''Saturday Night with Miriam'' was an Irish

talk show A talk show is a television programming, radio programming or podcast genre structured around the act of spontaneous conversation.Bernard M. Timberg, Robert J. Erler'' (2010Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk Show', pp.3-4Erler, Robert (201 ...

first broadcast on

RTÉ One RTÉ One is an Irish free-to-air flagship television channel owned and operated by RTÉ. It is the most-popular and most-watched television channel in the country and was launched as ''Telefís Éireann'' on 31 December 1961, it was renamed ''R ...

in the summer of 2005. The show runs for six weeks as a summer filler, and is overseen by Miriam O'Callaghan, a co-presenter of ''

Prime Time Prime time, or peak time, is the block of broadcast programming taking place during the middle of the evening for television shows. It is mostly targeted towards adults (and sometimes families). It is used by the major television networks to ...

''.

Format

''Saturday Night with Miriam'', airs during summer months on

when programmes such as '' The Late Late Show'' and the former Saturday night talk show '' Tubridy Tonight'' are off air. The show has a wide variety of guests, often including musicians, who usually perform on the show. The Duckworth Lewis Method made their television debut on ''Saturday Night with Miriam'' in 2009's season opener.

History

The first two series were pre-recorded show was broadcast on Saturday nights after the main evening news, lasting approximately 60 minutes. In the 2007 series, the programme began to broadcast live. The show's first guests included

Charlie McCreevy Charles McCreevy (born 30 September 1949) is an Irish former Fianna Fáil politician who served as European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services from 2004 to 2010, Minister for Finance from 1997 to 2004, Minister for Tourism and Trad ...

Paul Brady Paul Joseph Brady (born 19 May 1947) is an Irish singer-songwriter and musician from Strabane, Northern Ireland. His work straddles folk and pop. He was interested in a wide variety of music from an early age. Initially popular for playing ...

, D. J. Carey and Ray D'Arcy. The programme received thirty-six percent of the adult audience. The series was also run in summer 2006 and a third series ran in 2007. The fourth series in 2008 was very popular and achieved a forty percent audience . People such as Mary Coughlan,

Enda Kenny Enda Kenny (born 24 April 1951) is an Irish former Fine Gael politician who served as Taoiseach from 2011 to 2017, Leader of Fine Gael from 2002 to 2017, Minister for Defence (Ireland), Minister for Defence from May to July 2014 and 2016 to 201 ...

Cherie Blair Cherie, Lady Blair (; born 23 September 1954), also known professionally as Cherie Booth, is an English barrister and writer. She is the spouse of former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair. Early life and education Booth was born ...

and

Jade Goody Jade Cerisa Lorraine Goody (5 June 1981 – 22 March 2009) was an English media personality. She was a contestant on the Big Brother (British TV series) series 3, third series of the Channel 4 reality show ''Big Brother (British TV series) ...

appeared on the series. In 2009, the series returned for a fifth series, with RTÉ making the announcement on 4 June 2009. This happened after it was announced that she would not be the new host of '' The Late Late Show''. O'Callaghan also got her first radio programme, filling in for

Eamon Dunphy Eamon Martin Dunphy (born 3 August 1945) is an Irish media personality, journalist, broadcaster, author, sports pundit and former professional footballer. He grew up playing football for several youth teams including Stella Maris. Since retirin ...

on '' Miriam Meets...''. Newly elected politician George Lee was one of the first guests of the fifth series. The final episode of the fifth series received 422,000 viewers, a 35% audience share. O'Callaghan confirmed that the series would return in 2013. The show returned in the summer of 2014 for another series, running from 5 July until 23 August 2014 on RTÉ One. The 2014 season was pre-recorded on Fridays. The show returned in the summer of 2015 for another series commencing 20 June 2015 and ran until 8 August 2015 on RTÉ One. In 2018 Miriam announced that the show would take a break and would not return for a new series in 2018. This was down to the busy schedule Miriam had for the summer of 2018, with the then upcoming coverage on RTÉ of the referendum on abortion, coverage of Pope Francis visit to Ireland and Miriam's involvement in a documentary. However she did say in an interview with the RTÉ Guide that the show would return in the summer of 2019. In May 2019, it was confirmed that ''Saturday Night with Miriam'' would not be returning to the RTÉ One schedules that autumn, as Miriam would be filling in for Seán O'Rourke on his RTÉ Radio 1 mid-morning show during the summer.

Guests

Series 3

Series 4

The 2008 series got an average viewing audience of 425,000.

Series 5

References

External links

''Miriam''
at

RTÉ Television RTÉ Television is a department of Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), Ireland's public service broadcaster. Its first channel was Telefís Éireann, which began broadcasting on 31 December 1961. Since the 1960s, RTÉ Television has added chan ...

* {{s-end 2005 Irish television series debuts Irish television talk shows RTÉ original programming