Styles of Byrne and Kenny
Kenny's career has been extensive, having been a continuity announcer, radio disc jockey, television current affairs presenter, subsequently anchor and chat show host. His early radio career mirrored that of Byrne's, but Kenny's repertoire is much broader than that of Byrne, as witnessed by Byrne always being in entertainment and never in current affairs. Byrne described himself as an entertainer first.
Initially Kenny was perceived, by a critic, as being unsuited to the field of light entertainment as this description of Kenny Live! stated: "The fact is that Pat Kenny, is unsuited to the type of showbiz knockabout which Gay Byrne is so at home with.":
Kenny has described his style:
"Do you want bland television where everything you hear reinforces your own view, or do you want to be challenged? I favour the latter. I like to challenge people. You might get angry and pick up the phone to Joe Duffy, or you might complain to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission; that's great. It means you're involved in the argument in some way".
Due to his long association with the show, Byrne in his autobiography seemed to almost have proprietarial rights, having been both producer and presenter of the show. Kenny was the subject of much media criticism for his takeover from Byrne.
In autumn 2003, The Late Late Show had a competitor in the Friday evening time slot, with the arrival of competing television chat programme, The Dunphy Show, hosted by controversial broadcaster Eamon Dunphy on RTÉ's main rival TV3. However, The Dunphy Show failed to achieve expected viewership figures and was scrapped in December 2003 after 14 episodes.
In October 2011, Gay Byrne said the idea that he and Pat were competing in some sort of rivalry was "bloody rubbish". John Bowman's history of RTÉ Television contains a quote from chief executive Vincent Finn from when Kenny asked for to be paid more money. "In many ways," Mr Finn told the RTE Authority, "he believes he is better than Gay Byrne." Bowman stood by this in a radio interview on Kenny's show, saying that the revelations in which Finn said Kenny “feels very strong about the Gay Byrne thing” were contained in the RTÉ Authority archives.
Read more about this topic: Pat Kenny
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