Newstalk’s evening drivetime presenter George Hook is set to end his programme The Right Hook in September 2016.
The 72 year old tweeted a short message yesterday saying: “Thr Right Hook will end at the end of September 2016 if God spares me” followed by plans to leave TV after the Rugby World Cup 2015 too.
He’s hosted the programme since Newstalk launched, and was the first radio show in Ireland to broadcast entirely via web cam on the internet.
The show regularly travels around Ireland for outside broadcasts. In 2008 during the US Presidential Election Campaign, he broadcast from key locations in the United States such as New York for Super Tuesday, Denver for the 2008 Democratic National Convention and Washington D.C. for both the 2008 election and the inauguration of Barack Obama as 44th President of the United States in January 2009.
During campaigning ahead of the 2011 Irish presidential election, Fine Gael candidate Gay Mitchell made a joke about suicide on while appearing on The Right Hook. He promised to “jump off O’Connell Bridge” if he was asked to smile. Founding Secretary of the Irish Association of Suicidology Dr John Connolly described Mitchell’s comment as “unfortunate”.
The Cork-born broadcaster was a rugby union coach and businessman before becoming a pundit with RTÉ, and offers his opinions and views as a panelist and pundit during RTÉ’s coverage of the RBS 6 Nations Rugby Tournament.