It’s never too Late Late to take on Tubs and Norton
Pat Kenny gets set to return to TV with new UTV Ireland chat show
PAT KENNY will reprise his chat show role next year when he hosts a new Late Late style programme for UTV Ireland.
Unlike Tubridy, Pat will prerecord his show which is to ensure that he can entice a high calibre of guests and to have a minimum impact on his already jam-packed working life.
It had been mooted that the former Prime Time anchor would front a hard-hitting current affairs series. But while his flagship show will in fact be a chat show, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal that the station also plans to have Pat as its frontman for elections, budgets and other big set-piece news items, which will make it a serious
‘A show doesn’t have to be live to be a success’
competitor for the other channels.
UTV Ireland invited five independent production companies to tender a bid to produce the new light entertainment show.
This week all five submitted their varying plans and a decision will be made over the coming weeks.
The broadcaster is keeping mum on what night the show will be broadcast and, according to one source, may run the show mid-week.
‘The five tenders are in so all the details will be finalised relatively soon,’ a well-placed source said.
‘It is going to be a pre-record which is a bonus because it will be a more polished and produced affair. Graham Norton has shown that a show doesn’t have to be live to be a success. The main point that was left out of the brief that UTV issued to the production companies was the night that the show would go out.
‘My understanding is that they may not bother taking on the Friday or Saturday night audiences. There are five other nights out there with huge TV audiences to go for. Why bother taking on an institution like the Late Late Show or even the Saturday Night Show when there is a huge and relatively untapped audience available Sunday to Thursday. And as Love/Hate proved, there is a massive audience watching television outside of Friday and Saturday.’
The source also revealed that UTV are aiming to have a ‘really new format for the Irish market’. The plan is to have Pat do ‘something very special early in the life of the channel, something that is not what he normally does’, though they would not be drawn on what that will be. A UTV spokesman said: ‘Mary Curtis, UTV Ireland’s head of channel, put the show out to tender last week to a select number of companies that we thought might be the right fit. The format has not yet been decided but Mary will sit down with the companies next week.’