The Phillip Schofield scandal and the future of ITV
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 30 May 2023
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It started with a tabloid story that a male and female presenter on daytime TV were no longer getting on. Big deal.
It was accompanied by darker rumours about Philip Schofield, a fixture on television for decades. And then the wisps of smoke on a hillside became a full scale wildfire, tearing through ITV.
His relationship with a much younger man have now turned this into a daytime chat show into peak time drama, and questions are now growing for ITV senior management.
An ITV statement on Saturday responded to allegations that ITV ignored any potential relationship Schofield had at ITV.
“ITV can confirm that when rumours of a relationship between Phillip Schofield and an employee of ITV first began to circulate in early 2020 ITV investigated.
"Both parties were questioned and both categorically and repeatedly denied the rumours as did Phillip's then agency YMU.
"Phillip’s statement [a few days ago] reveals that he lied to people at ITV… over this relationship."
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:08.1 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:11.7 | But isn't it a cover-up? |
| 0:13.1 | Yes, it's a total cover-up. It's a total cover-up. |
| 0:16.9 | That was Aymond Holmes on G.B. News last night, speaking about his fallen and not much loved |
| 0:24.9 | former colleague, Philip Schofield, and the way ITV has handled the whole Schofield affair. |
| 0:32.6 | Now, on one level, Philip Schofield has had a mighty fall from grace, but it's more than just the story of one individual. |
| 0:41.2 | It is a story that has the capacity to engulf and spread. |
| 0:46.9 | This has become a story about one of Britain's biggest media and entertainment companies and brands, ITV, |
| 0:56.1 | and how they handle their top-tier presenters, their top talent, |
| 1:00.9 | and yet another story about the entertainment industry and British television, |
| 1:07.3 | where they've had a very powerful figure that they just didn't seem ever to want to |
| 1:12.3 | confront. Welcome to the newsagents. The news agents. It's John and it's Lewis and we're both in |
| 1:22.3 | Newsagents HQ and this story has been rumbling on for well over a week now, 10 days or so. And we've obviously been back and forth over that time. Should we cover it? Do we care? Is it being blown out of proportion? We're doing it today. I think because it feels like today is the day when it really has gone beyond just he said, she said, rumour, counter rumour. |
| 1:47.1 | There are now things on the record, both from Schofield and the other players involved, |
| 1:50.8 | and the day when it really, now those facts are established, poses really big questions |
| 1:56.6 | about whether anything has changed in British entertainment, British television, after, |
| 2:03.7 | and again, we will discuss about whether this is really comparable or not, |
| 2:07.0 | but we've had, you know, big, big scandals during the Me Too period, |
| 2:10.4 | going back to the Sat Jimmy Saville at the BBC, not necessarily that it's comparable, |
| 2:14.0 | but nonetheless, where we've had big media figures and media executives have not |
| 2:18.7 | necessarily asked the questions they ought to have done after matters which have arisen |
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