John Bishop was heartbroken when In Conversation With... was axed
John Bishop has admitted that he was devastated when his interview series 'In Conversation With' was axed after four series, because he believed it was the best work he had done on television.
John Bishop was devastated when his TV show 'In Conversation With...' was axed.
The 58-year-old comedian interviewed guests such as Katie Price and Jeremy Corbyn for his interview series with digital channel W, which aired from 2016 to 2018, but after four series he was dropped from the schedule.
John admits losing the project was a blow because it was the television show he was most proud of making.
Appearing on the 'How to Fail' podcast, he said: "I was absolutely gutted because I think on television it was the thing I was most proud of.
"I enjoyed doing it. I felt I was good at it. I felt it was revealing a different aspect to me, but I also felt at the time it was quite unique."
Bishop tried to find a different way to continue the series, such as in a podcast form, but was told there was "no money" in it.
He added: "I wanted to find a way of carrying it on and I spoke to people doing podcasts and everyone was going, 'There's no money in podcasts'.
"I was thinking, we'll stick it on YouTube and they said, 'But there's no money in it and you've got limited time.'"
Following the axing of 'In Conversation With...', the stand-up comic then fronted 'The John Bishop Show' on ITV, on which he spoke to famous guests like Sir Ian McKellen, Courteney Cox and Shania Twain, but that ended after two series in 2023 after Bishop accepted he couldn't compete with established chat show hosts like Jonathan Ross and Graham Norton.
John previously said: "It was great to do, but I found that I was competing in a space that was congested.
"Graham Norton is brilliant at it and Jonathan Ross is brilliant at it. We really don't need another chat show."
The comic was also left frustrated by the fact that his interviews were so short as he prefers to have in-depth conversations with guests on his podcast 'The Bishop Exchange'.
He said: "A chat show doesn't allow you to do the depth of interviews that I would like to have done. With television, you've got to fit into schedules.
"But with the podcast, I can do it whenever I want to do it."
