Jonathan Ross shrugs off rivalry with Claudia Winkleman and Graham Norton
Jonathan Ross doesn't feel "threatened" by Claudia Winkleman ahead of the launch of her talk show and can't wait to tune in.
Jonathan Ross doesn't feel "threatened" by Claudia Winkleman ahead of the launch of her talk show.
The 65-year-old presenter will face more competition for his own eponymous ITV programmewhen the Traitors star launches her chat show on 13 March, but not only is Jonathan not worried, he is actively "rooting" for Claudia and plans to tune in.
He told The Sun newspaper: “I’ve never looked at another person’s show and thought I wish that wasn’t on, or I never felt threatened by another person’s show.
“Because all you can really do is do your show as well as you can and hopefully you’ll find an audience — and if it doesn’t, they’ll let you know and you’ll stop doing it.
"I suspect Claudia will do great. She’s such a charming person. She’s a really lovely host.
“She knows what she’s doing. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like her.
“I’ll be watching along with everyone else, looking forward to it and rooting for her.”
Jonathan's biggest rival has been The Graham Norton Show and while he acknowledged the Irishman is able to book bigger name guests, he can understand why and he would rather focus on getting the right group of people together.
He said: “There are more people who you would consider as guests, but it’s harder to book because people have gone off into their own little niche areas.
“Graham gets more of the movie studio guests and there are a number of reasons for that.
“One of them is the fact you can’t advertise on BBC and so if you’re promoting a show, you’ll buy an advert on Channel 4 and you’ll buy an advert on ITV.
“But you’ll try and get the guests on The One Show or Graham first.”
The Masked Singer judge doesn't think a bigger name necessarily draws in more viewers.
He added: “I’m much less concerned with getting big names on as I am getting the mix right.
“I remember when I used to host on Channel 4 years ago and we got a big booking at that time, probably the biggest male movie star in the world was Mel Gibson and the audience figures did not go up an inch. Maybe they went up 100,000.
“It made no difference, and we realised the people who are going to watch this show, they’re watching.
“Graham and I do different shows. Fundamentally, he’s hosting one, I’m hosting another one.
“I think we approach the way we do interviews very differently, but there’s room for us all.
“I don’t think Claudia needs any advice from me or from anyone else!”
