CHAT-SHOW: TV audiences get a new Saturday-night chat-show later this month. Róisín Ingle meets its host, RTÉ's 'geek in shining armour' Ryan Tubridy, and producer Michael Kealy, the secret ingredient in many of Tubridy's successes.
It has been a while since RTÉ made a serious effort to invigorate its Saturday night schedule. Since the demise of Kenny Live five years ago, late viewers on a Saturday have been fed a steady diet of - apart from the mind-bogglingly popular Winning Streak - blockbuster movies and underwhelming home-grown productions.
If it wasn't for Eamon Dunphy's short-lived programme on TV3, it could be argued, Saturday night movies might have stayed on the menu for another few years. In a couple of weeks, however, RTÉ's Ryan Tubridy will go where Bibi Baskin, Sean Moncrieff and, for more than 10 years, his mentor Pat Kenny went before. From October 16th, Tubridy is to host a new hour-long Saturday night chat-show, Tubridy Tonight, going head to head with Parkinson who, having defected from the BBC, is attracting healthy audiences on ITV and TV3.
Had Dunphy gone for the Saturday night slot last year instead of targeting Friday night and the Late Late Show, it's fair to suggest that his programme would still be on air, and 30-year-old Tubridy would not be deprived of future Saturday nights out.
Sources say that RTÉ bosses felt that the Dunphy show had let them off scot-free. Dunphy, they believed, would have faced an open goal if his programme had been scheduled for Saturday night. RTÉ had feared the controversial broadcaster would plug what had grown into a gaping hole in the television schedule. Après Dunphy, they were determined to make an attempt at a credible programme for Saturday night.
Enter Tubridy, the self-described geek in shining armour, who is lining up to reclaim home-produced Saturday night TV for the national channel. The producer of the programme is Michael Kealy, the man who has featured constantly in the rise of RTÉ's shiniest broadcasting star.
Kealy helped devise Morning Glory, the popular Saturday morning Radio 1 programme, with Tubridy, and went on to work with him on The Sunday Show and his award-winning daily breakfast show, The Full Irish, on 2FM. Latterly, Kealy worked on Prime Time for a year and last year, when Dunphy went head to head with Kenny, he moved to The Late Late Show. His latest gig saw him back working with Tubridy on The Rose of Tralee, and he was assigned to the second series of that other Tubridy vehicle, the quiz show All Kinds of Everything.
"I was very keen to have Michael working with me on any TV project I was doing," says Tubridy, sipping coffee with Kealy in the RTÉ canteen. "He is not a plámás merchant - he tells me what needs to be said, and I won't take offence because I know he is just trying to make it better. And the other thing is that he doesn't want to be on the air. He is not somebody going 'God you are crap' just out of spite. There is a bit of it around. There is a curse in radio with a lot of producers wanting to be on-air talent and you are kind of going, 'do one or the other'."
The executive producer is John McHugh, a former employee at Montrose who went on to be commissioning editor at the BBC and Channel 4, where he was involved in various chat-show start-ups including Jonathan Ross and Frank Skinner. "He is a serious chat-show head and brings a wealth of experience with him," says Kealy.
"We all get on very well. When you are working as closely as you have to with a producer, the question I always ask is 'can I go for a pint with them?' and if the answer is no, I would be worried. In this case the answer is yes, so I know we have a good team," says Tubridy.
When devising Tubridy Tonight, both presenter and producer were aware that too many gimmicks would not a watchable chat-show make, but this doesn't mean they aren't daring to be different. The show will include audience texting which the likes of Today FM's Ray D'Arcy and Tubridy himself have employed to good effect on their radio programmes. The Full Irish gets around 1,200 messages per programme, and Tubridy enjoys the democratic nature of texting.
"It doesn't matter how old you are; everyone texts now, which will make it an interactive chat-show," he says. "Whether you are in a convent or in a student flat you can get involved. You can send in a text and say that guest was rubbish, or that you don't think I am very good."
We'll have to see if any such negative messages receive an airing as the fledgling show finds its feet.
Despite enthusing about interactivity and other planned innovations, both Kealy and Tubridy are quick to point out that the chat-show is not rocket science. "When you boil all chat-shows down they are based on the same format. What differentiates a chat-show is the personality of the host, and that's what will make it different from others, The Late Late Show particularly. It will be the Jonathan Ross versus Parkinson thing," says Kealy. "We don't want to come on with bells and whistles; it's just a chat-show. We have a presenter, a house band, which is the Camembert Quartet, and three guests."
