New Rip off republic TV Show tickets available

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Bishop

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Hay guys,



A friend of mine let me in on the possibility for tickets for a new RTE series that is being filmed later this month. It’s called Rip off Republic and is hosted by Eddie Hobbs (He's the guy who does Show me the Money on RTE so it should be fun). In the show Eddie tells you just where and how you are being screwed in Ireland today so should be interesting and informative. Here the info for anyone who's interested in tickets:



"The show is being recorded live on the 19th, 20th, 21st and 22nd of July 2005 in The Helix, Glasnevein, Dublin. Tickets are free of charge and you can get them by sending an e-mail to [email protected]."



I sent an email and got an auto reply with instruction for get tickets so don't worry about what you put into the first email.
 
RTE??...Rip Off Republic...?? Remind me again? By how much did our TV licences increase in the past 1-2 years?
 
Sorry didn't see the other post, just felt people may be interested. Not often you get to see a free show in this town especially with RTE fitting the bill ;-)
 
How hard-hitting do we expect this show to be?

Given that most of the high-profile ripoff (over-charging) companies in Ireland are also the biggest advertising contributors to the coffers in RTE.

Do we really expect RTE to allow Eddie to bite the hands that feed the national broadcaster?

It will be interesting to see how closely, or not, the show is to the excellent (IMHO) BBC Watchdog, who don't have to worry about keeping advertisers sweet.
 
i wonder will he cover the fact that if we want to watch RTE on the digital platform ie in widescreen we have to pay again!!! If that is NOT A RIP OFF then nothing is. I somehow doubt that this will be mentioned. A total and utter joke this programme. a programme about rip offs by a company that rips u off --- now if that is not Irish what is!" I ask you.


noah
 
I suppose RTE would argue that the TV licence represents Value for Money. But then wouldn't all businesses claim that.

If Eddie is True to form it'll be De Banks that he talks about most. But sure what would you expect from a Cork man.

Expect Pharmacies to get honorable mention.

Also the show isn't made by RTE, they're just buying it from the production company. I don't know how much influence RTE actually exert on production companies, I'm sure since they're one of only two games in town they have a fair amount of influence.

-Rd
 
Just back from the recording of what will be the first show to Air.
The show looks excellent. This is exactly the kind of show I've been waiting for.
All the stuff we've been talking about for about two years on AAM, the High Cost of Living in Ireland, the High Taxes for Low Services, the people who are unlucky enough to have a low to middle income job and so can't get welfare but can't afford to live here, the hidden forces that are driving the high cost of living and the lies by the government to convince us that they care. It's all here.

There are some clips with Eddie teaching children about competition, monopolies, the low tax myth etc that are superb. He's like a completely different guy to the guy who presented Show Me The Money. You can really sense some of the Anger behind the show.

Also among the highlights of the first show, watch out for the lady from Trim.

I don't often give something an unequivocal thums up but this show is top knotch.
Don't miss it.

Inicidently he recorded the show in one straight take, with no autocue that I could see. Extremely impressive. There was a bit of a Q&A session afterwards with the audience which isn't part of the show but was really interesting. Perhaps in the future they could work that into the show.

(Although some of Eddies answers couldn't have been broadcast).

The funniest moment of the evening for me was paying for the parking at the shop in the Helix. They were selling small bottles of coke for €2.50. A Guy beside me in the queue asked for a coke and sent it back when he heard the price. If the show encourages that sort of attitude in consumers it will do a lot of good.

-Rd
 
daltonr said:
Inicidently he recorded the show in one straight take, with no autocue that I could see. Extremely impressive.
Click to expand...

As an FYI, rather than any criticism, autocue was centre back, underneath the balcony.

Was there last night as well. Whole thing was very well done, I agree.

As for the topics, banks haven't been targeted, nor have phone companies, nor have utilities.

As I said above, RTE aren't going to alienate their biggest advertising spenders. The target of all 4 shows was pretty much government and taxation.
 
Was at the show on Tuesday. Topic was 'having fun' i.e socialising, price of alcohol, price of coffee in 'trendy' coffee shops etc.

Agree with others that it was very good - really opens your eyes to the way in which we are being ripped off. The government did get most of the criticism but I don't think you could argue with anything that was said.
 
Was at the show Tuesday-more of a diatribe against the government (no harm in that I guess) than anything else I thought. What the hell, I'm sure it's better than Telly Bingo or Fair City or The Panel, or The Lyrics Board, or any of the other countless hours of garbage our TV Licence money goes towards.

I think that the show focussed on a few too many areas-eating out and drinking were a good fit, but the bit about 'how much do you spend getting your hair done?' seemed kind of tacked on.

The point about trying to 'haggle' and 'shopping around' being nonsense in certain circumstances was well made, with the example of trying to find the cheapest pint of Murphy's in Cork city centre.

I was glad to see the fiasco of cafe bars run out again-a shame on McDowell and the Fianna Fail publicans lobby (incidently the FG spokesperson on whatever also spoke out against it).

I would have liked to ask Eddie what he thought about Ms. Larkin's appointment to the Board that he also serves on, given that he expressed (mild) contempt for the Government responsible for the appointment.

Yeah, there was an autocue back centre, but I have to say that Eddie is a good presenter-confident, witty, at ease with the audience etc.

But €3.50 for parking after 6 pm so far from the city centre? No complimentary drink(s) on arrival? No finger food? Bah!
 
Was there any counter arguments in the show? Did anyone defend what everyone universally labels "rip-off"?

It does sound like good fun, but is it all heat and no light?

