Jeremy Kyle piloting new show for TV return
The Jeremy Kyle Show was pulled from ITV following the death of a guest earlier this year
Jeremy Kyle will return to TV and is piloting a new show, it has been confirmed.
The presenter’s self-titled programme was pulled from ITV in May following the death of Steve Dymond who had failed a lie-detector test on the show.
Kyle, 54, is now piloting a new show with the broadcaster. He will also continue to work on his The Kyle Files series. The Jeremy Kyle Show will not return.
“He is a consummate broadcaster and it would be absolutely wrong to apportion blame of the show against the presenter of it,” ITV’s director of television Kevin Lygo said.
Lygo also said he does not believe The Jeremy Kyle Show would be commissioned today, describing the format as “anachronistic”.
“You think, would we start a show like this today? You’d say no,” he said. “It was fine in the past but today you wouldn’t have something that was a conflict resolution show that was so combative and – at times – aggressive. What worked for over a decade suddenly looked a bit anachronistic.”
Some 74,000 people signed a petition calling for the show to be permanently cancelled in the wake of the news of Mr Dymond's death. The petition claimed that The Jeremy Kyle Show “turned the real-life suffering of people into entertainment”.
Lygo was speaking at the Edinburgh TV Festival, where he also addressed Love Island, telling the audience he does not believe it should have been cancelled.
The ITV2 reality show came under fire after the deaths of series three contestant Mike Thalassitis in March 2019 and series two star Sophie Gradon in July 2018.
“I don’t feel there is a direct connection or enough significance to cancel Love Island because someone who was on it has gone through a tragic experience,” Lygo said.
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