Claudia Winkleman tipped to revive Blind Date

TV presenter Claudia Winkleman has been tipped to host a revived version of 'Blind Date' for the BBC.

Claudia Winkleman

Claudia Winkleman has been tipped to host a new incarnation of 'Blind Date'.

The show was a huge hit for late presenter Cilla Black who hosted it between 1985 and 2003 and it was later brought back with Paul O'Grady at the helm between 2017 and 2019, but now TV mogul Dan Baldwin has hinted his production company Hungry Bear Media could bring the show back once again after successfully reviving 1990s hit 'Gladiators'.

During an appearance on BBC Radio 4 yesterday, Dan said: "You always look at old shows that are no longer on television. You are always coming up with new ways of bringing back a show.

"There is nothing wrong with that because those shows were great for a reason. As well as coming up with new ideas, we’ve always got one eye on what could come back and what could be a hit like 'Gladiators' is.

"Another one that you’d like to see back, 'Blind Date', are we ready for that? What a Saturday night that was. I’m thinking 'Blind Date' with Claudia Winkleman on BBC1, how about it?"

Dan went on to insist his revived version of 'Gladiators' will continue because it's found a huge audience with kids and their parents - who previously watched the original show - plus he's also planning a celebrity series pitching famous faces against the leotard-clad heroes.

He added: "I can reveal we are going to do a celebrity special ... I think we also hit a sweet spot because a lot of the parents there were kids back in the day when 'Gladiators' was on and now they have children that are the perfect age to watch it. So it’s almost the perfect ven diagram ...

"I think 'Gladiators' is here to stay, I’m going to say, it’s here to stay."