Opinion
06 Feb 13

Late Entries

Once considered a bastion of mainstream pop, the Late Late Show’s music policy is being reinvigorated. Music supervisor Dermot McEvoy explains

Take note promising young acts of Ireland – you can stop badgering the Late Late Show’s music supervisor on the street. He’s got the message and now he’s aiming to give you a shot at getting on the biggest TV stage in the country.

“I was on a ski lift in Austria once and this guy turned around to me and handed me a CD,” Dermot McEvoy chuckles. “I was at a christening and a nun came down and handed me something in the church! I’m absolutely pestered everywhere I go. It’s a testament to the interest in the show 50 years later. It’s still an important rite-of-passage for a band.”
McEvoy, who has been in the music business since the late ’80s and steering RTÉ’s flagship show’s music selections for six, is keen to give a platform to more independent artists.
“In the past six months alone, we’ve seen chances given to the likes of The Strypes, The Riptide Movement, SOAK and Gavin James,” he says. Now McEvoy is calling on emerging acts to get in touch, share their YouTube videos and possibly win a slot on the Friday night institution. No record label or management required. Just talent.
“The perception is that it’s hard to get on the show,” he reflects. “And it is hard – there’s an awful lot of competition. But this is a way for us to get grassroots acts in. In other words, if you’re a band in a shed in Kerry, you have a chance of getting in on this. You don’t have to have a manager, a record company, a publicist. I want to find the next U2, Imelda May, Villagers.”
He cites the positive reaction to an appearance by young Cavan act The Strypes – subsequently signed to Mercury – as the impetus for the initiative.
“They would say themselves, when they appeared on the Late Late Show, their phone started hopping. People were ringing us, going, ‘Who are they?’ Because of that one show, things started to happen. We were saying to ourselves, ‘Well, they’re out there in Cavan, there must be other great bands around the country’. And it doesn’t have to just be bands – it could be classical musicians, folk acts, jazz, anything at all.”
It’s a refreshing outlook that jars with the perception of the show as safe and predictable. Indeed, McEvoy arrived just after the dark mid-’00s days when Brian McFadden seemed to pitch up every second week. He notes the criticism.
“There’s a case for Westlife or their equivalent now,” he counters. “The bottom line is that they had a huge audience. Anyone who does two nights in Croke Park can’t be ignored. We probably have overdone pop a little bit and I do think that’s something that we need to redress. We don’t do a lot of opera or death metal, but there’s a place for everything... We’re going to look at that balance more carefully and try and take more risks.”
It all goes back to staying true to the programme’s public service remit.
“It’s very easy to book an act on the name. You can take whoever wins X Factor and know, on paper, there’s going to be a lot of interest in them. You could put Little Mix, or whoever, up against Villagers. But, whilst there would be loads of media interest in Little Mix, the reality is Irish audiences would much prefer Villagers.”
He points to Imelda May’s first appearance as a great example.
“That was a leap. We gave her two songs and an interview, which was unheard of for a new act. The next day, the record shops didn’t have enough copies of her record in stock to keep up with demand. A star was born in Ireland.”
It’s a strong counterpoint to the argument that the Late Late Show is no longer relevant in the age of Twitter. Indeed, when everything is so splintered, it’s rare to find such a unifying platform. McEvoy says he can give selected acts the most important thing...
“An audience,” he says. “There’s a perception that the Late Late is out of date and I can understand that. But the reality of the situation is that year-on-year, our figures are up. There’s 45% of TV viewers watching the Late Late Show and we’re growing our younger audience. There’s nothing comparable in the world. So we’re able to give an act more muscle in our country than any other broadcaster. We can actually make careers.”