Killing off two primetime programmes would, you might think, spell the end for any television presenter’s career. And yet, despite being guilty of precisely this, somehow there’s still life in Paddy McGuinness’s job prospects at the BBC.
Hired by Beeb bosses who hoped to make him their new golden boy, he was handed two of their most profitable shows – A Question Of Sport, where he replaced the much-loved Sue Barker, and Top Gear.
While the downfall of the latter was a more complex – yet still utterly disastrous – affair, the brutal end of A Question Of Sport is easier to unpick: axed after just two series on McGuinness’s watch after ratings plummeted from four million in 2021 to just 800,000 in 2023.
Imagine, then, how surprised some colleagues at the Corporation have been to learn that for several months there have been secret meetings at BBC Studios – the commercial arm of the Corporation – entirely dedicated to finding the Lancashire-born comedian turned presenter a new job.
Nicknamed Project Paddy, I’m told, certain senior bosses are ‘desperate’ to give McGuinness a programme.
Indeed, so dedicated are this trio of middle-class, middle-aged female senior television executives to their man that they’ve even been described jokingly to me as ‘Paddy’s harem’. I’m told that they even pushed McGuinness in the direction of the vacancy on Strictly Come Dancing – which, thankfully, failed miserably.
But their labours have, eventually, borne fruit. This week it was announced that McGuinness would host the reboot of the 90s snooker-themed game show Big Break which has been off air for 24 years. McGuinness, 52, was unveiled to much fanfare on Tuesday along with seven-times world snooker champion Stephen Hendry.
McGuinness will take the hosting role previously held by the now cancelled comedian Jim Davidson, while Hendry will take over the late snooker pro John Virgo’s role of displaying trick shots.
This week it was announced that McGuinness would host the reboot of the 90s snooker-themed game show Big Break which has been off air for 24 years
McGuinness, 52, was unveiled to much fanfare on Tuesday along with seven-time world snooker champion Stephen Hendry
McGuinness will take the hosting role previously held by the now cancelled comedian Jim Davidson (left), while Hendry will take over the late snooker pro John Virgo’s (right) role of displaying trick shots
BBC bosses seemed to have believed that McGuinness’s ‘laddy’ image (burnished with his recent musclebound appearance on the cover of Men’s Health Magazine) would win over potential Big Break viewers, who are generally thought to be male.
However, the response to McGuinness’s appointment didn’t go quite as they hoped. Rather, there was genuine bewilderment over how McGuinness – recently more famous for his very public divorce from wife Christine than his television duties – has been handed yet another role hosting one of the broadcaster’s legacy programmes.
Once seen as a wholesome couple, with McGuinness widely viewed as a family man, they became figureheads within the autism community when their three children were revealed to all have the condition.
But their divorce soon became nasty. Friends told me McGuinness made his former spouse sign a non-disclosure agreement to stop her talking about their marriage – though he strenuously denies this.
There is also the whiff of a ladies’ man around McGuinness and he has been linked to former Sky Sports host Kirsty Gallacher since his divorce. Christine, meanwhile, has described herself as a ‘five-star lesbian’.
Friends told me McGuinness made his former spouse sign a non-disclosure agreement to stop her talking about their marriage – though he strenuously denies this (pictured in 2018)
All in all, then, with these professional and personal difficulties, on paper at least McGuinness doesn’t seem like an classic BBC appointee.
It’s little wonder, then, that the question I have been asked most weeks is just what does McGuinness have that the BBC so values?
While I’ve yet to meet a woman who can stomach watching him on television, the answer lies in the existence of that female trio within the close-knit TV world – jokingly called ‘Paddy’s harem’.
All three are said to be ‘obsessed’ with him, with those familiar with the women saying that they all worked with him on the ITV dating show where he made his name – Take Me Out – which ran for 11 series between 2010 and 2019.
One said: ’These women just love Paddy. They made Take Me Out with him all of those years ago and they adore him.
‘Forget the fact that people don’t seem to like watching him on the television, and that he literally killed Question Of Sport and contributed to the end of Top Gear, they think he is the best thing ever to land at the BBC.’
The most senior of the women is Suzy Lamb, the managing director of all entertainment shows at BBC Studios – and the woman who pushed for McGuinness to host Strictly late last year following the departures of Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman.
‘Forget the fact that people don’t seem to like watching him on the television, and that he literally killed Question of Sport and contributed to the end of Top Gear, they think he is the best thing ever to land at the BBC,’ says one source who knows the female trio
McGuinness co-presented Top Gear alongside former cricket star Freddie Flintoff and Chris Harris from 2019 to 2022
McGuinness hosted the BBC game show I Can See Your Voice in 2022 alongside Alison Hammond (centre left), Jimmy Carr (L) and Amanda Holden (R)
Lamb, who has few fans inside BBC HQ, joined BBC Studios in 2018. A year later she became the force behind McGuinness co-presenting Top Gear alongside former cricket star Freddie Flintoff and Chris Harris. After poor reviews, the show ended in disaster when Flintoff experienced a life-changing car crash while filming for the programme.
And yet Lamb still decided to bring her old friend in for the role of replacing Barker as the new host of A Question Of Sport in 2021 – with all-too predictable results.
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‘It has not gone unnoticed that Suzy is Paddy’s biggest fan,’ says my insider. ‘Despite what happened with A Question Of Sport, she continues to champion him. It has become so bloody obvious now it’s embarrassing. She might as well be holding a sign up saying “I love Paddy”.’
Alongside Lamb is another of Paddy’s cheerleaders Sumi Connock. She was recently promoted from creative director of BBC Studios to Executive Vice President, Creative Network & Formats at the firm. She was heavily involved with much of his early career success at ITV, until 2017 when she defected to the Beeb.
‘Sumi and Paddy really get on well,’ says my source. ‘In her eyes, Paddy can do no wrong. When she left for the BBC, Take Me Out was looking like it was at the end of its days and then all of a sudden Paddy got Top Gear. It was one of Sumi’s big shows. At the time Paddy was a wild card choice, he wasn’t a car person.
‘He isn’t a snooker person either – but that hasn’t seemed to have mattered when it came to being handed Big Break. Sumi tells anyone who will listen how great Paddy is.’
Finally, there is Amelia Brown, chief executive of Fremantle, the television production company behind programmes such as Britain’s Got Talent, The Apprentice and Beyond Paradise – and now Big Break. More recently, she was also the boss of BBC game show I Can See Your Voice in which McGuinness starred. However, it was axed after two series in 2022, leaving McGuinness without a big TV show to his name.
Brown’s role at Fremantle, which owns Naked, the production company making Big Break, means she would have been involved in choosing its host.
‘Amelia was gutted when I Can See Your Voice was axed,’ says my source. ‘As was Paddy, he was really struggling after that. But it seems that as soon as Amelia could, she found him a job.
‘Paddy really is a very, very lucky man.’
