Cos itâs shite.
I agree totally.
Thereâs a generation who watch the show religiously, out of habit, if even to give out about it. When that goes then it will be gone. Terrestrial scheduled programming is dying on its arse and talk shows are redundant. Having big celebrities on is pointless. Almost everything about them is known and on the internet.
Tommy Tiernans best guests on his show are the ones nobody knows who the fuck they are. His interview with the homeless cork fella was compelling tv for example.
Iâm really enjoying the new series so far, albeit Iâve only seen part of the opening episode and nothing else.
Itâs makes money and people watch it.
Trouble at âThe Late Late Showâ as tensions revealed behind the scenes among RTĂ staff
The Late Late Show host Patrick Kielty âbeggedâ executive producer Jane Murphy to stay with the show, after she made him aware of her decision to quit her role last week, according to an RTĂ source with knowledge of the tensions that have beset the revamped show in its first three weeks.
The source told the Sunday Independent this weekend that some team members are feeling âdemoralisedâ after Murphy walked away from the Late Late â allegedly because she found it impossible to continue amid tensions over the selection of guests and how they were being interviewed.
The source compared the in-house tensions to the fictional events depicted in the Apple TV series The Morning Show, where the off-air dynamics are more entertaining than the programme itself.
âWhen Jane Murphy goes, you know something is wrong,â they said.
Murphy was contacted for comment. RTĂ told the Sunday Independent yesterday that she is to be replaced as executive producer by RĂłisĂn OâDea, who was series producer of the Late Late in Ryan Tubridyâs final season and was previously producer of Ray DâArcyâs radio show.
âShe felt micromanaged, from set design to the guest list to the members of the panelâ
Details have also emerged of a row over the booking of The 2 Johnnies for Kieltyâs first show last month.
The Tipperary comedy duo were a late addition to the line-up after a planned appearance by popular CNN journalist and Kerry native Donie OâSullivan was scrapped by Alan Tyler, RTĂâs group head of entertainment.
Tyler, a former BBC executive, was appointed last year and has previously worked with Kielty. He downplayed Murphyâs departure last week, saying she was moving to a different role ânow that the brand new series has been establishedâ.
The dropping of OâSullivan happened two days before Kieltyâs first show â and after a flight had been booked to bring him to Dublin from the United States, where he is based.
The source who spoke in detail to the Sunday Independent this weekend also revealed that members of OâSullivanâs family were booked into hotels before the decision was made to replace him with The 2 Johnnies.
âWhat happened that week was the researchers had booked Donie OâSullivan. Jane had signed off on it, and even Alan had signed off on it. A flight was booked for Donie, to fly him from the States. He even had to get permission from CNN so they could release him.
âThen, on the Wednesday [September 13], Alan said: âNo, we are dropping Donie and will get The 2 Johnnies instead.â
âThe cost of the flight, which was four figures, was lost.
Donie OâSullivan was due to fly to Dublin to appear on the show
"And that happened on the same day that the director general [Kevin Bakhurst] was at the Oireachtas committee meeting, having just announced a recruitment freeze and a freeze on discretionary spending.
âThe team were horrified. They tried to change his flights to another day, but Donie had already checked in online so they couldnât. Members of his family were coming up from Cahersiveen and that all had to be cancelled.â
When asked about the cancellation of OâSullivanâs booking yesterday, RTĂ did not respond.
There were further tensions over the appearance on the show last weekend of former boxer Carl Frampton from Northern Ireland.
Kielty interviewed the former world champion, along with the ex jockey Nina Carberry and fitness guru Joe Wicks in the showâs new opening segment, which has been criticised as a poor imitation of the format deployed on the The Graham Norton Show.
There was criticism of Kieltyâs failure to ask any searching questions about Framptonâs ties with the MTK boxing firm founded by crime boss Daniel Kinahan.
Kielty was also called out for not challenging Frampton about damning claims he makes in his new book, concerning his bitter falling-out with former manager Barry McGuigan.
According to the RTĂ source, Kielty had a conversation with Murphy, as he believed Frampton warranted a one-to-one interview. While Murphy agreed with him, she however told him it wasnât up to her â as the decision to make him part of the three-way panel had been made by Alan Tyler.
âYou are not allowed to have opinions, and all direction is coming from the top downâ
âJane felt the panel didnât work, and I think Paddy was worried he would get slated because essentially he had done a very soft interview with Frampton. But itâs harder to do a challenging interview with Frampton when he had Nina Carberry and Joe Wicks on either side of him.
âAlan is head of the department â and after that conversation with Paddy, she felt she had no agency on the show. She was just being overruled.
âWith previous executive producers on the Late Late, the head of the department would generally leave them to it.
"The exec could book a guest, tell the department head who was coming on the show the following week, and their line manager would say: âOK, great,â and generally sign off.
âBut Jane didnât feel she had the authority to make decisions like the one with Frampton, or even to book a guest on her own. She had to check every single guest with Alan before they were confirmed.
