[chinamug]

I can see your logic but I hope that doesn’t happen because while the Late Late Show certainly needs to be reformed it does still work best live. There’s an electricity to a live show that I believe you simply can’t replicate when it’s recorded.

Well unless Patrick is willing to have to do a two hour live show on a Friday, ending before midnight, and then getting less than say 5 or 6 hours sleep before getting up to do his radio show the next day, I feel my logic is what will happen. 

Patrick is paid a nice handsome salary for his weekly BBC show, a salary which is currently under the £150,000 a year mark, as Patrick's salary is not published each year, as the BBC has to reveal star salaries over £150,000 from the licence fee - so I have heard he is on a £100,000 a year deal with the BBC - nice salary for 40 Saturdays work a year, 2 hours a week.

He's not some old fella that needs days to recover. A few people I know have done live broadcasts on a regular basis till 1am in the morning and then been back up to do a Breakfast show 6 hours later. It's tiring yes, but it's only one night a week. I would think Millions across the UK and Ireland have worked late and then gone back into work 8 hours later for far less than Patrick will be getting at far harder jobs. He is likely to be RTE's highest earner on 400,000 or more. Money talks so if one show was to be recorded it would be the BBC show.

However, The most likely outcome is that he continues to do the show on BBC Radio 5 live from Dublin or maybe Belfast. Graham Norton has done his show on Virgin from the Local Station in Bandon, Cork (C103) on loads of occasions. It's not a new practice either, Both Terry Wogan and Gay Byrne did shows for the BBC Light, and BBC Radio One and Two Live from Dublin in the 60's.

The great thing about Radio (Or it was until Studio Cameras popped up) was that you could arrive in looking terrible but as long as you sounded normal you were fine. Plus if you don't tell listeners where you're broadcasting from, they'll just assume you're at the normal studio.

As for the Late Late not being live, if it's recorded it's nothing different to any other chat show. I would assume they'll shorten it slightly but probably keep it running for 90-100 minutes so that roughly the same amount can be made from advertising.

I'd assume advertising was the reason Ryan quit/was asked to move on. Ratings are way down over the last twelve months, and that has to be turned around sharpish.