PROFILE/Joe Duffy: Listening to callers seems to be one of his greatest strengths - and in turn, Joe Duffy's audience is tuning in to 'Liveline' in increasing numbers, pushing the former student rebel to the top of the RTÉ radio star list, writes Emmet Oliver
I had a woman on there, from . . . eh . . .Clontarf.
She was saying they were on holiday over there in . . . eh . . . Scandinavia and the ketchup bottles weren't . . . well . . . red, they were white!
Is that right? Go on.
That must be very confusin' for them Scandinavians.
Ah it is. Terrible confusin'.
Dateline - Montrose, 1.47 p.m.
Lunch over, the nation clears its throat, gathers its thoughts, taps in the number and rings one Joseph Duffy. Maybe he'd like to hear about those peculiar ketchup bottles and how they're red in some countries and white in others. "Yeah, right . . . go on. You're joking me. Ah stop, go way out of that," says Duffy.
Well not really. Duffy has never done an item on RTÉ's Liveline about ketchup bottles, at least not recently. The above take-off from the Après Match team is clearly well observed. Duffy is understood to enjoy the take-off, regarding imitation as flattery by another name.
Satirists, media pundits and snobs like to mock Duffy's oversized jumpers (even though he rarely wears them), his apparent ability to listen to endless banalities and his high-pitched laugh. But serious radio people, and management out in RTÉ, don't poke much fun his way these days.
As was evident in this week's JNLR/MRBI radio figures, Duffy is a serious RTÉ brand name, able to deliver a listenership of 365,000, making Liveline the fourth most popular show on Irish radio. Ah go on, indeed.
Duffy is certainly riding high and symbolically this week his show squeezed past Today with Pat Kenny in the JNLR/MRBI ratings for 2002. His team were delighted with this, as the two shows are keenly competitive even though several hours separate them in the schedules.
The show has improved greatly in recent years because of a new emphasis on sourcing its material via its massive audience, but Duffy's persona has no doubt contributed.
While listeners phone in to his show, his patient listening skills (he was a social worker in a previous life) have made him a sort of national shrink, where people willingly tell him their woes, however mundane from a sort of broadcasting couch.
"When we were researching Joe for our sketch, the first thing I noticed was how uniquely Irish the show was. It discussed everything from the price of rashers to how death can affect a family," says Risteárd Cooper of Après Match.
While he finds Duffy's trademark laugh hard to take ("he sounds like he is being attacked by somebody"), he admits the programme could never be replicated anywhere else.
The sheer ordinariness of Duffy's radio world, however, may be the magic ingredient. A senior RTÉ manager, who has known Duffy for many years believes this to be so.
"Joe gives listeners the space. They know he is really listening. Unlike other programmes, Joe will not denigrate the concerns of any listener, however off-centre their ideas might be."
Duffy's ability to roll with the populist punches, to sweep from tea-bags to Iraq in a few minutes, is certainly a strength, and this skill most likely comes from his background in Ballyfermot and his early experience of radio broadcasting via Gay Byrne.
"He learned a lot from Gay, they would have similar interests and instincts, although there would obviously be an age gap. They would both be rather disdainful of snobby broadcasters who talk down to the public," says one RTÉ insider.
Duffy's easy-going manner and natural feeling for ordinary Dubs has carried him far, through turbulent student days in Trinity College (he even spent time in jail during this period) into social work and then ultimately into a high profile role with one of Dublin 4's most prominent residents, RTÉ.
Where he goes from here is probably the most interesting question.
With triplets to rear and a hectic family life, his colleagues say the man is always on the move. His broad Dublin accent, which once may have been a disadvantage, is probably a plus in a radio universe dominated by bland mid-Atlanticists.
Duffy's left-leaning politics from his days in Trinity College have not left him, say colleagues - and politics is always an option. Several parties have approached him over the years - mostly informally - and who is to say something political might not appeal to him.
Certainly his time in Trinity College gave him a taste for public speaking and rousing a crowd. "Trinity College is a wart on the arse of the educational establishment and it must be lanced," was one of his favourite phrases.
His particularly high-profile role in highlighting educational disadvantage has won him many friends, although some of the senior figures in Trinity believe he has been a little unfair to them at times.
One senior TCD academic says: "Joe knows how to highlight an issue and we have taken a lot of stick from him, but that is Joe. He is not someone to do things quietly or behind the scenes, he never was. He thrives on stirring it up."
That part of Duffy's personality was always going to lead to broadcasting, some would suggest. But his penchant for doing things in a glaring way can be off-putting.
Duffy's role in the World Cup team's homecoming party last summer in the Phoenix Park was toe-curling to many observers.
While the team had done well, some felt that Duffy's excitable presentation of the event was a little out of kilter after the acrimony of the Saipan saga. The players themselves clearly felt a little bit uncomfortable, but RTÉ figures defend Duffy's role. "Joe does things big, if he MCs an event like that, he is going to give it everything, that's just the way he is."
Duffy's supporters dismiss the Phoenix Park line of criticism as more carping from the chattering classes of south Dublin, who have always resented Duffy, seeing him as a jumped-up Johnny rather than a rough and talented diamond.
If he sticks with RTÉ, a career in television could be an option, although some of RTÉ's prominent radio stars have failed to make that particular leap. RTÉ Radio 1 is also not likely to be letting him go any time soon.
Along with Gerry Ryan, Duffy would be the most likely to move into one of the two prime slots on RTÉ Radio 1 if either Marian Finucane or Pat Kenny decided to change direction.