Adsorption of titanyl phthalocyanine (TiOPc) on rutile TiO 2 (110) modified by a set of pyridine derivatives (2,2′-bipyridine, 4,4′-bipyridine, and 4-tert-butyl pyridine) has been investigated using synchrotron radiation based X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). For the unmodified TiOPc/TiO 2 system, a strong charge transfer is observed from the first layer TiOPc into the substrate, which leads to a molecular layer at the interface with a depleted highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO). However, precovering the TiO 2 surface with a saturated pyridine monolayer effectively reduce this process and leave the TiOPc in a less perturbed molecular state. Furthermore, the TiOPc HOMO and core levels are observed at different binding energies ranging by 0.3 eV on the three pyridine monolayers, which is ascribed to differences in surface potentials set up by the different pyridine/TiO 2 systems.