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Pat Kenny insists TV3 move ‘isn’t about the money’

Pat Kenny has insisted that his move to TV3 had nothing to do with money.

After it was reported that the veteran broadcaster signed a three-year €500,000 deal with the station – Pat has revealed that his decision wasn’t influenced by money, and that he doesn’t feel under pressure because he has “nothing to prove”.

“It’s certainly not money. It’s basically keeping my skill-set sharp.

“I have nothing to prove. That’s why it’s great. I don’t have anything left to prove. I have been there and done that,” he told the Sunday Independent.

George Hook Book Launch

Change: Pat insists his move to TV3 has nothing to do with money | VIPIRELAND.COM

“I hosted the Late Late Show for 10 years, number one every week for most of that, had Kenny Live for 11 years, The Frontline came along and that was really popular as well, so, you know, I don’t have to show anybody that I can do it.”

Speaking about his time with UTV Ireland, and touching on his programme In The Round being axed, Pat said he has no regrets.

“UTV was obviously in transition. I think they set out with all the best of intentions. Obviously it didn’t quite work out on the financial front because making television and setting up a news-gathering operation, particularly, is very, very expensive.

“I wasn’t upset by anything that we put out there. The programmes that we did – each and every one of them – whether it was Mickey Harte or Lulu, I stand over. I would say if I was to pick out a body of work of mine that I really, really liked over all the things I have done – certainly some of those shows would have been in that archive,” he explained.

Brian O'Driscoll testimonial dinner

No regrets: Pat explained what went wrong with UTV | VIPIRELAND.COM

The former Late Late Show host also blamed his ratings with UTV on poor scheduling.

“You can live and die by ratings but you can live or die by the scheduler. If the scheduler puts you on opposite Eastenders, like, ‘goodbyeee’.

“I think if it went wrong from a scheduling point of view. It may have been opposite the nine o’clock news. That is a difficult slot you know? There is some appointments to view and appointments to listen and they are very difficult to battle against. I mean you would be a mad eejit to schedule anything expensive that you paid a lot of money for against the toy show: forget it. So you have to cut your cloth wisely.”

Speaking about moving to TV3 after working with RTÉ for 41 years, the presenter insisted that he “wasn’t forced out” and that the workload was weighing on him, balancing his time between TV and radio.

Pat Kenny broadcasts from Shelbourne Hotel

Enough: Pat admitted that his RTÉ workload was proving too much for him | VIPIRELAND.COM

“At the end of the day, it was my decision. I wasn’t forced out of RTE. I want to make that clear. I would have preferred to do things slightly differently on the television side. I really wasn’t happy doing potentially three nights a week and getting up early and doing [radio].

“I would have just liked to have been committed to The Frontline one day a week and work hard at doing it well. Because after a weekend of r ‘n’ r you can get through Monday night and then you are a bit knackered on Tuesday but then the rest of the week is fine. When I was working sometimes on a Monday, sometimes Tuesday, sometimes two of those nights or even three, it was wearing and I wanted that to change.

“You have to do justice to the people who are employing you and if you find you are too tired to do a job well, that’s not fair. So I didn’t feel I could go through another year of never knowing whether I was on one night or two nights or three nights of prime time and getting up every morning for the radio show.”

Pat Kenny

New gig: Pat will host a new current affairs programme on TV3 | ANTHONY WOODS 

The 68-year-old’s new current affairs programme, which he will host with Colette Fitzpatrick, will air on Wednesday nights at 9.30pm – rivalling Brendan O’Connor’s show Cutting Edge on RTÉ One.

“There’s a huge momentum around Cutting Edge and around Brendan as a presenter. It kind of caught a lot of people by surprise but it became real water cooler tv really quickly,” an RTÉ executive told the Sunday Independent.

“Brendan built a huge audience on Saturday nights, eventually even beating the Late Late in the ratings. And that was against a background of falling ratings across the board. To grow in that slot, against huge Saturday night competition like X Factor and all those things, was unusual.

“Cutting Edge has an air of unpredictability and a real energy to it. They are taking a big risk putting Pat into that slot. Remember too that though Pat is a legend, UTV put him up against Claire Byrne on Mondays and that was a disaster,” they added.

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