Marty in the Morning was an attempt by 2fm to find a successor to Ryan Tubridy, who had left The Full Irish and defected to RTÉ Radio 1 in 2005. However, in May 2006, it emerged that the show was receiving fewer listeners than its rival The Ian Dempsey Breakfast Show on Today FM.[3] Before this, Whelan's predecessors as breakfast presenters were Rick O'Shea and Ruth Scott, Tubridy's replacement The Rick & Ruth Breakfast Show was axed after it emerged the flagship The Gerry Ryan Show was losing 40,000 listeners to Today FM's The Ray D'Arcy Show.[4] O'Shea and Scott were blamed for this and quickly disappeared off the morning airwaves.