Cat Deeley and ITV in stand-off over terms of This Morning offer
TV PRESENTER Cat Deeley will have to quit her lucrative job on the US reality programme she has hosted for 18 years if she wants to replace Holly Willoughby as This Morning’s host, ITV bosses have said.
The star, who has been pursued by the channel’s executives since Ms Willoughby quit last October, will not be allowed to take time off to film the next series of So You Think You Can Dance later this year – and so faces a dilemma over her future.
Sources at the network say that she will be allowed the standard – and generous – holiday allowance enjoyed by Ms Willoughby and Phillip Schofield, which is six weeks leave in the summer and a fortnight at both Christmas and Easter.
One told the Mail: ‘Cat won’t be given any special treatment, if she signs up, then she won’t be given the time off to go back to America.
‘So You Think You Can Dance is a huge commitment. She will absolutely not be given time off to film the next series. So she has to make that decision, it’s one or the other.’
Those in the upper echelons of ITV are desperate to sign Ms Deeley, but sources at the network say there are ‘several obstacles’ to get through – apart from the discussion around So You Think You Can Dance.
According to friends of hers, Ms Deeley also says that despite wanting the job ‘if she could make it work,’ husband Patrick Kielty’s commitments as presenter of The Late Late Show make childcare difficult.
He has to be in Dublin from Tuesday until Friday, while Ms Deeley would be required to host This Morning in London from Monday to Thursday.
The Mail can also reveal that Ms Deeley, 48, told friends that she wants to co-host the embattled ITV daytime series with popular BBC Radio 2 host Rylan Clark after she anchored the programme with him for two episodes last November.
ITV is desperate to sign Ms Deeley
However, ITV want her to work with Ben Shephard, who they had initially hoped to team up with Ms Willoughby from last month before she quit This Morning after an alleged plot to kidnap and murder her emerged.
Mr Shephard, who hosts Good Morning Britain twice a week, is understood to be reluctant to put pen to paper on a deal until he knows who he will be working with.
Meanwhile, while Ms Deeley weighs her options, waiting in the wings is former Channel 5 weather presenter Sian Welby who impressed programme editor Martin Frizell when she stood in two weeks ago alongside Dermot O’Leary.
Insiders on the show say that the daytime television Svengali fell for the starlet ‘hook, line and sinker’.
This Morning bosses have had an ongoing headache finding a replacement for Ms Willoughby. When they previously thought they couldn’t get Ms Deeley, they asked Emma Willis to take the job; but she couldn’t commit to the four-day week.