OPINION: Bring back Tubridy! The Late Late Show is unwatchable with Patrick Kielty as host

RTE is an organisation in freefall. The events of the last year, and even this week, bear that out with fears it could be insolvent before next March without funding intervention. The Late Late Show has always been a microcosm of the broadcaster; for so long an indelible institution and a constant in an ever-changing social and media landscape. 

The Late Late is iconic despite all the criticism. If you asked someone to name ten of th emost uniquely Irish things, the Late Late would be one of them. The All-Ireland, Guinness, Tayto, the Rose of Tralee; there are some things that are just symbols of Irishness. The Late Late was creating watercooler moments before watercooler moments were a thing. It trended in workplaces, pubs and outside Mass long before Facebook or Twitter or X or whatever it's called these days were feeding us our topics of conversation. 

In the week Kevin Bakhurst was back before the Oireachtas and RTE appears still to be teetering on the brink of relative extinction. They're looking to Government, aka the taxpaper, to save them. It's Oliver Twist asking Mr Bumble for more gruel if Oliver was giving cheek at the same time of reaching out his bowl with that longing look on his face. RTE seems unrepentant for creating its own financial mess as it goes looking for handouts. 

The months of turmoil over the Ryan Tubridy payments scandal, the talk of barter accounts and apparent reckless spending of taxpayers money have soured public opinion and shown up the organisation as an utter failure, not just in corporate governance. Maybe somebody should tell the people in charge that's the atmosphere their freefalling through before they appear before the Oireachtas again, cap in hand.

For a long time viewers have complained about the same old faces and show repeats while they fork out €160 on a TV licence. Oh, and let's not mention the RTE Player that doesn't work properly, or the effective partnership of RTE and the GAA to put so many games from our national sport behind a paywall. Dee Forbes long-called for a new, beefed up licence fee; more money for Champions League trips and Bruce Springsteen concerts for RTE bigwigs and their commercial chums; that's the public image and the attitude that has rightly surrounded the broadcaster this year. 

Now let's get back to the Late Late. Unfortunately for Patrick Kielty, the world's longest-running chat show is still a microcosm of RTE, but in its current creaking guise, that's far from a good thing. Kielty is a great broadcaster, personality and figurehead for the show, but he's got both hands tied behind his back, or so it seems. 

The first few weeks of his tenure as host have been tumultuous. Apparently a senior producer has left the show and there are various forces at play behind the scenes. The tensions and differing opinions on the direction of the show are all a bit cosmetic because so little has changed. How much control is Kielty being given in the production of a show that is still getting half a million viewers a week?

It's a cliche at this stage but the idea that the sofa is filled each week via a round-up in the RTE canteen has never been more accurate. The country music special was a carbon copy of ones that have gone before. The same faces, same stories, tired old gags and cowboy hats. And that's coming from a fan of country music. 

I'm not going to take a chip off every guest that's appeared in the new series so far because that wouldn't be fair, but standing back and looking at the format, it's probably disimproved. They've brought in a bizarre version of a Graham Norton sofa whereby three different guests appear together for the first part of the show. One week saw Nina Carberry, Carl Frampton and Joe Wicks side by side. It would appear the only thing they have in common is physical exercise, one being an online trainer, the others a jockey and a boxer. The lack of chemistry made for an awkward bumbling opening to the show, and that's no reflection on those individuals at all. 

That format can work where guests interact and, for want of a better word, partake in a bit of 'banter'. That's not what's been happening on the Late Late. Guests are interviewed individually and just so happen to be sitting on the stage at the same time. Mary McAleese appeared alongside Tommy, Hector and Laurita Blewitt a few weeks ago and that was equally flat. All great guests, but why they fit together, I don't know. The choices for that group interview seem totally random. It's as if the show is scrambling for guests and then shoehorning them into this 'new' format. Joe Wicks seems to have been a complete afterthought and was invited on because he happened to be in Ireland that week - hardly inspiring criteria. 

I grew up watching the Late Late and it's had good weeks and bad weeks for years, but it's now unwatchable almost every week. I've watched the first few episodes of the Kielty era and wondered when it's going to show his personal stamp on it. Back in the day, his own chat show was daring and rambunctious, funny and impactful, all the things the Late Late is crying out for. 

One of these days I'm just going to stop watching. I'm a Man United fan and watching the Late Late is very much like watching them in recent years. They've been off the boil for a decade and yet there I am every week watching and raging at the telly willing things to change. I don't know anyone younger than me that watches the Late Late with any sort of regularity, bar the Toy Show. The whole show is stale and the change of presenter hasn't rejuvenated it. 

In the headline of this piece I say 'bring back Tubridy' and in a way I'm being facetious because the show wasn't fantastic with Tubs in the hotseat. In 15 years, he was able to put somewhat of a stamp on it and he earned a following for that. Patrick Kielty should be able to do the same and I believe he can, but he's hamstrung by the fact the organisation producing the show is falling down around him.