DING DING! It’s round two in the fight between two young right-of-centre television channels. Rupert Murdoch’s TalkTV is hoping a new breakfast show will help it gain ground on scandal-hit GB News.
Last night, GB fired actor-turned- shockjock Laurence Fox and fellow contributor Calvin Robinson after a row started when Fox said of a female journalist “who’d want to shag that” live on air. The host for that segment, Dan Wootton, remains suspended.
Following the GB meltdown, TalkTV is aiming to win fans with Talk Today, a breakfast show hosted by star presenter Jeremy Kyle and co-host Nicola Thorp, a former Coronation Street actor. Talk has seen disappointing viewing figures since going on air last year with launch presenter Piers Morgan.
But Kyle isn’t without issues of his own. He hosted ITV’s The Jeremy Kyle Show for 14 years, a programme which has since been accused of “bear-baiting” for encouraging families to hash out their private disputes in front of a febrile studio audience. In an interview with Press Gazette, Kyle said “the world has moved on” from troubles around that show, and that Talk is a “blank canvas” for his career. Will the public agree?
There had been talk Murdoch could buy GB News. For now, he just wants to match its viewing figures.
Johnson gets his ducks in a row
You’ve heard of Clarkson’s Farm, but what about Johnson’s? Since moving to an estate in Oxfordshire, a stone’s throw from Jeremy Clarkson’s Diddly Squat Farm, former PM Boris seems to be taking an interest in all creatures great and small. Last week he got some ducks, which his wife Carrie debuted on Instagram, named Twiglet, Gherkin, Black Head, Turbo and Pickle. And yesterday she unveiled chickens too.
Johnson’s adviser told us that the ex-PM was focusing on his ducks and not watching Tory Conference. But he is still keeping one eye on developments in the party. Last night he weighed in behind David Cameron to condemn the scrapping of HS2 to Manchester. Elsewhere it was reported that Dominic Cummings, who is also somewhat in exile, was the mastermind behind Rishi Sunak’s U-turn. Can we expect another bout of Boris v Dom?
No flies (or bed bugs) on Kate
Kate Moss stayed in Paris after fashion week, posing with fellow model Jourdan Dunn at a Charlotte Tilbury make-up event last night. The fashion crowd were hit by a plague of bed bugs in the city. Let’s hope they don’t bring them back to Blighty.
Back here, the art world is preparing for Frieze, and Standard columnist Tracey Emin chatted to Hans Ulrich Obrist at the Serpentine’s George Baslitz exhibition.
It’s also the start of London Film Festival, where Emerald Fennell showed her new film Saltburn, joined by producer Tom Ackerley (sometimes known as Margot Robbie’s husband), photographer Misan Harriman, and screenwriter Misan Sagay.
