There has been plenty of speculation over the last few days that ITV is planning to revive the former Saturday night juggernaut The X Factor, with bosses hoping to have a big flagship weekend show that can also appeal to young people via social media.
Rumours state that Simon Cowell would be involved in some capacity, but the judges would be fresher-faced to appeal to the target demographic.
What about Dermot O’Leary? Could he return as host if the reboot goes ahead?
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Speaking on today’s Good Morning Britain, the presenter said: “I don’t know what I can tell you because I don’t know anything”, later giving the classic “never say never” response when asked outright if he’d return.
Susanna Reid asked him if anyone had phoned him up to tell him that he was too old for the revival, he replied: “No, no-one’s told me that…!”
“Do you know what’s interesting, I have been thinking about it. It’s six years since it was on air which doesn’t sound like that much of a long time, but the world has changed and the music’s changed, and how we communicate and how we watch things has changed so much in those six years.
“I’m fascinated as to what they’ll do if they do bring it back. It’d have to be, in many ways, a very different show [but] you still want the nostalgia of how it was in the first place.”
ITV
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The kind of contestants that applied to the show was one of elements that changed throughout the years.
“When I started on that show — Simon, to be fair to him, used to get frustrated with it — it was always people turning up saying, ‘I wanna be a star, tell me what you want me to be’. That always used to irk him,” O’Leary said.
“As it progressed and music became more democratised, people would turn up and say, ‘Well, I’ve got my own album and I’m on YouTube and I’ve written 24 songs but I need a platform’. So I think however it comes back, if it does come back, that’s how it will have to come back.”
Although the show took up a lot of his time, as he’d work on it from April through December, O’Leary called it “the most fun” and a “great show” to do.
Good Morning Britain airs on ITV1.
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Joe Anderton is a freelance news writer at Digital Spy, having worked there since 2016. In his time, he’s covered a host of live events and interviewed celebrities big and small. A big fan of TV and movies both mainstream and obscure, Joe also enjoys video games and in particular PlayStation. Joe currently does not use Twitter, but he only ever used it to tell people to watch the film Help! I’m a Fish.