Rock legend Bob Geldof has said he wouldn’t take the Late Late Show job - even if he was paid €1 million.
The Boomtown Rats star arrived in Dublin on Sunday evening to attend the star-studded IFTA awards at the Radisson Blu Hotel.
Speaking on the red carpet, Geldof told reporters that the Late Late Show gig is “properly hard” and he wouldn’t do the job for any amount of money.
He said: “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 Late Late 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 that they went away and had a good show. It’s only afterwards where they’re like, ‘F**k I didn’t want to say that.’ Too late!”
“That’s hard, and not everyone can do it. God help the person, 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,” Bob added.
It comes in the wake of Patrick Kielty breaking his silence on speculation he is set to be the next host of the Late Late Show.
When asked on the red carpet about the speculation, Kielty 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. Whenever you've been on the Late Late Show as a guest and sat close to Ryan, you see how he does his stuff."
His glamourous wife Cat Deeley appeared to confirm her Co Down husband is in the running.
When she was asked if she would consider a move to Ireland, she replied: "Let's see if we can get it first, we can talk about that then."
Kielty has jumped to the front of the queue to host the Late Late Show after the initial red-hot favourite, Claire Byrne, ruled herself out last week.
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