Brendan
 
CCOVICH said:
I would have liked to ask Eddie what he thought about Ms. Larkin's appointment to the Board that he also serves on, given that he expressed (mild) contempt for the Government responsible for the appointment.
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He was asked about this last night. He basically said it was unfortunate, but that the NCA would come through it and do the good work that it was proposing/planning. [ Defamatory comments which added nothing to the post have been deleted]

Brendan said:
Was there any counter arguments in the show? Did anyone defend what everyone universally labels "rip-off"?
Click to expand...

No. There were no counter-arguments at all. The thesis of the show is that in "Show me the money" he was seeing the impact of ripoff Ireland on peoples finances, while this show would look at why this was happening, and why people were getting into debt, etc.

Brendan said:
It does sound like good fun, but is it all heat and no light?
Click to expand...

It's very much modelled on the kinds of shows that Mark Thomas was behind in the past on Channel 4. So, there's opportunistic use of cuts of VT from politicians in the past, using kids as mentioned above, and observations of what our politicians are doing.

On the basis that it's, as has also been said here, stuff that is already known in smaller circles (i.e. on AAM), it's probably good that it's being brought to a larger (albeit it mid-summer) TV audience.

It has the potential to be the "tipping point" in the battle against rising prices in Ireland, but will need a concerted campaign as a follow up to the show.

Now, here's where my bit of controversy comes in.

Eddie Hobbs is on the Consumers Association. Why then, are Michael Kilcoyne and Dermott Jewell jumping up and down about not being on the NCA? Is this out of personal interest? Are the pee-ed off about not being on this themselves? Surely one representative from the CAI is enough?

However, given Eddies membership now of both organisations, can we expect to see a campaign being developed by the CAI and/or the NCA around this show when it's broadcast?

Wouldn't it make sense? I would be very doubtful myself, given the relative uselessness of the CAI.
 
It has the potential to be the "tipping point" in the battle against rising prices
in Ireland, but will need a concerted campaign as a follow up to the show.
Click to expand...

Would you include the price of labour (eg wages and salaries) and the price of property in this campaign?
 
ubiquitous said:
Would you include the price of labour (eg wages and salaries) and the price of property in this campaign?
Click to expand...

Property was the subject of the show last night - both land costs, and everything else associated such as solicitors, architects, VAT on building materials, local authority levies, etc etc.

Labour and the cost of working is tonights topic. However, IMHO, despite the propaganda from IBEC, RGDATA and the Vintners, it's not altogether the price of labour that is at the root of rising prices here.

An example on Tuesday night. Restaurant owners claim they get €3 from every €100 spent in a restaurant. Yet, they sell a €7.10 bottle of wine for €25. If we assume it takes 5mins labour to get and serve a bottle of wine to the table, it's unlikely to cost more than a couple of cents extra on this €7.10 to get the bottle to the customer.

That still leaves over €17. Yes, yes, I know, overheads etc, but there's no way in hell, or even ripoff Ireland, that you'll have anywhere close to an €17 allocation of overheads to a single bottle of wine.
 
Ronan,

believe it or not, waiters and other staff get paid for the duration when they on duty, not just when they are serving customers. Restaurant operators must price their output (ie food and drink sold) so as to absorb all the overheads of the business. In the restaurant sector this can be extremely difficult to do successfully, as most restaurants are busy only for limited periods of time each week, and they sell an extremely narrow range of products,(namely meals, wine other alcohol and soft drinks. (Contrast this for example to a typical Centra shop that sells a vast range of goods, some high-margin and some lower-margin and has busy periods several times daily throughout the week)

Hence in a restaurant, all weekly costs such as labour, rent, rates etc have to be recovered within a short timeframe. Otherwise the restaurant loses money and ultimately goes out of business. This is the key reason why there such a large % of restaurants (particularly at the expensive end of the market) fail and close down only a year or two after opening.
 
ubiquitous,

Many thanks for the business lesson there, but unnecessary in my case.

We all know that portions of overheads are assigned to items sold. You'll work out your total costs, your expected sales, and assign the overheads as a percentage on top of the cost of the items sold. You'll do the same when assigning profits to items sold.

Therefore, when you look at the cost of each item that you buy anywhere, it will be made up of cost of item, profit, and overhead.

My point is that with regards to a bottle of wine costing €7.10 to a restaurant, to be assigning for both profit and overhead an amount of €17 surely indicates that there is a large scope for profiteering.
 
by Brendan
Was there any counter arguments in the show? Did anyone defend what everyone universally labels "rip-off"?
Click to expand...

I think that these shows need to have the counter argument or have a spokesperson from the companies on to defend their side. This is done brilliantly on BBC's Watchdog program where they name specific companies with specific cases and invite the company spokesperson on to, in some cases, defend the action or how they plan to rectify it.

People who constantly complain about the high prices of wine, coffee shops etc.. can vote with their feet and find cheaper establishments. Once the prices are displayed before you order then you can make the decision whether to purchase or not. On the otherhand if you are overcharged then THAT is a rip-off
 
My point is that with regards to a bottle of wine costing €7.10 to a restaurant, to be assigning for both profit and overhead an amount of €17 surely indicates that there is a large scope for profiteering.
Click to expand...

Of course there is large scope in theory for profiteering (as there is in any trade), unless of course as fobs suggests "people... vote with their feet and find cheaper establishments".

In reality though for restaurants in this country, high business overheads are a fact of life, and as a consequence so are high markups. If this wasn't the case, surely you would see a rash of value-for-money restaurants opening up, undercutting the established operators, and making good profits for themselves (as Lidl & Aldi have done in the supermarket sector). The fact that this hasn't happened in the restaurant sector would appear to indicate that its simply not possible - because of the high overheads involved.
 
Eddie Hobbs - wasn't he the bloke who designed and launched Eagle Stars endowment mortgage product (one of the most expensive products in that already pricey market) and was also a director of T.I.P.S. Ltd - which went bust?
 
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