"We don't want anyone to say it's going to be continued overleaf
young and quirky and different because it's not. The biggest difference between us and The Late Late is the age gap between the presenters. That is going to make the programme different despite the young fogey factor," says lounge music lover Tubridy, referring to the persona coined for him years ago by his radio producer wife.
"I would be looking at the likes of Conan O'Brien for inspiration. O'Brien has a streak of madness, an almost Pythonesque streak which has 30 per cent of the audience laughing and 70 per cent going 'what?'. I like to keep that 30 per cent happy sometimes."
The set - big desk, city skyline in the background, laid-back gentlemen's club atmosphere - also sounds as though it owes something to US chat-shows, and maybe even to Dunphy's programme, which visually marked a departure from Irish chat-shows that had gone before.
Listeners to his programmes know that Tubridy has some serious interests, including a fascination with American politics, so while they are keeping the lid on their wish-list of guests for the moment (the ubiquitous Hector has been booked), we can expect plenty of what Kealy calls "politainment", although definitely not a Late Late Show dim-the-lights style debate.
Neither of them has been looking back to past Saturday night RTÉ chat-shows as they devised the programme, which is probably just as well. When Kenny left to host The Late Late Show, the transition was handled badly - there was no credible programme ready to take the place of Kenny Live - and the next few years saw RTÉ trying out various formats with varying degrees of success. The last effort at chat on a Saturday night was Saturday Live, which featured guest presenters such as Brian Kennedy, Tracy Piggott and even Eamon Dunphy.
At the time , this was viewed as moderately successful but Kealy and Tubridy will be anxious to avoid the fate of Good Grief Moncrieff, a chat-show in the style of Channel 4's The Word which ran for a summer in 1996. Presented by Sean Moncrieff, who is now with Newstalk 106, the programme received a critical drubbing. Way ahead of its time in terms of content - which included an interview with a transsexual - it ground to a halt after the RTÉ switchboard was jammed with complaints.
Kealy says the feeling in RTÉ at the moment is that since the licence fee hike there is more money on the table now for home-produced shows. "There is a certain amount of money available now where it was just cutbacks and more cutbacks for years," he says. "Now there is a concerted effort to increase our home-produced programmes on the basis that this is the best way to compete with the multi-nationals who are beaming their stuff in by satellite. The more home-grown content we can produce, the more likely we are to survive."
But is it possible to go up against the likes of Parky and survive? "I think so, when you bring in the Irish interest," says Tubridy. "It reminds me of Radio 1 competing with Radio Kerry, which can talk about the local bar that was shut down and also give you the death notices. Radio 1 can't compete with that. And equally Parky can't compete with a good strong Irish guest being interviewed on an Irish channel with an Irish host. I think this will distinguish it from other chat-shows."
"I am really excited about it but like any programme there will be a period of adjustment," says Kealy. "Morning Glory took a while to get going and it was months before The Full Irish got into its stride. We have 10 weeks between the start of the show and Christmas for things to take off."
Tubridy is also quietly pleased about the support that is coming to the show from RTÉ's top brass, despite persistent rumours that the Late Late team are making it extremely difficult for the Tubridy Tonight team to secure decent guests. "You can feel it from above. They really want this to work," he says. "I would be the first to say when there is not enough support for something but they are pulling out all the stops this time, and that makes you confident."
Tubridy recently bought a DVD of Alan Partridge and watched about four episodes to remind himself how it shouldn't be done. "It's extraordinary. There are elements of every chat-show that's on the air in it. I was watching his introductions like 'my next guest has dined with kings', the way he walks on, the way he puts his hands in the air. Scary stuff."
The prospect of a prime-time live television slot must be scary, too, but Tubridy is confident that he can make Saturday night his own. "People are saying oh, you'll be the next Gay Byrne or the next whatever, and I say, no, I will be the first me, whatever that is. I hope that doesn't sound arrogant," he says. "I have my own personality. Of course I will borrow bits, like a magpie, but I am not going to steal a personality and say he did it like this and so will I. I won't be saying [adopts scarily good Gay Byrne voice] 'well done, well done' or anything. I will take advice wherever I can get it and I have been given valuable advice from Gay on a number of occasions. But I am just going to be me."
Tubridy Tonight begins on Saturday October 16th at 9.30 p.m. on RTÉ1