Entertainment
Channel 5 boss brands Lorraine Kelly show on penguins biggest flop of his career
Lorraine Kelly has been an ITV icon for years (Picture: Channel 5)
Daytime TV icon Lorraine Kelly has dipped her toe in many different show formats throughout her successful TV career.
Whether it’s filling in for one of her ITV colleagues on Good Morning Britain or This Morning or being a guest on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, sees to have done it all, including a little known show in 2016 in which her co-stars were… penguins.
And apparently, Penguin A&E with Lorraine Kelly is a source of many regrets for Channel 5 head of programmes Ben Frow.
In an interview snippet shared by The Guardian’s media editor Jim Waterson on Twitter, he talked about the worst thing he commissioned in his many years on the job.
‘There was Penguin A&E with Lorraine Kelly,’ he said.
‘It’s got penguins, it’s got A&E, it’s got Lorraine Kelly! Perfect! Total flop.’
Obviously, the recipe had some flaws because of the four episodes that were produced, only two aired, pulling an audience of 880,000, while the other two were burned off in early 2017.
The short-lived documentary series saw the daytime stalwart visit a hospital in South Africa that specialises in treating ‘poorly penguins’.
Speaking at Edinburgh TV Festival last year, Ben spoke of his ‘biggest failure’ saying: ‘What I learned was you never, ever, ever presume that something is going to work.
‘We commissioned two episodes and we were so certain that the combination of penguins, A&E and Lorraine Kelly was a slam dunk that we doubled the order, only to find that it launched and sank like a stone.’
Lorraine seemed to enjoy her time with her wee friends (Credits: S Meddle/ITV/Shutterstock)
Speaking of the show and her penguin friends when the show first aired, Lorraine said: ‘You can’t help get emotional. But it’s so lovely to see them getting better.
‘The best thing is to see them released back into the wild. That’s what it’s all about. When they toddle into the sea.
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‘They get so attached to you. There was one wee penguin that followed me around all the time. I wanted to take him home but of course, you can’t. I named him Steve after my husband. He was adorable.’
While Lorraine seemed to be having fun around her wee friends, she was no Sir David Attenborough.
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