‘The best friend you’d love to have’ – How Claudia Winkleman conquered TV

There’s a famous motto in the cut-throat world of television that many presenters live by: “Don’t quit a hit.”

It’s one of the reasons Claudia Winkleman’s departure from Strictly Come Dancing, along with Tess Daly, took many by surprise when it was announced last month.

But in Winkleman’s case, the huge Saturday night hit she’d co-hosted for 15 years had actually been eclipsed by an even bigger one.

The Traitors, which Winkleman began fronting in 2022, has become the jewel in the BBC’s crown, with its recent celebrity spin-off attracting more than 13 million viewers.

The show has proven a perfect vehicle for Winkleman to showcase her range. She’s stern and severe, with a dark side viewers hadn’t previously seen, but also silly, camp and warm – always seeming to be genuinely on the side of the contestants.

“It’d be hard to argue against her being the number one presenter in the country right now,” says Alex Segal, managing director of talent agency InterTalent.

“Yes, you can of course still make a case for Ant and Dec, but in terms of the number of great shows, her trajectory, the love for her… people watch a show for her as much as they watch it for the format, I think she’s in that moment now.”

In an average year, viewers see Winkleman bouncing between a Scottish castle, a Hertfordshire ballroom and a train station piano (the latter, for Channel 4’s The Piano, which she also fronts). But another place the 53-year-old might soon be popping up is on her own chat show.

Industry reports suggest Winkleman is in advanced talks to host her own talk series – with Graham Norton’s own production company So Television, which also makes his chat show for the BBC, said to be potentially producing it.

“It’s an endorsement of Claudia’s meteoric rise over the last few years,” says Deadline’s Jake Kanter, who reported the negotiations. “She will be very keen to do this, I’m told it’s a personal ambition of hers as well.”

Although Winkleman is seemingly being positioned as Norton’s successor, there would be no direct clash. Her show would be broadcast in the months The Graham Norton Show – still a huge draw for audiences on TV and socials – is off air.

Kanter notes that Winkleman stepped in for Norton on an episode of his chat show earlier this year. “I’m sure that would’ve been either a catalyst or starting point for some of these discussions,” he says.

“They would’ve seen what she did, the BBC would’ve liked it, and I’m sure they have done other work behind the scenes to make sure the format is right with her.”

The BBC declined to comment on reports of the chat show when asked by BBC News, which is editorially independent from the corporation. So Television were also approached for a response.

A chat show would, however, be a logical next step given Winkleman’s current hot streak, which comes after her three-decade rise through television.

Winkleman is the daughter of newspaper editor Eve Pollard and book publisher Barry Winkleman. She studied art history at Cambridge, before launching a TV career in her twenties.

Willing to turn her hand to anything, she became a familiar face in the 1990s on BBC travel series Holiday, and her CV expanded with gameshows, dating formats and children’s programmes.

But in typically self-deprecating fashion, Winkleman suggested her haircut had more to do with her success than her on-screen ability.

“You may loathe my fringe, but, and I’m being perfectly serious here, it’s given me a career,” she wrote in her 2020 memoir, Quite.

“I’m sure I got work because all those times producers were in a room ruminating on the next TV show, handing round digestives and they couldn’t remember names, they said, ‘We could always get the orange one with the fringe’.

“Believe me, it’s not because I read out loud better than anyone else… It’s because I have a thing, an epithet, a focus.”

Early in her career, Winkleman was also used as a pundit on daytime TV shows. In 1996, for example, she was billed as a “chat-up connoisseur” during a dating segment on Good Morning with Anne and Nick.

It is a fascinating clip. Aged 24, Winkleman’s voice is higher than it is today, and her cut-glass English accent more refined. But she was comfortable on camera, and, three decades later, her appeal remains the same now as it was then.

“First and foremost, she’s funny,” says Frances Taylor, TV previews editor at Radio Times. “She has that natural comic timing and ability to be entertaining.

“And an extra layer on top of that is how self-deprecating that sense of humour is, that’s her secret weapon to me, she’s always willing to make herself the butt of the joke.”

She’s also “incredibly authentic”, Kanter adds. “When you see her at industry events, she is her TV persona. She’s the best friend you’d love to have. She’s fun, empathetic, understanding, sharp, and those qualities exude from the screen.”

Although her salary is no longer published by the BBC, Winkleman is among the corporation’s top earners. She was listed as making more than £450,000 in 2017.

But not everything she’s done has been a hit.

Britain’s Best Home Cook on BBC One, for instance, achieved relatively middling ratings despite the combined star power of Winkleman and Mary Berry.

Meanwhile, some felt she was less successful in Radio 2’s Saturday morning slot than Norton, her predecessor. The Spectator described the show as “brainless”, suggesting Winkleman “gushed” over her guests and asked obvious questions.

She also hosts Channel 4 quiz show One Question, notes Taylor. “But not many people have heard of it, and not many people watched it.”

Away from the screen, London-based Winkleman shares three children with her husband of 25 years, film producer Kris Thykier. She has often spoken of her close-knit family life, including a desire to spend more time at home with her children.

The family have also faced personal struggles. Her daughter Matilda was seriously injured in 2014 when, aged eight, the witch’s costume she was wearing for Halloween caught fire while she was out trick-or-treating.

Winkleman, who put out the flames with another parent, took a short break from Strictly, and later campaigned for tougher fire safety laws on fancy dress costumes. Matilda, now 19, has gone on to study at the University of Bath.

Unlike some of her peers such as Gary Lineker or Rylan Clark, Winkleman is almost never involved in controversy. She doesn’t share her political views and rarely grants interviews with news outlets.

“I do have opinions, but opinions are never a good idea, are they?” she told Gabby Logan’s podcast The Mid Point. “Whatever you do, don’t have an opinion, is my general view.

“And also, I don’t think I’ve got anything that interesting to say. So I’m happy to talk about napping and my love of eyeliner. I have nothing to add, I really don’t.”

She has, however, still had to navigate the occasional tricky situation, such as when she was a presenter on the BBC’s entertainment bulletin Liquid News.

During a 2003 interview with S Club 7 about their impending break-up, Winkleman asked a delicate question about reports they were unhappy with their earnings. The group’s publicist walked into the studio and halted the interview.

But despite her rise, audiences could be seeing less of Winkleman in the future, and not just because Strictly is losing its Clauditorium.

“The more successful you become, the less work you do, for a variety of reasons,” says Segal.

“If you get to a certain level, you become above a lot of stuff. Your rates go up financially. Also, the more work you take on, the more risk you have of failing. And sometimes, the way you limit that risk is to do less.”

Segal suspects there are “a lot of shows out there hosted by other people that Claudia was first choice for”, adding that Winkleman is “probably inundated daily with new ideas, and she will have to say no to 99% of them” – chat show or not.

Of course, Winkleman’s popularity doesn’t guarantee she will make a successful chat show host. Norton makes it look easy, but he is a master of his craft.

Even Davina McCall, a highly capable and popular presenter, struggled with her own chat show in 2006 – saying later it was the career move she most regretted.

“Davina was as hot then as Claudia is now, but her chat show didn’t work for the audience,” said former BBC One controller Peter Fincham on his podcast Insiders.

“Chat shows hosted by people who are currently riding high on television in other sorts of shows, don’t necessarily work.”

And as Claudia’s stardom continues to rise, doing less may help save her from something else – the risk of public fatigue – which Kanter cautions “is a thing” for presenters at her level.

“Are we getting to the point of peak Claudia? Possibly,” he says.

“So that is something that I’m sure she and her agent are giving some thought to.”