Todd Andrews Andrews jnr. aka comedian David McSavage. In May 2009, Ryan Tubridy was appointed by RTÉ to succeed Pat Kenny as host of the television station's long-running chat show "The Late Late Show", whose first host (and producer) was Gay Byrne until Kenny took over in 1999. Byrne, in his 1989 memoirs "The Time of My Life" and subsequently in an RTÉ documentary in 2005, related how Andrews, then chairman of the RTÉ Authority, phoned the Director-General of RTÉ Tim McCourt and ordered him to fire "that fucker Byrne"; however McCourt refused to dismiss Byrne. Todd Andrews Christopher Stephen Andrews (6
The Gerry Ryan Show new show in that slot "the biggest prize right now in radio". The now cross-media event "Operation Transformation" originated on "The Gerry Ryan Show". In 2010, Ryan launched "Undercurrents", a Friday slot airing unsigned unplaylisted Irish acts who then had their details published on his website. The "Irish Independent"s John Meagher disagreed that this was typical of RTÉ 2fm and Gerry Ryan. A spin-off show of the demoed songs premiered on RTÉ 2XM on 5 March 2010, presented by "GRS" researcher John Bela Reilly. Following Ryan's untimely death on 30 April 2010, Meagher hoped "Undercurrents" would be continued by his