leave him. Or I wouldn’t expect Joe [Duffy] to leave him. I’d be shocked,” says a source.

Kelly might, however, find it more difficult to attract up and coming presenters.

“Because he has really destroyed Ryan Tubridy’s career, by being too smart. Ryan Tubridy had an option to say no [in relation to his arrangements with RTÉ], he is not a child. But Ryan Tubridy’s career has been destroyed and Noel Kelly is right in the middle of it and there is no other way to twist and turn that.”

A request for an interview with Kelly met with no response and he did not respond to contacts. The Irish Times called to his home in an attempt to ask questions him about the affair but there was no reply.