He also hosted Xfm Drivetime on radio in the United Kingdom and has narrated Love Island Australia on television.
[3] McDermott is a fluent speaker of the Irish language and originally started his media career on TG4's POP4, a music request and top 40 show.
[11] In June 2020, he hosted the telethon event RTÉ Does Comic Relief, held to raise funds during the COVID-19 pandemic.
[13] McDermott played the lead role of "DJ Pete" in all four series of the joint TG4/BBC Northern Ireland production, Seacht, a teen drama.
[7] Of his time on Seacht, McDermott later said: "That's the beauty of starting on a channel that doesn’t have a huge audience: you can make a lot of mistakes that go under the radar".
In 2011 he moved abroad to the UK, where he began duties as host of Drive Time with radio station XFM.
In June 2014, it was announced that McDermott would present a show on RTÉ 2fm radio on the 7 – 10 am slot on Saturday and Sunday starting on 6 July.
[21] On 8 March 2021, RTÉ officially confirmed that McDermott had left his 2FM role after 3 weeks of "unplanned leave" and that he would not be returning due to the expiry of his contract.
[24] He made a video on the topic of self-harm for Pieta House in 2014, in which he referred to his own experience and later explained: "When you see first-hand what they are up to I thought it was a bit disingenuous to be preaching their merits without being honest about my own stuff...
[24] On 2 March 2022, McDermott shared a letter on social media issued by solicitors representing a client who it said had "made false allegations against him", which "arose out of a relationship which they had some years previously."
The letter went on to acknowledge that the client "was above the age of consent at all times that she and Mr McDermott met or engaged in a physical relationship, contrary to her original claim."