Ryan Tubridy has delivered his biggest bombshell since he swore at a bottle of Fanta on the Late Late Toy Show. Twelve days after tying the knot with former Rose of Tralee Clare Kambamettu, the former RTÉ star has revealed he is stepping down from his midmorning slot on Virgin Radio in the UK and will host a new YouTube show.
Yes, YouTube. A platform best known for live streamers who need a shower, ASMR artists who need a life and whatever it is MrBeast does, is about to be drawn into the Ryan Tubridy expanded universe. It’s a surprise – but is it also a step down for a personality who was once one of Ireland’s highest-paid broadcasters?
That might not be the case. While YouTube is still synonymous with niche content and nattering oddballs, it is also increasingly regarded as the future of broadcasting. That is what Tubridy will hope as he counts down to the debut at an unspecific date next year of The Late Show with Ryan Tubridy.
The title is a wink to his 14 years at the helm of the Late Late Show, though the format is very different. The new series will see him “look back” at the lives of well-known figures in film, music, sport and television. He will chat with journalists and authors who have in-depth knowledge of the individual at hand, and the interviews will be broadcast on YouTube and Times Radio, part of Rupert Murdoch’s News UK media empire.
READ MORE
Tubridy is also developing a new show for talkSPORT – likewise owned by News UK – and in Ireland, he will front a new weekend programme across the Onic network, including Dublin’s Q102, Cork’s 96FM, Limerick’s Live 95 and LMFM.
These announcements follow suggestions that Tubridy was set for a return to RTÉ as the new anchor of the arts and culture show Arena. But RTÉ dismissed claims that it was lining him up as a permanent successor to the late Seán Rocks (Rick O’Shea is presently hosting Arena on an interim basis). Despite official denials, rumours of a Montrose comeback are likely to intensify given that the contract of Tubridy’s Late Late successor, Patrick Kielty, is up for renewal in 2026.
Kielty has not spoken about his future. Should he wish to step away from the Late Late, might Tubridy be the natural candidate? Tubridy has certainly worked at mending his bridges with RTÉ. Over the summer, he had repaid the €150,000 he received through the notorious “barter account” – the scandal that led to his departure from Ireland in the first place.
Such speculation may be premature given that Kielty could well still be making up his mind whether he wishes to stick or twist on the Late Late. Moreover, YouTube has the potential to attract a far larger audience than an ailing Friday night variety show.
Tubridy will be aware of the success his friend Piers Morgan has had with his stand-alone YouTube show, Piers Morgan Uncensored. As with Tubridy’s forthcoming Late Show, Uncensored was initially bankrolled by News UK, which paid Morgan a reported £50 million (€57 million) over three years before he secured the rights to it from the company. Morgan has revealed that he was convinced to “go full-fledged” on YouTube after observing his children’s viewing habits.
“All of them watch YouTube,” he said. “None of them watch actual television, other than for live sport. Until a year ago, I was trudging into an old-fashioned, structured, 8pm live news show, when in fact there was no need to do that. It was a very expensive way of disseminating something I can do to a global audience, a lot cheaper – but also much faster and much longer.”
Tubridy’s Virgin Radio show was not a runaway success (just 24,000 listened to its broadcast on Q102 in Ireland), and he was earning a lot less than the half a million he was at one point receiving from RTÉ (his Virgin salary was estimated to be in the range of €57,550 to €92,000). In the cut-throat world of British morning radio, he was perhaps a bit too old-school to succeed. But YouTube is big enough for all sorts of talents – or so Tubridy will hope as the “Toy Man” attempts to become the “YouTube Man” and reinvent himself all over again.
