It’s no joke... Tommy is the king of chat!

COMEDIAN Tommy Tiernan has come out on top in RTÉ’s Saturday night chat show face-off.

The 50-year-old just finished up his first stint at the helm of the prime-time TV slot with more than 400,000 viewers, beating fellow presenter Ray D’Arcy.

The first episode of The Tommy Tiernan Show drew in 332,000 viewers, which jumped to 398,000 the following week.

Then he got a big viewer boom on February 29 when a massive 480,000 people tuned in to see his conversation with Bob Geldof.

While it dipped slightly the following week, he still attracted 448,000 viewers.

The unique format of Tommy’s show could be why it has proved such a ratings winner. Every week, neither he nor the audience has any clue as to who the guests are going to be, before they walk out on stage, allowing no time for preparation and resulting in unexpected lines of questioning.

Other standout guests throughout this series included President Michael D Higgins and Ted and Katie Walsh, while the last episode featured actor Colm Meaney, singer Róisín Murphy, and Mark Boyle, who lives without money, technology or running water. These latest figures could cause RTÉ radio and TV star D’Arcy some concern. In September, D’Arcy’s first Saturday night show saw him pull in just 222,300 viewers – a drop of more than 74,000 on his first episode in 2018, which drew in 296,000.

However, when the chat show host first took over the slot he was also getting audiences of around half-a-million, so the changed ratings could be attributed to viewer fatigue with D’Arcy or beginner’s luck for Tiernan.

Ray originally took over from Brendan O’Connor, who was removed from the prime-time show in 2015, despite audiences tipping the 500,000 mark.