âJane had been unhappy for weeks. She felt micromanaged â from set design to the guest list to the members of the panel. Even the questions that are being asked. She kept getting overruled and being told: âNo this is what youâre doingâ. So then she thought: âWell, I canât do my jobâ.
Patrick Kielty. Photo: Andres Poveda
âEveryone says the three-person panel is not working and they need to change it, or drop it altogether.
"Alanâs motive seems to be to make the show much more light entertainment â but then what we are all saying is that it has just made it fluffy.â
Alan Tyler joined RTĂ in May 2022, succeeding John McHugh. During his time at the BBC as executive editor of entertainment commissioning, he was associated with prominent shows including Strictly Come Dancing, Michael McIntyreâs Big Show, All Round to Mrs Brownâs and Comic Relief.
The interview with Dr Tony Holohan, in Kieltyâs second week, also caused dismay among some female members of the Late Late production team who were disappointed the former chief medical officer wasnât asked harder questions about the CervicalCheck controversy.
âFemale colleagues felt disgusted,â the source said.
âIt didnât need to be a Newsnight event â but there could have been a harder question or two. So when people say âitâs all gone a bit fluffyâ, thatâs what they mean.
âThe message Janeâs departure sends to the team is: âYou are not allowed to have opinions, and all direction is coming from the top down.ââ
âItâs not just Jane saying she canât do her job, other departments are saying it tooâ
The source also claimed that the set designers asked for their names to be removed from the Late Late Show credits, âbecause they felt it wasnât their set designâ â allegedly due to further âmicro-managementâ changes made by Tyler.
In the credits for Friday nightâs show, numerous aspects of the production were specifically credited to named RTĂ staff members, but the credit for production design was listed as âRTĂ design departmentâ.
âThey were unhappy with the set, with the eyelines, with the desk, with the way it was laid out âand they didnât want their names going on the final credits,â the source said.
âThey said it was like a knock-off of a Jimmy Kimmel [the US chat show host] set. So itâs not just Jane saying: âI canât do my jobâ, other departments are saying it too.
âA lot of people are asking why senior management couldnât have gotten Alan and Jane and Patrick in a room, bash heads together, and come to a resolution.
âI think certain personalities will dig their heels in now. Things will only change when senior management intervenes, and theyâll probably only do that when the numbers drop.â
Viewing figures started strongly, but the trend has been downwards, with an average of 486,000 on September 29.
This weekend, an industry insider who works closely with RTĂ said the âDNAâ of the show was being lost.
âWhen it was at its very best, there was an unwritten contract between the Late Late and the Irish public â that when there is a serious/current affairs interview on the show, it will be thorough and truthful, not just a puff piece of PR for the guest.
âWe trust the presenter to ask the questions they should be asking. That seems to have been lost for a long time now â and I donât know if we will ever get it back.â
In response to questions asked by the Sunday Independent yesterday, RTĂ said: âAs RTĂâs flagship entertainment show, the relaunch of The Late Late Show with Patrick Kielty was of key importance this summer and was of course overseen by group head of entertainment, music and comedy Alan Tyler, working with The Late Late Show team.
âWith such a long-running show, itâs particularly important that we take a fresh look at what the audience want for their Friday nights with their new host. Part of this process involves the programme team asking itself challenging questions, and challenging conventional approaches.
âWeâre delighted that audiences have connected so strongly with the new host and new iteration of the show with the ratings being up year on year.
âWeâre committed to continuing to deliver the best possible live Friday night experience to the audience.â
Why did they drop Donie?
Sounds farcical
Because heâs a fat boring drama queen?
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Strikes me as the type of guest that the LLS audience would enjoy though?
Task for TFK posters today:
Draw up a list of 150 guests for a 30 show series of the Late Late Show.
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Liam Fay slated the LLS in the Sunday Times today
Itâs gas the RTE departments and staff that are struggling so hard with the new regime think they are Uber successful, they fail to accept that THEY were in charge of falling viewer numbers and failing productions prior to this change.
They are delusional and itâs taxpayer and license fee largesse that protects their âbraveâ decisions to quit***
*** quit = stop working on that which they have been assigned to as HR find another hole to peg them in as they remain on payroll
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RTE just seems rotten to the core.
Tubridy is still in the background trying to disrupt Kieltys show.
Can you post that up?
just about to
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Public love for Patrick Kieltyâs hosting is dead after Late Late country special
Fridayâs show made it painfully clear the new-look programme is an old-fashioned disappointment
Sunday October 08 2023, 12.01am BST, The Sunday Times
Patrick Kielty opened the show in a giant cowboy hat and boots
ANDRES POVEDA
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Dead and dying love affairs are the lifeblood of country music. The genreâs biggest hits are break-up songs, plaintive wails of disenchantment, mourning and regret. There was, therefore, something sadly ironic about the creaky ruckus that was The Late Late Show Country Music Special, a would-be hoedown that turned out to be a big letdown.
Amid the tedious din of backslapping blather and humdrum hokum, you could almost hear the incipient strains of a more ominous tune: the death knell for the Irish publicâs short-lived infatuation with Patrick Kieltyâs stewardship of the long-running chat show. The dream is over. The spark is gone.
