# Saturday Night with Miriam

Saturday Night with Miriam was an Irish talk show first broadcast on RTÉ One 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.

## Format

Saturday Night with Miriam, airs during summer months on RTÉ One 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, Paul Brady, 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, Cherie Blair and Jade Goody 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 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

| Date | Guests |
| 16 June 2007 | Andrea Corr, Bertie Ahern, Bernard Dunne, Kristina Grimes |
| 23 June 2007 | Samantha Mumba, Jack O'Connor, Keith Barry, Louis Walsh |
| 30 June 2007 | Al Green, Gerry Conlon & Paddy Hill, Kellie Shirley, Jason Byrne & Pamela Flood, Brendan O'Carroll |
| 7 July 2007 | Blathnaid McKenna & Sarah Morrissey, Mario Rosenstock, Marguerite Bouniol, Marie-Marguerite Opalka & Ralph Riegel, Packie Bonner & Ray Houghton |
| 14 July 2007 | Amanda Brunker, Brendan O'Connor, Dáithí Ó Sé & Brian Ormonde, Nadine Coyle, Mary Robinson |
| 21 July 2007 | Shayne Ward, Boy George & Dinah O'Dowd, Ronnie Drew |
| 28 July 2007 | Linda Martin, Diarmuid Gavin, Paddy Power, Tracy Pigott, Gráinne Seoige & Barry Geraghty, Pádraig Harrington |
| 4 August 2007 | Craig Doyle, Kathryn Feeney, Luzveminda O'Sullivan & Sheila O'Hanrahan Lawlor, Sinéad O'Connor, Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh & Jimmy Magee |

### Series 4

The 2008 series got an average viewing audience of 425,000.
| Date | Guests |
| 7 June 2008 | Mary Coughlan, Kevin Hiller, Alan Gray, Brian McDermott & Ben Cunningham, Jessie Buckley, Louis Walsh & Brendan O'Connor, Red Hurley |
| 14 June 2008 | Jack Charlton & John Aldridge, Bláthnaid Ní Chofaigh, Victoria Smurfit, George Lee, Eddie Hobbs & David McWilliams |
| 21 June 2008 | Boyzone, Jade Goody, Terry O'Quinn, Gerald Kean, Bazil Ashmawy & Ivan Yates |
| 28 June 2008 | Peter Kelly, Phil Coulter & Geraldine Brannigan, Bill O'Herlihy, Liam Brady, Johnny Giles & Eamonn Dunphy, Robert O'Neill |
| 5 July 2008 | Enda Kenny, Sonia O'Sullivan, Darren Sutherland & Eileen O'Keeffe, Cherie Blair |
| 12 July 2008 | Bibi Baskin, Jennifer Maguire & Evelyn Cusack, Johnny Murtagh & Orla Murtagh, Larry Gogan, Lawrence McKeown, Mary Doyle & Raymond McCartney |
| 19 July 2008 | Anne Doyle, Curtis Stigers, Walter Swift, John Waters, Moya Brennan |

### Series 5

| Date | Guests |
| 20 June 2009 | George Lee, Marti Pellow, Amanda Brunker, Claudia Carroll & Marisa Mackle, The Duckworth Lewis Method, Tim O'Rourke & Michael O'Brien |
| 27 June 2009 | Monica Leech, Keith Duffy & Rasher, Michelle Heaton, The Gandhis, Michael and Bernadette Jacobs, Valerie Cox |
| 4 July 2009 | Amy Huberman, Duke Special, Ardal O'Hanlon, Honor Blackman, Brian Crowley |
| 11 July 2009 | Hilda Fay, Clelia Murphy & Ciara O'Callaghan, La Troupe de Mademoiselle Clairette, John Spillane, Steve Collins & Paul Williams, Sophie Ellis-Bextor |
| 18 July 2009 | Pat Shortt, Maxi, Patrick Collison, Wallis Bird, Pat Spillane, Fiona Looney & Marty Morrissey, Kevin Doyle |
| 25 July 2009 | Joe Duffy, Brush Shiels, Bob Carley, Doc Savage & Clint Velour, Lucy Kennedy, Barry McGuigan, Seán Gallagher, Alan Shortt & Jack Sheedy, The High Kings, Ray D'Arcy, Dáithí Ó Sé & Current and Past Roses of Tralee |