Bob Geldof said he wouldn’t take The Late Late Show job – even if he was paid €1million.
The Boomtown Rats singer arrived in Dublin on Sunday evening to attend the star-studded IFTA awards. Speaking on the red carpet, Geldof, 71, told reporters presenting is “properly hard” and he wouldn’t do the job for any amount of money.
He added: “I don’t know enough about the up and coming broadcasters. But he’s [Ryan Tubridy] done an amazing job.
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“Every time they pick someone that can do their own thing but at the same time are very good interlocutors that they can still somehow transmit an every day, every man type of thing.
“That’s the gig and it’s properly hard. Certainly, I couldn’t do it, I’d just get angry at people and shout at them.”
Asked about the speculation of RTE changing the show’s format, he said: “Really why? People still want to buy a classic car… a Rolls Royce or an Aston Martin or something.
“They change the look, they still make a great engine. You’ve got to be really careful. Times changed.
“They’ve got a lot of rivals. It doesn’t need to do the same job that the original Late Late Show did. It needs to do a different job for your time.
“They’ve got to find someone who can do that. You’ve got to have a really clever, great broadcaster.
“Someone who can interview people properly and extract from them things they may not necessarily have wanted to talk about, and yet feel they went away and had a good show.
“It’s only afterwards where they’re like, ‘**** I didn’t want to say that.’ Too late.
“That’s hard, and not everyone can do it.
“God help the man or woman, who ends up there because in three weeks, they’ll be gone if it’s not happening. I wouldn’t take that job, not for a million.” Geldof was speaking after comedian Patrick Kielty, 52, broke his silence on rumours he is set to be the chat show’s new host.
When asked on the red carpet about the speculation, he replied: “The only thing I would say about The Late Late Show is a couple of things.
“One is that it is one of the greatest TV shows on the planet. Whoever gets that gig is going to be really, really lucky.
“The one thing people have to remember though, is, how big shoes they are to fill.
“You know, I’ve done a chat show before, I’ve done a live show before, it’s hard.”
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