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ITV said “it would be absolutely wrong to apportion blame” on the presenter personally
Jeremy Kyle is developing a new show for ITV, three months after his daytime programme was cancelled following the death of a man who had taken part.
ITV’s director of television Kevin Lygo said it was making a pilot with the host, but the new show won’t be aired in The Jeremy Kyle Show’s old timeslot.
Either Good Morning Britain, Lorraine or This Morning could be extended to fill that gap, Mr Lygo said.
Investigative series The Kyle Files will also return in 2020, he added.
ITV axed The Jeremy Kyle Show in May after the death of Steve Dymond, days after taking a lie detector test when he appeared as a guest.
His inquest heard that he was found dead after “growing concerned about the repercussions of the show”, and that police suspected his death was a suicide.
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The inquest into Steve Dymond’s death will continue in November
When ITV cancelled the long-running daytime programme, it said it would continue to work with the presenter.
Speaking at the Edinburgh Television Festival, Mr Lygo said: “We are piloting something with him and we will just have to have a look because he is a consummate broadcaster and it would be absolutely wrong to apportion blame of the show against the presenter of it.
“We don’t hold him in any bad way. We will look to find another show with him but I think it is unlikely it will go in the same slot.”
Referring to the schedule, he said: “I have spoken to him about it, of course, and I think he feels as well that whatever he does next, it shouldn’t be in that 9.30AM slot.
“We have an ongoing commitment to The Kyle Files, which will be ready next year some time.”
After The Jeremy Kyle Show’s cancellation, MPs on the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee launched an inquiry into the support offered to reality TV show participants.
Kyle himself declined to appear in front of the committee, however, which Mr Lygo said was “totally his decision”.
He said: “He didn’t want to do it and he feels that was the right thing to do. For him, it was his call.
“After the event I think he thought, ‘I’m glad I didn’t.’ It would have all been on him. He might not have known stuff.”
At one hearing, the committee’s chairman Damian Collins MP labelled The Jeremy Kyle Show’s makers “irresponsible” for putting guests through lie detector tests without knowing how accurate those tests were.
Love Island ‘is not the same’
There have also been questions about other reality shows such as Love Island following the suicides of former contestants Mike Thalassitis (pictured, below) and Sophie Gradon.
Mr Lygo said it “wouldn’t have occurred” to him to cancel Love Island too.
“I don’t think Love Island and Jeremy Kyle are the same in any way,” he said. “The awful tragedies of people dying – this was years after they appeared on the show.
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Twenty-six year-old reality star Thalassitis was found dead in a park in north London in March
“They had appeared on other shows. They had gone on with their lives. All we know about suicide is that it is a very complex issue and there is not one trigger that does it.
“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.”
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