| Kelly | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genre | Talk/Variety show |
| Starring | Gerry Kelly |
| Country of origin | Northern Ireland |
| Original language | English |
| No. of episodes | 571 |
| Production | |
| Production location | Havelock House, Belfast |
| Original release | |
| Network | UTV |
| Release | September 1989 – 16 December 2005 |
Kelly is a regional talk and variety show, hosted by broadcaster Gerry Kelly and broadcast on UTV from 1989 to 2005.
The show was twice voted the most entertaining programme in Northern Ireland.
Kelly debuted as a late night chat show in September 1989, airing for an hour on Friday nights after News at Ten . The show was subsequently extended to 90 minutes a year later, running from 10.40 pm to 12.10 am, before moving to a prime time slot of 9 pm in 1999. The series was also shown briefly on Scottish Television in 1992.
For the first four years of the show's life, the Kelly show was made from a very small general purpose studio at UTV's (known until 1993 as Ulster Television) headquarters in Havelock House, Belfast. The studio could only fit a very small set and a very small audience. To accommodate the audience, the audience seating platform was built over the scenery doors to the studio, meaning some members of the audience would be sitting very close to the doors and close to the hot studio lights in those early years. In 1993 Ulster Television was relaunched as UTV and unveiled a new 2,500-square-foot (230 m2) studio which could now accommodate a proper studio audience of around 100–120 with a new built in audience seating platform, which was ideal for the show.
In 1999, he interviewed a nine-year-old Rory McIlroy after he had won the world under ten's championship. The series reached its 500th episode in 2003, [1] and the highest-rated edition was broadcast on Friday 10 November 2000, when a special edition dedicated to George Best was watched by 367,000 viewers. [2]
The end of the series was announced by UTV in 2005. [3] Despite calls to save the series from ending, [4] the final episode of Kelly was transmitted on 16 December 2005. [5]
Gerry Kelly said that UTV were unhappy with the show airing in the 9pm slot, as UTV had to opt out of ITV's network schedule. Instead of moving the show to a new different timeslot, UTV took the decision to axe it completely. Around the same time, UTV also axed the rest of its local entertainment programming – namely, School Around the Corner and School Choir of the Year – as part of cutbacks to the station's local output.
After the show ended, Kelly went on to host a smaller-scale chat show, Gerry Meets, which ran for 40 episodes before leaving UTV at the start of 2008.
UTV is the ITV region covering Northern Ireland, ITV subsidiary and the former on-air name of the free-to-air public broadcast television channel serving the area. It is run by ITV plc and is responsible for the regional news service and programmes made principally for the area by the UTV production team. It currently uses the network ITV1 channel with an opt-out service for local advertising and on-air promos for local programming.
BBC Newsline is the BBC's national television news programme for Northern Ireland, broadcast on BBC One Northern Ireland from the headquarters of BBC Northern Ireland in Ormeau Avenue, Belfast.
Blue Heelers is an Australian police drama series that was produced by Southern Star Group and ran for twelve years on the Seven Network, from 1994 to 2006. Although based around the policing of the town, the series generally depicted the everyday lives and relationships of the residents of Mount Thomas, a fictional small town in Victoria.
Julian Lanus Simmons is a Northern Irish broadcaster, best known for his work as a long-serving continuity announcer on UTV.
Stephen Raymond Nolan is a Northern Irish radio and television presenter for BBC Northern Ireland and BBC Radio 5 Live. Nolan is the highest earning BBC broadcaster in Northern Ireland.
Eamonn Holmes is a Northern Irish broadcaster and journalist. He co-presented the breakfast television show GMTV (1993–2005) for ITV, before presenting Sunrise (2005–2016) for Sky News. Holmes co-presented ITV's This Morning (2006–2021) with his wife Ruth Langsford on Fridays and during the school holidays. In January 2022, he joined GB News to present its breakfast programme alongside Isabel Webster. He has also presented How the Other Half Lives (2015–2019) and It's Not Me, It's You (2016) for Channel 5.
UTV Live is a Northern Irish television news service broadcast and produced by UTV.
Lynda Bryans is a Belfast-born television presenter and journalist from Northern Ireland.
Havelock House, was a building that was located on the Ormeau Road in Belfast, it was the former headquarters of Wireless Group Ltd, and also UTV, which occupied the building from October 1959 to June 2018. Wireless Group's local radio service U105 was based here from its launch to 2018 when it was transferred to new studios at City Quays 2, where the registered office of Wireless Group and also the studios of UTV are now located.
Frank Mitchell is a broadcaster and journalist from Northern Ireland. He presents the U105 radio phone in show. He retired as Weather Presenter at UTV on 31 March 2021.
Jamie Delargy, is a Northern Irish journalist. He was Business Editor at UTV until his retirement in 2016.
Ivan Little is a retired journalist and part-time actor from Northern Ireland.
Gerald "Gerry" Kelly is a Northern Irish broadcaster and journalist, best known for his presenting career at UTV where he presented the Friday night talk and variety show Kelly from 1989 until 2005.
The Graham Norton Show is a British comedy talk show presented by Graham Norton. It was initially broadcast on BBC Two, from 22 February 2007, before moving to BBC One in October 2009. It currently airs on Friday evenings, with Norton succeeding Friday Night with Jonathan Ross in BBC One's prestigious late-Friday-evening slot in 2010.
The Jonathan Ross Show is a British comedy chat show presented by Jonathan Ross. It was first broadcast on ITV on 3 September 2011 and airs on Saturday evenings following the conclusion of Ross' BBC One chat show, Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, in July 2010.
The following is a list of events relating to television in Ireland from 2015.
Virgin Media Three, also called Virgin Three, is an Irish free-to-air television channel owned by Virgin Media Television.
This is a timeline of the history of Ulster Television. It provides the ITV network service for Northern Ireland.
This is a timeline of television in Northern Ireland.