BBC and ITV are locked in a 'war' after three BBC presenting stars have jumped ship to join ITV for prime time slots.
BBC is reported to be "furious" over the move from the rival TV channel, as it views the moves by the presenters as 'poaching'.
The news of the tense standoff comes as Graham Norton, one of the BBC's biggest stars, is confirmed to be presenting a programme on ITV as he will front a remake of the popular gameshow, The Wheel of Fortune.
He's not alone as Gary Lineker and Zoe Ball, who also present prime-time programmes for the BBC, are switching to ITV despite being some of the BBC's most highly paid stars.
The move to encourage key BBC stars to move over to ITV has reportedly been part of a direct 'talent poaching' strategy by Managing Director, for Media and Entertainment Kevin Lygo.
The strategy by Kevin is being labelled as 'revenge' after BBC tempted key stars that had initially started out with ITV over to their programmes.
Names including Holly Willoughby who is known for This Morning but presented Freeze The Fear With Wim Hoff, Take Me Out host Paddy McGuinness who fronts Question of Sport and Top Gear, The Chase presenter Bradley Walsh and more recently This Morning's Alison Hammond have particularly angered Kevin and ITV after they see these presenters as the talent they trained and nurtured.
A TV insider told the Daily Mail: "To say it feels like a war is an understatement. It all seems to have got very tit-for-tat.
"Kevin has been furious that the likes of Paddy, Holly, Alison and Bradley have been appearing on the BBC, he is a very competitive man and has one big job, to get viewers.
"You can't help but think that his pursuit of Gary, Zoe and now Graham was some kind of revenge."
They added that Graham Norton has been a big win for ITV as "they think Wheel of Fortune is going to be huge".
Graham Norton will join ITV to present a gameshow remark The Wheel of Fortune, with BBC Radio 2 host Zoe Ball finishing filming ITV's talent show, Mamma Mia! I Have A Dream.
Sports pundit Gary Lineker, who had a major fallout with BBC bosses earlier this year, now has a Sunday night quiz show Sitting on a Fortune on ITV.
The Mirror has contacted BBC and ITV for comment.
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