Four episodes in, it is painfully clear that the new-look Late Late is an old-fashioned disappointment. The rich promise suggested by Kieltyâs first outing as presenter was a false dawn, a trick of the spotlight.
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On that fateful night last month, the Down-born upstart had the insolent air of a determined disrupter on a mission to reboot the series with an edgier sensibility. The initial response was almost universally positive. Viewers wished him well because they wanted a better, smarter, punchier Late Late, a decisive break with the piety and smarm of the Ryan Tubridy era.
In the weeks that have followed, however, the show has casually squandered much of that goodwill as it plodded through the motions and struggled to establish a coherent personality. Drab guest lists, over-laden with overfamiliar local luminaries, and lacklustre interviews have already reduced the programme to reliably missable TV, its waning appeal underscored by rapidly declining ratings. Reports of growing backstage tensions have reinforced the sense that this is a production in drift, if not in crisis.
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The special was billed as a turning point in the revampâs trajectory. It was meant to provide Kielty with a gilded opportunity to showcase his well-honed chops as a clued-in and mischievous entertainer, remaking some of the Late Lateâs tattier rites and rituals in his own cheekier image.
However, from the moment he appeared in an outsize cowboy hat and started drawling in a cod-Texan accent, it was obvious that Kielty and his team had decided to leave no rhinestone clichĂŠ unturned. What ensued over the next wearyingly predictable 90 minutes was a bog-standard Irish cabaret luvvie-fest, exactly the kind of makeweight malarkey that infested the series throughout Tubridyâs tenure.
Later in the show Kielty performed with Gerry Guthrie
ANDRES POVEDA
In truth, the much-touted notion of the country special as a unique platform for rural culture at its most grittily authentic was always a contrived nonsense. Contemporary Irish country music is a slick but synthetic concoction, a bland Ole Opry. Most of the interesting players from the country and western heyday have long since departed to the great singing-pub in the sky, taking almost all of the circuitâs flaky charm and amusing strangeness with them.
In their stead, the scene is dominated by endless ranks of interchangeably beige warblers, and it was from these muzak-merchants that the Late Lateâs producers evidently took their cues.
Music-wise, Fridayâs show rarely rose above mediocre karaoke. Most of the performers were resolutely straitlaced and clean-cut in musical as well as grooming terms, bouffanted smoothies so prim and polite they made Daniel OâDonnell look and sound like Waylon Jennings. But even when the show did turn its attention to the old guard, its prevailing tone was soft-centred and over-sweetened.
The first half hour was filled with a laughably extravagant tribute to Declan Nerney, on the ostensibly prestigious occasion of his induction into the showâs country music hall of fame. We knew it was a richly deserved honour, because Kielty kept telling us so.
The entire cast of the Late Late Country Special
ANDRES POVEDA
Longford-born Nerney is a journeyman of indeterminate age and audacious coiffure who has built an impressively loyal audience. But, for this programmeâs purposes, he was depicted as a combination of Bob Dylan and the Dalai Lama, a musical genius who also happened to be a prophet with miraculous powers.
Lavish homage was paid to Nerneyâs artistic influence and personal charisma by a panel of devotees comprising Una Healy (Nerneyâs niece), Philomena Begley, and Fr Brian DâArcy. All three burbled excitedly but said nothing of note. Their puffery was simultaneously long-winded and entirely vapid.
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Inept storytelling was a hallmark of the programme. Country ânâ Irish stalwarts are supposed to be brilliant raconteurs, overflowing with wild stories about life on the never-ending road. But again and again, we were subjected to the dullest and most rambling anecdotes, not one of which came with a functioning punchline. Worse still, each of these complicatedly pointless yarns was greeted with howls of laughter by the other country VIPs, some of whom literally creased over and slapped their thighs.
Kielty is more comfortable in the company of musicians than Tubridy was. He knows country music and its hinterland in a way his predecessor did not. Heâs also a decent singer, as he demonstrated by duetting with Gerry Guthrie on a feisty version of Alan Jacksonâs Itâs 5 OâClock Somewhere. But itâs precisely because of Kieltyâs familiarity with the territory that much more was expected of him. Beneath the yee-hawing and yahooing, he could hardly have been be unaware that the bulk of the show was a pitiful travesty.
Most of what passes for Irish country music nowadays is a pale facsimile of the real deal, a copy of a copy of a spirited original. Unfortunately, thereâs growing reason to suspect that Kieltyâs Late Late is destined to follow a similar decline, drowning slowly in wishy-washy cover-versions of faded glories.
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Nerney is a karaoke artist really isnât he?
Big Tom, Daniel, Philomena, Sandy Kelly etc had big songs that were associated with them, has he ever had anything like that
Country music is a lifestyle around the border.
Working with Henry McMahon, he has penned songs such as
- Marquee in Drumlish
- Anna from Fermanagh
- Gotta get up in the Morninâ
- Christmas Hooley
- Barry & Dunne
- Three Way Love Affair
- Hooley in the Sun
Not familiar with any of them myself but Three Way Love Affair sounds interesting