The Late Late Gay Byrne Irish Television Thread

I was willing to give it a chance. I am always willing. I actually liked Brendan O'Connor's talk show, before RTE gave him the boot in favour of the slimeball Ray D'arcy.


Sorry, since Gay Byrne stepped down in 1999, the show has been truly awful. It is a show which in two hours and ten minutes can have nuggets of great entertainment, topped up by utter dross, especially when the host lacks a lot of what is required to make a show great. Gay Byrne had it, Kenny and Tubridy didn't.

Gay Byrne was terrible. If he was any good He’d have made it over the Irish Sea. This thread was only named after him ironically.

Sorry, but Gay Byrne was not terrible. He was quite the producer, as well as being a good broadcaster. And he did make it over the Irish Sea, via the Late Late Show being aired on Channel 4. Gay Byrne is a legend in the Irish broadcasting scene, and with good reason.

He made it over the Irish Sea long before that. He worked for Granada in the early 1960s. In fact he was the very person ever to introduce The Beatles on television anywhere in the world when Granada filmed them in the Cavern in 1962 for People & Places .

I wouldn't be the biggest fan but TV executives certainly were. He was in huge demand in the 60's in the UK, Not only presenting on Granada Regularly but also Doing a lot of Work on the BBC, including presenting Open House on BBC2 on Saturday Afternoons in 1964. He could have had a good career in the UK and He also had offers from the US in the 1980's.

The Late Late Show feels like it has the same viewership as The One Show in the UK: a quiet majority who are perfectly happy watching it and a load of people who like to sit online and complain about it rather than do something else with their lives.

For this viewer from Scotland - and the grass is always greener etc - I am somewhat envious that Ireland is able to support its own broadcasting infrastructure and pull in occasionally excellent guests on RTE, and also have access to the BBC while it's there.

The "if he was any good he'd have made it to the UK" logic is clear nonsense. Some people have appeal in their own home country which would never translate beyond it, and some people are driven to go to a bigger market. But it should never be compulsory to prove yourself.

It's not only online that people complain about the Late Late, but they also complain on the street, in offices and down at the pub. However go back 40 years to when Gay was king of the castle (and it was a much better show) and people were complaining about it just as much. Some weeks it was World Class television, better than anything else on these islands in the Chat Show format, but other weeks it was a real turkey of a show.

The big problem a lot of people have is not with the Late Late as such but the way it's made and the money that's spent in RTE. It just doesn't show on screen a lot of the time. Some of the presenters are on silly money. Pat Kenny is a prime example of this, When he left for Newstalk, listenership actually went up on his Old Radio Show and the person presenting was on half his salary.

As for the grass being greener, there are two reasons behind this. First of all, Ireland is Independent, so it had to develop some sort of Media itself down through the decades. If Scotland had gotten it's independence in 1979 it would probably have the same media landscape as Ireland and possibly much better.

Secondly (and this is the biggy) RTE produces some good stuff but a lot of rubbish. They've gotten away with it because of the BBC and ITV. 60% of the population have always been able to turn over to UKTV and since the early 1980's that figure grew year on year. By 1998 anyone who wanted UK TV could have it (more than 90%) It's a huge pressure release.

I can tell you from personal experience that there were a lot of wet summers in the 1980's with nothing to do. Testcard on RTE1 and RTE2 until 5.35 some days (and then the offering was the Sullivans: ) I was Grateful for BBC1, BBC2 and HTV (my S4C was unwatchable)

Graham Norton spoke the truth when he said his mother would be turning over later when he appeared on the Late Late on Friday Night. Unless there's a top guest on the Late Late everyone I know (including myself) would watch him instead of the Late Late.

It feels to me that RTE is behind the BBC (and the UK) in many respects when it comes to pay. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I suspect union legislation isn't as stringent in Ireland as it is in the UK, so there are no doubt some people hanging around on huge salaries awarded when there was quite a bit of cash in the organisation who aren't keen to leave because they wouldn't get anywhere near that anywhere else.

