ITV could be set to lose another star following reports that GB News bosses have turned their attention towards Richard Madeley. After Phillip Schofield's controversial exit from This Morning last month, all eyes have been on the broadcaster, including last week, when a "shaken" Holly Willoughby returned to the show and took aim at her former co-star in pre-planned speech live on-air.
And now, it looks as if Richard could be moving away from ITV, as rival channel GB News is hoping to snap him up, according to The Mirror. Richard, who used to present This Morning with his wife Judy Finnegan, has a lengthy history with ITV and has just signed up for a series with the broadcaster which will document the couple's grandparenthood.
Richard, 67, and Judy, 75, will appear in the series alongside their daughter Chloe, 35, and her husband, retired rugby player James Haskell, and their daughter, nine-month-old Bodhi. Ahead of 'At Home with the Madeleys' debuting on our screens, a source for ITV told The Mirror last month: "Richard Madeley has produced some amusing moments down the years so having cameras in his family home is almost guaranteed to bring more comedy gold to the screen."
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Now that Good Morning Britain's former assistant editor Ben Briscoe is at the helm of programming at GB News, it is reported executives are hoping to try and draw Richard to the channel. A couple of weeks ago, GB News invited Richard to take a tour of the studios in Paddington.
A source told The Mirror: "It would be a huge coup to bag a name like Richard. Not only is he a household name, he is a big name on social media thanks to all his off-the-cuff remarks that a lot of younger viewers enjoy sharing."
Richard is often compared to Steve Coogan's comedy character Alan Partridge due to his toe-curling presenting style, which often gets him in trouble with guests and viewers. Last month, Good Morning Britain viewers demanded Richard was "got rid of" as he clashed with Gary Lineker live on-air.
As the sports personality promoted his ITV quiz show Sitting on a Fortune, Gary was asked about the great deal of controversy he found himself in earlier this year by Richard. Richard claimed that Gary had compared the government to the early 1930s Nazi dictatorship as he spoke about the controversial Illegal Migration Bill.
Hitting back, Gary claimed that Richard had "misrepresented" what he said, as he claimed he said that the language used by the government to talk about migrants "was not dissimilar to that used back in the 1930s in Germany". Elsewhere in the interview, Gary accused Richard of "trying to take things out of proportion", as he explained that he felt the "silly story" was "blown up because I was misrepresented".
Following the heated debate between Madeley and Lineker, Good Morning Britain viewers requested that ITV "gets rid of" Madeley. One tweeted: "His interview with Gary Lineker was repugnant! Why is he still there trying to be clever and controversial - get rid of him!"
"Madeley making himself look an absolute whopper here as usual," wrote another. "Lineker is a king."
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