The Late Late Show should learn from SNL - or become a podcast

14 May 2026, 20:00 by Steve Dempsey, https://www.thejournal.ie/author/steve-dempsey/ · TheJournal.ie

Steve Dempsey Media and technology expert

CHAT SHOWS WERE a big deal.

They were broadcasting town squares when appointment television mattered and a critical mass of the public would tune in for a shared cultural experience. They were cheap to produce, needing just a desk and a couch.

They offered recognisable celebrities publicity. They turned hosts into household names.

But then the internet came along.

Social media atomised audiences, podcasts replaced polished interviews with intimate long form, tangent-laden conversations, and streaming destroyed linear viewing habits. Modern chat shows that survive often have generational presenting talent to thank or, in some cases, they live on as brands in decline that can still turn a profit if managed carefully in their declining years.

So which is RTÉ’s The Late Late Show?

With another season over, and a lot of change in RTÉ, there’s plenty of discussion about the long-running chat show. Will Patrick Kielty return? Should it be rebooted somehow? Reimagined? Or is it time for it to go and take it easy in the great green room in the sky?

A lot of the conversation and commentary is simplistic. Should RTÉ retire the Late Late? No! It’s still a cash cow and has strong numbers, accounting for three of RTÉ’s top 50 shows last year.

But is it diminished from its cultural peak? Yes. Does it need to move with the times? Yes.

And by moving with the times, I don’t mean changing the host or the set. There is a playbook for successful shows that the Late Late could copy. So what’s in it?

The biggest change successful shows are making is an aggressive strategy of making and distributing clips on social media. Many successful shows often seem reverse-engineered to create clips for social distribution.

A great example, though not a talk show, is Saturday Night Live. Its sketches are now built to survive as standalone clips on TikTok and Instagram, showcasing the best comedy and the guest hosts.

Modern media economics reward this: the clips generate ad revenue, they market the main show, they create cultural relevance with potential viewers who spend more time on phones than TVs. The upshot is that the “show” matters less than the individual moment that can circulate online.

But making clips ain’t easy. Using clips to pre-promote a show isn’t possible if your show is live. Shows that successfully create clips that go viral typically have shorter interview segments, more games and stunts and sharper editing. This is a change to the format of the programming itself.

Upping your clips game also calls for some serious unweighting of social media resourcing. Clips don’t come for free. Editing and optimising them takes time, effort and people. Want to do social seriously? Remember, Mr Beast rigorously A/B tests around 50 thumbnail variations as soon as a new video is released, tracking metrics like click-through rate and video retention to ensure each video is seen as many times as possible.

Taking this one step further, just as many successful podcasts are becoming chat shows, perhaps RTÉ needs to think about how it could make the Late Late more like a podcast.

This may sound sacrilegious, but bear with me.

Maybe RTÉ should see the Late Late as less of a single piece of weekly TV that’s relevant to all, and more like a modern piece of IP which engages audiences across multiple channels, without the need to get them on TV week after week.

Podcasting has rewired the interview format, getting audiences used to long, informal conversations, rife with interruptions and tangents, and hosts who can be more active participants rather than objective interviewers.

These developments have served to make conventional television chat shows seem contrived and overproduced. Opening monologue? Musical interludes? It’s all a bit Johnny Carson, isn’t it?

So this could mean more immediacy and intimacy.

It could mean ditching some of the more tired chat show tropes. It could also mean smaller production budgets. And crucially it could mean more shows built around ‘niche’ topics.