Secondly, the political blowback on BBC presenters being paid a ton of money from the public purse. It is hard to imagine Chris Evans or Gary Lineker's eventual successors being paid anywhere near as much as they were awarded. And as you point out with Pat Kenny, the presenter isn't everything. Ryan Tubridy gets paid a huge, huge salary and in all fairness I have a lot of time for his presenting and he throws everything into his job (daily radio show, talk show, the madness of the Late Late, all the public appearances RTE wants). However, if he left and someone came in on half the salary I refuse to believe the audience would nosedive. The Late Late is a habit watch. You'd imagine any future pay deals will be somewhat more stringent.

For me, RTE punches above its weight in terms of what it produces. Yep, it'll have nonsense like any other broadcaster in the world, but with a population smaller than Scotland it can't be compared to the BBC. You are almost certainly correct about the pressure release making the difference though. Best of both worlds.

It's really nothing to do with Unions and everything to do with poor management, which continues under the current Director General. There was never a lot of cash in the organisation, usually, a great year would be break even. Some people have great agents and the threat was that the personality would leave and to be fair most of them could get work in the UK if they wanted it, but why move to the UK when you could get much better money at home. No one had the courage to call people's bluff.

I would think that the giant Salaries of the past are gone once a current 10 or 11 leave the station. Ryan Tubridy can't be blamed for getting what he asks for, but if he left it wouldn't make an impact on the radio whatsoever and almost certainly no impact on the Late Late, in fact, the audience might increase if the right presenter was found.

I would suggest that RTE for a time punched way above it's weight when it came to Television from about the early 1990's till 2005/6 when they were producing a lot of good programming in all areas but it seems to have fallen apart over the last 10 or so years and Money can't be blamed.

Hi, where in Ireland are you from? When did you get multi-channel? Was it via cable? Thanks.

RTE schedules are appalling at times, and you always get the feeling they have had a root around at the bottom of an old cupboard, and found a few old dvds and VHS cassettes and decided to bung that on the air to fill the hours. There sometimes seem that no thought is given to certain times of the day, especially on RTE One. At least RTE2 has kids programmes for the bulk of their weekday line up.

For example tomorrow RTE One's schedule:

RTE One kicks off at 6.00am Euronews. 7.30am Teleshopping. 8.05 Today (repeat of their afternoon magazine show from the previous Friday). 10.05am The Ellen DeGeneres Show. 11.00am Dr Phil. 11.55am Shortland Street. 12.25pm Doctors. - So from 6.00am until 1.00pm, it is a simulcast of Euronews, some teleshopping, a repeat of their own afternoon show and US imported talk shows (I have no idea how far behind US transmission) and two soaps, one from New Zealand and the other Doctors from the UK, apparently the UK Doctors episode is from January 2018, so 10 months behind UK broadcast.

Not the best line up for daytime, but RTE assumes no one will be watching them, and hence they don't bother.

Their first main news programme of the day is at 1.00pm. Yes, 1.00pm. RTE News does not wake up on RTE One ever in the mornings.

From 1.30pm, RTE One hurl imported soaps of Neighbours, Home and Away and a repeat of Eastenders from Friday (RTE One simulcast BBC Eastenders) along with a repeat of their home grown soap Fair City until 3.30pm, when RTE One finally kicks into gear with Today with Maura and Daithi, a programme which could easily suit 7.00am or 10.00am slot.

5.40pm until 7.00pm is a very weird slot, An Nuacht (news in Irish), News for the Deaf and then the one hour Six-One News.

It is only from 7.00pm does RTE One really bother with home produced shows. Excluding Eastenders at 8.00pm, for two hours it is home produced shows.

9.00pm News, followed by more home produced shows, which seems to be the norm, a documentary about Brendan Grace, and then Clare Byrne Live.

Through the night is the usual repeats mash up, repeat of Friday's Late Late Show until they come to a halt with Euronews.

RTE One on a Saturday, show Only Fools and Horses at breakfast time. This is a prime example of how RTE do not plan their schedules, look at 7.10am Teleshopping. 7.45am Only Fools and Horses. 8.10am Nationwide (a repeat of their magazine show). And that is your Saturday 19th October breakfast schedule for RTE One.