Tubridy to replace Finucane as radio queen bows out

RYAN Tubridy is being groomed to replace Marian Finucane in the RTÉ Radio One morning programme slot.

Finucane, who lost 4,000 listeners this year, is one of RTÉ’s highest paid broadcasters with annual earnings in excess of €300,000.

The one time queen of the airwaves will be bowing out from her hour-long morning chat show when it ceases for next year’s summer break.

Finucane is believed to be hoping to pursue other radio projects at the station but recent speculation that she is moving to Dublin station NewsTalk 106 has not been confirmed.

Last night a spokesperson for the national broadcaster confirmed 52-year-old Finucane was quitting her show - but insisted that she will be pursuing other projects at the station.

The waning star got her big break in broadcasting with Liveline, which pioneered public access to radio when it first went on air in 1985.

She did the slot for 13 years and then, in 1998, changed over to her morning show.

Marian lives on a farm near Naas in Kildare with her partner John Clarke, but spends her summers in Tuscany, Italy.

She is due to appear in a special documentary to be screened next week in which she talks at her despair and heartbreak at the loss of her daughter, who died aged just eight.

Finucane, who has never spoken about her little girl’s battle against leukaemia, tells how Sinead Finucane Clarke lived out her days at home with her family.

“We had a lot of support from extended family and the knowledge that the hospice would come if anything went wrong and they would know how to deal with it.

“I remember at one stage the hospice rang and kindly told us that there would at some stage be a need for a blood transfusion but it was their view not to do it,” she says during an interview on Marian’s Journey.

“The decision we believe was the best we made was to bring Sinead home otherwise she would have died in hospital attached to machines. She would have had no access to the rest of the family - to the dog. As it was she learned how to ride horses and swim and have a life in her last few weeks.

“When you go into a leukaemia ward in a hospital you have to cover up in plastic and wash yourself.

“Coming home reverts it to normality. By coming home there is acceptance.”

The presenter raised funds to open a hospice in a township in Capetown, South Africa, after her daughter died.