Pat Kenny’s full interview with Newstalk — Transcript

All right Pat, I'm going to let you say it. You have some news to announce, so tell us the news.

Well, the big news is that I have signed up to News Talk. I'm going to be presenting a mid-morning program on News Talk starting on September the 2nd, and I'm so excited about the prospect, I cannot tell you.

Four and a half weeks time, Monday, September the 2nd, 10:00 in the morning, Pat Kenny's on News Talk.

Yeah, for two and a half hours until 12:30, that's the plan.

How, um, okay, so many questions come to mind. First, how long have you worked at RT?

Oh, for four decades, 40 years, man and boy. I joined as a continuity announcer.

Then moved into children's television, happily not too many images of that time remain, but that's where I cut my teeth learning television programs, and then I moved on to reading the news, and then features programs on radio and television, ultimately presenting a program called Today Tonight, which is the equivalent of Prime Time today, then the Eurovision Song Contest in 1988, which led to Kenny Live, which I did for 11 years, that brought me into television entertainment, meantime I'm doing mid-morning radio on Radio 1, then the Late Late Show, and then The Frontline.

So, every so often I've chopped and changed because I, I, it's not that I get bored, I don't, but I'm always anxious to kind of have a new challenge for myself, and each of those milestones represented a massive challenge.

This is big, I mean, this is possibly the biggest change for you personally, today.

Well, I thought it would never happen. I mean, that I would be looking at a situation where I could remain with RT, but also someone else wanted me. Two offers on the table, um, I just thought at this stage of my life, if you're, if you're going to do it at all, you got to do it now.

Pat, the question that's going to linger even after they've listened to this news and digested it is why now and why News Talk?

Well, I think News Talk has great ambitions. I think it's a station that's growing. Um, it's an adventure, I think I can be part of now, I can help, help it grow. But fundamentally, I have always felt that there should be a market for talent, be they producers, researchers, uh, on-air presenters, reporters, there should be a market for talent.

There should be flux. I mean, people learn in one place, go on and use that experience somewhere else. Um, and I think, uh, with today's decision on my part, it, it demonstrates that there is a market out there for talent.

Well, this is going to be the biggest move between the two that you've talked about.

Well, if you go back, you can go back to Ian Dempsey, uh, you can look at Ray D'Arcy, uh, doing things, but you don't even have to look to, uh, between the media. For example, you can go to print and look at Matt Cooper, who moved from being predominantly a print journalist. You've got, uh, George Hook, uh, who's on later in the day, uh, who works also on RT Television. So, there, there is a lively flux. I think people will be surprised. They would think I'm a lifer in, uh, RT. But, I mean, there's nothing like surprising people. Um, when I left the Late Late Show, that was a big surprise for people, and then The Frontline was born, and that was something else and something exciting, and something that kept me really, really engaged.

People are going to say, okay, Pat's passionate about radio and he's going to transfer that passion to News Talk, we can understand that. But the television side of things, are you giving up prime time?

Is that what you're saying, or do you know what's happening?

Well, what I've said about television is that I have no immediate plans. Uh, I hope to return to screens, um, in what capacity, I don't know. I mean, that's up for discussion with anyone who's interested in, in talking to me.

But I, I don't want to work with the same intensity of, uh, say two programs a week for 40 weeks of the year. Um, that is quite demanding. What happens at that point is that, you know, you, you get home at midnight, say, from a, a prime time, you're tired, you're up at 6:30 in the morning the following day. Um, when you do that twice a week, it's fine for the first three or four weeks. When you start doing that over 10 weeks, 20 weeks, 30 weeks, 40 weeks, uh, you begin to question whether you can do everything well, as well as you'd like. And, and that's, you know, that's an element that feeds into my decision.

Inevitably, uh, people are going to say that this money comes into this as well. RT has suffered cuts. People are going to say, Pat's gone to News Talk, Denis O'Brien and Communicorp must have driven a truck of money to his house to get him.

No, that's absolutely not true. The truck hasn't arrived yet, if that's the case. Uh, I had two offers on the table. The money was not the overriding factor at all. RT made me a very generous offer, uh, to continue. But I weighed it up, discussed it with the family, and, um, they kind of detected the enthusiasm I had for fundamental change. The easiest thing in the world would have been to stay put, everything in place, a team that I'm familiar with, whose skills and talents I recognize and appreciate. Um, and then, um, magic drops, serendipity, whatever you can throw in to make, to make it work. I just thought, at this stage of my life, if you're, if you're going to do it at all, you got to do it now.

