KATIE HIND: Why ITV execs selected Cat Deeley to exchange Holly Willoughby

Just days after Holly Willoughby give up This Morning, ITV started holding discussions over how they may lure Cat Deeley to exchange her on the programme’s coveted couch.

Holly had barely cleared out her dressing room earlier than the Birmingham-born former kids’s tv presenter was their list-topper to avoid wasting the programme.

She was, for the channel, the one star who they thought may carry them the glitz and the success that Ms Willoughby did in her heyday.

Their dream was to group Cat up along with her husband Patrick Kielty – a ‘Cat and Pat’ model to recreate the great outdated days of Richard and Judy. 

But with Patrick fortunately ensconced and incomes a considerable wage because the host of Ireland’s Late Late Show, they knew that may be nearly not possible.

So, in current weeks there have been whoops of pleasure as lastly it grew to become obvious they’d managed to make at the very least half that dream a actuality. 

Cat has agreed to affix This Morning. Alongside her will probably be Ben Shephard, host of ITV’s earlier present, Good Morning Britain, who’d been ready within the wings. 

He’d been holding off signing his contract till he knew who his main woman could be. ‘Once Patrick was out of the sport ITV needed Ben and Cat, or Cat and Ben. 

They could not work out which method spherical to have the names, they have been nicknamed BenCat months in the past. That is what they have been working in the direction of.’

However, whereas Ben, 49, had agreed in precept to switching from Good Morning Britain, which he is hosted for the final ten years, getting Cat’s signature was a lot trickier. 

In the top, ITV needed to push again their relaunch date by months whereas Cat, 47, completed work on the US actuality present, So You Think You Can Dance, which she’s fronted since 2006.

An insider at ITV revealed: ‘The negotiations have been all about Cat’s diary and her commitments to So You Think You Can Dance and fulfilling her contract within the US. 

She needed to ensure she was doing the appropriate factor by them.

‘Cat at all times needed to do it however it was about logistics they usually weren’t straightforward.’

Indeed, they weren’t. 

After Cat’s spectacular efficiency internet hosting 4 reveals for This Morning final November, as ITV held auditions within the hunt for the following Holly, she’d informed bosses she was eager to tackle the function full-time.

However, it was the much-loved Rylan Clark who she needed to take a seat beside relatively than Ben, she confided to pals, after she hosted two episodes with him.

She additionally needed to weigh up her home life, what with Kielty, with whom she has two younger sons, working in Ireland from Tuesday till Friday. 

Her months of commitments on So You Think You Can Dance additionally meant she would not be out there for the start of 2024 when ITV had initially needed to relaunch the present.

So, through the first week of December, ITV chiefs have been again to the drafting board. ‘They have been gutted,’ stated one supply on This Morning. 

‘There was a lot pleasure round getting Cat in, she was like a breath of recent air when she arrived on the studios.

‘Let’s not overlook how traumatic it had been for the manufacturing workers for months earlier than. First Phil left, then Holly, rankings have been dropping and to the surface world the programme was completely poisonous.

‘Then Cat and her huge smile arrived and it was all higher for just a few days. There was hope that the great outdated days, the early days of Phil and Holly, could be again. Then all of it got here crashing down and it was again to actuality.

‘Once once more, ITV executives have been asking round for concepts of who they may rent. I used to be even summoned to lunch for my ideas. Meanwhile, Cat was pre-recording So You Think You Can Dance auditions in America and he or she had nearly as good as given up hope that she would have the ability to signal to This Morning.

I’m informed ITV’s head of daytime Emma Gormley and This Morning editor Martin Frizell have been new stars, however chief govt Dame Carolyn McCall and her quantity two, Kevin Lygo, have been nonetheless decided to get Cat and switch round their embattled programme, which was as soon as the jewel in ITV’s daytime crown.

Lygo felt that there was one thing particular about bringing Cat again to the channel the place she made her identify within the late Nineties and early Noughties.

Many will do not forget that, like Holly, Cat started her profession in kids’s tv, beginning as a co-presenter for the kids’s present SMTV Live in 1998 for which she gained a BAFTA Children’s Award.

But it was the spin-off, CD:UK, which catapulted her to fame. She was provided the job by Ant and Dec and would, for seven years, be a sister-type character alongside the duo, successful over viewers along with her fun-loving method. 

Like Holly, males needed up to now Cat whereas ladies needed to be her finest pal. In 2003, she offered Fame Academy on BBC1 and likewise grew to become presenter of the ITV expertise present Stars In Their Eyes, which she hosted till 2005. The following yr she moved to the States the place she hosted So You Think You Can Dance. 

Some at This Morning have been towards her rent. One senior govt defined their fears that Cat is likely to be too ‘Hollywood and polished’ for This Morning viewers after her years within the States, and it grew to become a serious level of debate for the community’s chiefs. 

‘What if she is simply too unrelatable?’ one insider commented. ‘She is actually shiny and Tinseltown and it shouldn’t be forgotten that a part of Holly’s downside in her later years was that she was perceived by viewers to be too excellent. ‘But the battle to get This Morning again to its finest outweighed whether or not Cat could be too glam.

Of course, Cat’s new This Morning commitments imply that she will not have the ability to host the following collection of So You Think You Can Dance, for which filming begins in December. 

And it’s no coincidence that ITV started getting excited once more about getting her shortly after the US present’s boss Nigel Lythgoe stood down following a number of accusations of sexual assault, together with one from singer Paula Abdul.

‘The timings match,’ one This Morning insider mused. ‘Maybe that is what swung it, possibly So You Think You Can Dance will not return for an additional collection if it does not go Nigel’s method.’

Meanwhile, Sian Welby, the previous Channel 5 climate presenter and This Morning showbusiness correspondent nearly obtained the celebrated function when was handed the reins alongside Dermot O’Leary final month.

Frizell – seen by some as a tv Svengali – was shocked by her and started pondering she could possibly be the bubbly ‘subsequent Holly’.

A supply on the present tells me: ‘Nobody was anticipating Sian to develop into a contender however she immediately impressed and was rapidly a severe alternative for Holly. I’m informed that viewers will probably be seeing much more of Sian within the coming months as This Morning bosses try and ‘develop’ her to future-proof their programme.

‘But for now it is all about BenCat, who will make their debut on the programme subsequent month in return for a reported £550,000 a yr every.

As she was unveiled at present, Cat stated of the present: ‘This Morning is a nationwide establishment. Whenever it is on, it is like having your folks over – humorous, good, foolish, heartfelt, informative and joyful – like all the best friendships!’

Talking of which, ITV bosses will certainly be hoping that Ben and Cat (or Cat and Ben ) do not find yourself combating like cat and canine, and falling out fairly so spectacularly – or certainly as publicly – as their predecessors.