Tommy Tiernan appears to be drawing back in some viewers he lost to his chat show on Saturday night – but Ryan Tubridy saw almost 60,000 tune out of the Late Late Show Eurosong special.
According to figures by RTE, the comedian’s Saturday night show drew in almost 400,000 and 37% share. RTE Player had 16,500 streams since Saturday.
It comes a week after RTE revealed the comedian’s popular chat programme pulled in an average of 376,000 and had a 37% share on January 29.
It was down almost 50,000 from the show on January 22, which pulled in an average of 425,000 with a 38% share, while a further 91,000 watched the episode back on the RTE Player.
The Navan man had enjoyed a winning streak in season five last winter, knocking Late Late Show host Ryan Tubridy off the top spot for a few weeks last season as he managed to pull in more than half a million fans to his improvised show.
But it seems Tubs also suffered in the ratings as an average 455,000 tuned in to watch the Eurosong on Friday night, which saw Derry girl Brooke Scullion chosen to represent us at the Eurovision Song Contest in Turin, Italy in May.
Figures show that as many as 57,000 tuned out of the Late Late Show special compared to 512,000 who watched the Friday night chat show the previous week.
A spokesperson from RTE said: “Friday night's Late Late Eurosong Special was watched by an average of 455,000 on RTE One and RTE One+1.
“There was an average of 34,500 streams of The Late Late Eurosong Special on RTE Player across the weekend."
Friday night’s Eurovision special marked the first time in years the public had the chance to vote for their favourite song and sway the RTE judges.
That’s Rich was one of six final songs picked from over 300 entries, with Brooke taking the top spot despite not being completely satisfied with her first performance, although she added that she “can’t wait to do it again”.
Ireland has now been drawn in the second semi-final for this year’s contest in Italy, which takes place on May 12.
After first making her name on ITV’s The Voice two years ago, Brooke thanked fans on Saturday for making her “dream come true”.
“Thank you to everyone who made this happen and for your support. What an honour to represent my country at Eurovision. Next stop Italy!” she said.
She also told Sunday Life last month Eurovision was finally “cool again”.
“Eurovision didn’t immediately hit me when I wrote this song, but now that Eurovision has come about it is more than perfect. It’s going to bring Ireland into a new age of modernised Eurovision entries. This could do really good things for the country if I deliver it well and perform it well,” she said.
But sports bosses saw huge numbers tuning in over the weekend.
As Ireland got their Six Nations campaign off to a winning start on Saturday against Wales at the Aviva Stadium, an average of 729,000 viewers tuned-in to RTÉ2 with a share of 66% of those watching TV at the time.
Viewing peaked at 4.07pm with 841,000 watching. In addition, there were 96,000 streams on RTÉ Player.
Later on Saturday evening Dublin went down to their second Allianz Football League defeat in-a-row, this time against Kerry in Tralee. An average of 444,000 viewers tuned in to the Saturday GAA Live coverage of the game on RTÉ2 with a share of 35%. Viewership peaked at 494,000 at 8.12pm. There were 27,000 streams on RTÉ Player.
The weekend's sporting action got underway on Friday night as Ireland's U20s defeated their Welsh counterparts in the Six Nations at Musgrave Park with an average of 204,000 tuning-in and a share of 17%, peaking at 261,000 at 8.37pm.
The Dublin Racing Festival from Leopardstown on Saturday on RTE One had an average audience of 83,000 with a share of 9% while Sunday's Leopardstown racing, also on RTE One averaged 108,000 with a 14% share.
Sunday also saw the Six Nations continue on RTE2 as France hosted Italy in Paris watched by an average of 240,000 viewers and with a share of 27%. Numbers peaked at 273,000 at 4.38pm while there were 23,000 streams on RTÉ Player.
Sunday evening saw a wrap of the weekend's GAA action on RTE2's Allianz League Sunday which was seen by an average of 110,000 viewers and with a share of 12% of the available audience.
RTE's Group Head of Sport, Declan McBennett, said: "Across rugby, GAA and racing the desire for free-to-air sport is clear for all to see. Events like those from the weekend allow people to enjoy sport as a collective and witness those who are wearing their jerseys and silks with pride and providing enjoyment for some and inspiration for others."