So, inevitably, you're going to ask people to come with you from 10:00 in the morning until 12:30 now on News Talk, Pat Kenny, but why should they? What can they expect?

Well, if they have liked what I do, I hope they will find me wherever I am. Uh, in television, for example, if you find a program which is available on any one of the Sky channels and on one of the terrestrials, it could be something like reruns of Friends, or it could be Suits, which you can find on, on one of the Sky channels and also on RT2.

Um, you ask them tomorrow morning, what did you watch it on? And they may not be able to tell you. They, they remember they saw that program. Now, there are some brands which are, uh, totally central to TV. If you watch Prime Time, it's clearly RT. But a lot of other stuff, people don't know where they found it, they just know they like the product.

And I'm hoping that they will slide up the dial from the upper 80s to the 106s and, uh, find me there, and find a product that is of the same quality or better than the one that I was doing down in the 80s, and that that, uh, elusive thing, the kitchen radio, um, will, will be retuned, not necessarily all day. There's lots of good stuff on all the channels. Uh, not necessarily all day, but that, that it will be a familiar thing for people who may not have discovered, uh, News Talk at that time of the day, that they will find me there and, uh, stay and enjoy it.

What, what are we going to get off Pat Kenny on News Talk that we haven't had from Pat Kenny for, for four decades?

I mean, what are you looking for?

Well, I presume News Talk want me because they like what I, what I have done.

So, there, there will be hopefully the same rigor, the same discipline, the same curiosity. If you had asked me what do, do I regard as my single greatest asset in broadcasting, it is a curiosity that is undimmed. Um, curiosity about people, about politics, about, uh, everything from psychology to gynecology. I am a very curious individual. If I'm on a train and there's someone sitting opposite me, I can guarantee you by the end of the train journey, I will know everything about them and they possibly will know nothing about me.

It's just the way I'm built. Um, so I'm going to bring all of that with me to, to News Talk.

Um, and, you know, we will be creating a program. I don't know what it's going to contain yet. This is, this is fairly new to me as well. Um, it will be designed, it'll be a work in progress. We'll be trying to innovate. If it doesn't work, we'll throw it out. If it does work, we'll, we'll do more of it. We'll try and find, uh, voices maybe that haven't been heard on, on radio before. Um, it's, uh, as I say, that's the exciting bit. You know, you've got a blank page, you bring a certain set of skills to it, and then, um, magic drops, serendipity, whatever you can throw in to make, to make it work.

It's brave. Uh, it's brave to leave somewhere. As you said, people would expect to maybe as a buy, buy notes, even if it would make it into the media, Pat has re-signed for RT. People would expect, that's the story that's expected until the news that you've just told us, uh, reaches ears. Are you nervous? When you discussed it with your wife and family, are you nervous about a change after being in one place for so long?

Not particularly, no. Um, I mean, the strange thing, you asked me about television earlier. Um, the one thing I can say is I've done so much television over the years that, uh, you know, building a brand identity where television is a really big help is not something I require. I mean, anyone who's over 10 years of age, uh, the younger ones know me from the Toy Show and the Late Late, you know. Now, the next generation coming up will know Ryan Tubridy as Mr. Toy Show. But virtually anywhere in the country where I go, I am recognized. If I'm sitting in a restaurant, people come over and say hello. If I'm in a pub, people try to buy me more drink than is wise, but want photographs taken and so on. It's, it, it, I don't need to build an identity. So, part of the whole thing of leaving behind, um, the, the familiar vehicles is in a sense that I, I don't need those things anymore. I don't need to be on television. I haven't got a burning desire to be on television. I don't need, you know, to get name recognition or face recognition on the street. I don't need that. Um, so it makes, it makes it easier to kind of leave something behind where already the, the foundations are so strong that, uh, I don't think it's going to change people's perception of me.

The passion for talk radio is coming through. There's a new talk radio challenge for you now waiting in four and a half weeks.

Yeah, I mean, I'm going to be doing what I do. I hope to bring the skills, the enthusiasms, the curiosity that I've always brought to my radio broadcasting, I hope to bring that to, to News Talk. Equally, I've got to try and persuade the people to move down the dial, to stay with me, to, to be my, my friends, my listeners, my companions, uh, as they have been in the past. And that's a big challenge. I, I'm not, uh, underestimating that challenge, but I really feel it's time to have a go.

But I've got to keep remembering it, Pat Kenny, News Talk, 10:00 to 12:30, Monday to Friday, starting September the 2nd. That's the message.

Welcome to the jungle, Pat.

Thanks very much, Chris.