The Sunday Post (Dundee)

Broadcaste­r’s question time on Channel

- By Tim Knowles tknowles@sundaypost.com

Veteran TV presenter and former newspaper editor Andrew Neil is poised to move to Channel 4 where he will host a weekly politics show set to be launched later this year.

Neil’s move is part of a wider shake-up of Channel 4, with restaurate­ur and chef Jamie Oliver ending his exclusive contract there after 20 years.

Paisley-born Neil, 72, walked out of his previous job at GB News last summer after two weeks in which he helped to launch the channel he now calls “British Fox News”.

In an interview he gave last November, Neil said that GB News was the “single biggest mistake” of his 50-year media career.

“I put my face on the tin and yet I quickly discovered that I really had no say over what was going into that tin,” he said.

GB News has moved on from Neil, signing up Eamonn Holmes as a breakfast presenter and landing an interview with Donald Trump.

Neil is in advanced talks to host a Sunday evening show, positionin­g it away from the BBC and Sky News’s morning politics programmes. He is expected to reflect on the day’s news, interview heavyweigh­t guests and look ahead to the coming week.

Oliver, 46, has told the broadcaste­r he will not renew his agreement and is believed to be in talks with streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon.

The move ends a major partnershi­p with Oliver making more than 40 series and one-offs for the channel over two decades.

Oliver’s latest Channel 4 series, The Great Cookbook Challenge, launches tomorrow. He is to search for a cook able to write a

bestsellin­g book of recipes for Penguin Random House.

Channel 4 is still awaiting a decision from Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries over whether it will be privatised. Ministers

are wading through 60,000 submission­s to a consultati­on on its future, with the industry overwhelmi­ngly opposed to plans for a sale.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United Kingdom