Biography

In 1997 he was made an honorary Officer of the Order of the British Empire.He was promoted to honorary Knight in the Queen's Birthday Honours List 2005. He later obtained dual citizenship (of the UK as well as his native Ireland) so he became a substantive Knight Commander of Order of the British Empire from 11 October 2005. He received the accolade from the Queen at Buckingham Palace on 6 December 2005.

He was awarded an Honorary OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1997 New Year Honours List for his services to Broadcasting.

Holds the record for the longest televised putt. It was at Gleneagles golf course in a Pro-Celebrity golf tournament in Britain

Ranked #46 on the 2008 Telegraph's list "the 100 most powerful people in British culture".

Attended the ceremonial funeral of Margaret Thatcher in 2013 on the personal invitation of her family.

It's amazing how scared people are of doing live TV these days. (Speaking in 2005)

You might say the lunatics have taken over the asylum. The culture now in television is that the presenter calls the financial and, increasingly, the creative shots. It is comparable to what happened in Hollywood 15 or so years ago. Agents have become far more powerful, and through them the stars are able to dictate their own terms. (Speaking in 2006)

BBC TV gets hold of an idea and beats it to death until we're all heartily sick of it. They buy people without thinking what they're going to do with them. It's the wrong way around. What they should be doing is employing really good ideas people to come up with good ideas. That's what they used to do at the BBC. (Speaking in 2005)

I have always believed in conversation rather than a deep interview. The essence of the chat show should be like a daily radio show. The audience like familiarity, repetition and a comfortable relationship with the presenter. The logical thing is for me to do five nights a week to make the continuous link with the public. Then one show blends into the next. It's part of the chewing gum for the eyes. I'd very much like to do five nights, then the show doesn't have to be World War Three, the big event, which people expect of the old once-a-week chat shows on a Saturday night. I am not supposed to be God so I can't get it right all the time. Some days you are going to be better than others.

We tend to look to the Americans for a guide-line for what's popular in chat, quiz and game shows. These days those awful "face to face" (Face to Face (1959)) confrontations which were fine for the time are not viable now. People are not impressed by watching interviewees cry. People recognize chat shows with personalities as the trivial things that they are. They're not designed to be deep. Quite frankly, people in show business don't stand up to in-depth scrutiny. A television chat show is light entertainment so it is trivial by its very nature. It is hardly the place to get people to reveal their innermost thoughts. Then it becomes sensationalism and you lower yourself to the level of the popular newspapers.