Patrick Kielty
WHILE THERE has been plenty of media coverage of the gap between the pay packet for the incoming host of The Late Late Show, Patrick Kielty and the rather well remunerated Ryan Tubridy, the saving will not be all it’s cracked up to be.
When the recent RTÉ drama was in full flow and attention turned to the reward that had tempted Kielty on board to replace Tubs, the comedian and TV presenter revealed that he would be paid an impressive enough €250,000 for 30 episodes a year.
Goldhawk was curious about any outside players who would be brought into Montrose for the TLLS gig and how any RTÉ personnel would need to be redeployed in this situation.
RTÉ told Goldhawk that “the broadcaster’s deputy head of content with the head of entertainment decide on the in-house entertainment programmes… Alan Byrne, director of The Late Late Show has been assigned to a large-scale television and cross-media event to be broadcast later this autumn, that will formally bring the state’s Decade of Centenaries programme to a close. He will return to direct Ireland’s biggest TV event of the year, The Late Late Toy Show, in November and will direct The Late Late Show from January.”
What all this means is that Kielty’s pal, Stephen Stewart, of Green Inc Film & Television will direct TLLS for the last four months of this year. Stewart is unlikely to come cheap and he made his name working on Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, the hugely successful ITV show. He has also worked for RTÉ in the past, albeit with rather less success. For example, he was involved with Claire Byrne’s underwhelming Ireland’s Smartest quiz show.
RTÉ confirmed that Stewart’s remuneration will be separate to Patrick Kielty’s €¼m and will ensure the savings, initially at least, are a little less than suggested.
