Dunphy soars back to contention in ratings battle

EAMON Dunphy’s Friday night chat show on TV3 has staged a dramatic recovery in the ratings battle with Pat Kenny’s Late Late show.

A TV3 spokesperson said yesterday advertisers were still willing to fork out €10,000 for 30-second prime time slots during the show, which saw viewers slump to a paltry 155,000 a fortnight ago.

TV3 insists the show is not under any pressure to slash its expensive advertising rates despite the Late Late Show recording almost 350,000 more viewers each week.

Some 240,000 viewers tuned into the Dunphy show last Friday, a 19% increase on the previous week and a 55% hike on week three.

“No one has panicked and I think that advertisers are quite pleased with the way things are going. We were delighted with last Friday’s figures,” the TV3 spokesperson said.

Advertising is expected to sell out again this week when Manchester United captain Roy Keane appears on the show, which begins 30 minutes before Kenny.

Keane will be one of the biggest draws of the year for Mr Dunphy, who has already interviewed Gerry Adams, Ben Dunne and embattled Kerry football coach Paidí Ó Sé.

Outspoken Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary was the main guest on last Friday’s show and he helped to boost Mr Dunphy’s ailing figures.

The much-hyped show has never repeated the peak of 295,000 viewers reached on its debut night five weeks ago.

The new TV3 production remains a long way off the Late Late Show, but RTÉ’s flagship chat show fell to 553,000 viewers last Friday night.

The Late Late Show viewer figures for the first night it went head-to-head with Mr Dunphy were down by 85,493 on last year’s first-of season show, but it has since recovered and it reached 656,000 people three weeks ago.

Mr Dunphy is aiming to capture the young market but Mr Kenny attracted 115,500 viewers aged 35 or under on week one, while 99,750 people in the same category tuned into Dunphy.

Gary Power from AFA O’Meara’s advertising agency said the industry still had confidence in the Dunphy show.

“He has grown the market and there are more people watching TV on Friday night because of the show. It definitely has an appeal.”