Gay's last show may break records

To whom it concerns, which seems to include most of the country, last night's Late Late Show was expected to attract the biggest television audience in RTE's history.

"It's an unprecedented broadcasting occasion for us," said RTE's director of public affairs, Mr Kevin Healy. He expected it would have a similar audience as watched the Pope's visit or the RTE-staged Eurovision song contests.

"The Late Late usually attracts between 800,000 and 700,000 viewers, and if it's not at the top of the TAM [television audience monitoring] ratings it is in the first two or three programmes," he said.

"In the past The Late Late and Glenroe regularly attracted over a million viewers, but with the proliferation of television channels that is very difficult now." However, he was confident the show would attract well over a million last night.

Certainly advertisers were in no doubt that it would be the show to beat all shows. Despite the fact that it was to run over three hours, such was the demand for commercial spots that RTE increased the number and was able to charge £7,000 per 30 seconds.

Studio audience numbers were increased also, by 50 to 250, for last night, but most were "ordinary" Gaybo fans who had applied for tickets in the usual way.

Meanwhile, RTE staff applauded Gay Byrne as he left the RTE canteen with Late Late assistant Maura Connolly after their usual Friday lunch yesterday. He was said to have been very moved by the gesture.