Late Late far from the only game in town come September

The stage will soon be set afresh for a glorious Irish talent to entertain the viewing nation, secure a next-level career breakthrough and take their opportunity to triumph over fierce competition, though the odds may be stacked against their ultimate success.

But enough about the Rugby World Cup, what about Patrick Kielty hosting The Late Late Show?

Alas, only one of these two events is a guaranteed banker according to the cold, hard metric of audience size and it is not the next iteration of the RTÉ chat show.

Kielty’s arrival and the narrative his Late Late generates from the outset is destined to intertwine with the much-awaited rugby tournament, not least because one of the words of note in RTÉ's statement confirming a deal had been sealed with the presenter was “September”.

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For sure, in normal circumstances, the Late Late would be expected to return on September 1st to capture those autumnal back-to-school vibes and deliver Friday night eyeballs to advertisers already stepping up their marketing spends in the long run-up to Christmas.

But with the Rugby World Cup set to begin just a week later on September 8th as hosts France take on New Zealand at 8.15pm Irish time and games then overlapping with the Late Late’s usual 9.35pm slot for another five out of the seven Fridays that follow, a decision to delay its 61st season would not have been completely shocking.

Instead, though an exact start date and time has not been specified, RTÉ director of content Jim Jennings has clearly used the “S” word: “Patrick’s personality and passion is sure to connect with audiences and I look forward to it bursting on to screens in September.”

Ratings honeymoon

The unavoidable issue for RTÉ, and more acutely for Kielty, is that his personality and passion is not the only thing that will be bursting on to screens.

If the Late Late does return with its regenerated host on September 1st, the curiosity factor should propel his first show to a decently-sized viewership, if not perhaps the giddy heights of the 927,000 viewers Ryan Tubridy attracted for his 2009 debut.

But although the first four of the six games that clash with the normal scheduling for the Late Late don’t involve Ireland, and the other two (a semi-final and the third-place playoff) only might do, the Rugby World Cup threatens to spoil Kielty’s ratings honeymoon.

For advertisers, this multi-genre pile-up at a key time of the year should only enhance the appeal of television as the place to run big-budget campaigns. It’s hard to top the draw of a tournament in which Ireland is a contender and that is also being held in a convenient time zone over a span of almost two months.

[ The economics of the Late Late Show: The perils of reinventing a €6m cash cow ]

Indeed, from RTÉ's perspective, this could easily be filed away in the “nice problem to have” cabinet were it not for the fact that it doesn’t have the Rugby World Cup broadcast rights alone: it is sharing them with Virgin Media Television.

The joint rights deal, announced the same week Tubridy said he was off, makes a lot of sense. Split the games, split the costs, simulcast the final. It is the arrangement that likely would have emerged in 2019 had Eir not outbid the pair to become the primary rights holder and then subsequently agreed a sub-licensing deal with RTÉ for the main games.

But for Kielty it could complicate matters, denting his audience momentum just as he’s trying to find his feet in his big new job.

A slightly later than typical start time for the Late Late after games requiring only minimal post-whistle analysis would, in theory, allow his show to inherit the audience garnered by the rugby in a scenario where it aired on RTÉ One.

But it has not yet been announced which games RTÉ will be broadcasting and which are Virgin’s territory, and, in any case, according to the brief it sent out to potential tournament sponsors, RTÉ plans to show its portion of the rights on RTÉ2 – its traditional home for sport – and the RTÉ Player.

Even if Ireland is not involved, the last two weekends in October look especially distraction-filled, with the two semi-finals and then the “bronze” game and final scheduled for consecutive Friday and Saturday nights.

Sliding path

Viewership of linear television channels has been on a sliding path. The Late Late is ending its Tubridy era with a season in which average ratings have bounced around from 340,000 to 550,000 (excluding the Toy Show), according to TAM Ireland/Nielsen figures provided by marketing group Core. These are figures that would have filled Montrose with horror only a decade or so ago.

So, the next host was always going to have their work cut out to avoid being perceived as a failure, no matter how sparkling their performance or clever their tactics. In sport, there is always an unequivocal winner. In television, that’s not the case anymore.

Responsibility for Kielty’s bid to beat the odds in this increasingly hostile arena lies with Jennings plus incoming RTÉ director general Kevin Bakhurst, director of audience, channels and marketing Adrian Lynch and group head of entertainment and music Alan Tyler, a Scotsman and former BBC executive who joined RTÉ last year.

It is Kielty himself, however, who is absorbing most of the upfront career risk here. The possibility of being humbled by live sport is one that he will know he could do without.

Tubridy’s assessment, both diplomatic and genuine seeming, that he “has the chops” to tackle the show is spot on. But this selection is still a gamble and there will be little time to warm up. With those rugby fellas preparing to leave it all out on the pitch, Kielty is going to have to hit the ground running and leave it all out on the studio floor.