IVAN YATES AND MATT Cooper are to replace Vincent Browne on TV3, it has been confirmed.
The news leaked a number of weeks ago, but the Ballymount station unveiled full details of its new-look Tonight Show during its autumn schedule launch at the National Concert Hall in Dublin this afternoon.
The men – who will each keep their late afternoon shows on Newstalk and TodayFM – will present the show together.
The Tonight Show will air on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays in Vincent Browne’s old 11pm slot. The renamed Pat Kenny Show (formerly Pat Kenny Tonight) will go out on Wednesdays.
Mario Rosenstock will join Yates and Cooper on their show every Thursday (possibly occasionally reprising his ‘Vincent Browne’ character).
According to Yates, the new show will be “very interactive”. Speaking at the launch event today, the Newstalk presenter said that Cooper was a “professional journalist” who “takes this sort of seriously”, while he is “there to provoke debate”.
Cooper himself said that the show will talk to people who have “solutions to the problems in Irish life”.
The new season lineup has a number of other political shows, with Sarah McInerney (also of Newstalk fame) hosting a current affairs programme, The Sunday Show, each weekend, and David McWilliams reappearing with David McWilliams’ Ireland.
Today, McInerney – a regular on Vincent Browne’s panels and as a replacement presenter – said that she will be “putting it up” to politicians.
As a crossover, drama The Bailout will also air in the new season, and there will be a number of current affairs documentaries, including one on how the population of Syrian refugees is settling in in the Roscommon town of Balaghadreen.
- With reporting from Daragh Brophy
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