As glamorous Galwegian TV presenter Gráinne Seoige joins the ITV team on new breakfast show Daybreak, the 'great girl, great bird' has to prove she is a warm fish in a big pond, writes RÓISÍN INGLE
PROFESSIONAL Galwegian, experienced broadcaster, gaelgeoir and champion of "Old Hollywood" glamour Gráinne Seoige has landed a job on ITV breakfast magazine show Daybreak, formerly the phenomenal ratings winner GMTV. This, the biggest break of her career, is expected to catapult her into another league in terms of salary and audience figures – GMTVregularly clocked up 13 million viewers a week – but the move won't be without its challenges. "She is going from being a big fish in a small pond, to being a tiny fish in a huge, vicious and scary pond," said one commentator.
But so far the only barrier appears to be the great British public’s ability to get to grips with her name. As an English person puzzled online when the news was announced: “Gráinne Seoige? Is that a person or an anagram?”
Daybreakwill have a decidedly Irish tinge when it starts in September. Earlier this month, Belfast's Christine Bleakley was announced as the new female anchor on the breakfast show and the news was viewed in some quarters as a blow to the other serious contender from this island. For much of this year, the channel was thought to have been courting Seoige.
Some observers even suspected she may have done enough to land the main presenting job alongside Adrian Chiles. Bleakley defected from the BBC; she had become hot TV property as a presenter on The One Show with Chiles when ITV made her an offer she couldn’t refuse.
Last March, Seoige presented a GMTVslot from Cheltenham, stood in as a sports presenter and did a stint as entertainment reporter, showing a versatility that impressed ITV bosses.
According to her agent, Noel Kelly, the finer details of the job, where her official title is “features editor”, are being hammered out over the summer.
"I can't give you specifics at this point but she will be working four or five days a week on human interest stories," he says. The 36-year-old will continue working with RTÉ on programmes such as Up For the Match, The People of the Yearand The All Ireland Talent Show. She will commute between England and Ireland where she has a teenage son Conall who is still in secondary school.
Last month, she announced the break-up of her marriage to TV3’s former sports editor and business man Stephen Cullinane. “Gráinne is on her own now with her son so she is taking care of business; it’s a fantastic opportunity for her,” says Kelly, describing his client as “a great girl, a great bird, a great chick”. “She works tremendously hard, she is a consummate professional and she is not just an autocutie,” he says.
The “great chick’s” new broadcasting adventure has been given the blessing of RTÉ and, more randomly, former Miss World Rosanna Davison who has said Seoige is “a shining example of a focused and determined Irish woman with that impressive combination of brains and beauty”. The pair go to the same gym, she says, and Seoige is always “friendly and positive” whenever they meet.
THE DAUGHTER OFMartin, a community Garda, and Phil Joyce she went to school in Spiddal, Co Galway and initially harboured ambitions to go into print journalism. While making the leap from an audience of hundreds of thousands to millions might sound daunting, friends say Seoige will hit the ground running in her new job.
“Her confidence is almost frightening,” says one acquaintance. Since graduating with honours from the then University College Galway where she studied English and Political Science she has been involved in numerous high-profile broadcasting start-ups.
Seoige was the first face on TG4 when it was launched on Halloween night in 1996 and was part of the launch two years later of TV3 where she spent six years as main news anchor.
In 2004 she was head-hunted by another start-up Sky News Ireland and spent two years there before the Irish broadcasts ended. Inevitably, given her popularity with audiences, RTÉ beckoned and for three years Seoige sat on an afternoon chat show sofa, first with reporter Joe O’Shea and then with her sister Síle before that show Seoige was axed, for what RTÉ said were financial reasons, last year.
Seoige was said to be devastated when it came to an end but later admitted that working on both The All Ireland Talent Showand the chat show had been challenging.
“It’s no joke,” she said in an interview, “putting together a chat show five days a week. It tests your patience and your ability to be nice to people . . . ”
According to some former colleagues on Seoige, her ability to be warm to people offscreen was not always on a par with her ability to talk into a camera.
One former colleague, who didn’t want to be named, described her as “quite a cold individual” who could turn on the charm whenever it was called for.
“But even when she did turn on the charm you always got a sense that it was faux charm, she could never really warm up and, compared to her sister, she was a cold fish,” said a former colleague.
This person went on to say that the only time she saw “real emotion” from the presenter was the day the show was axed. “She was devastated, there were lots of tears. The next day it was all big sunglasses and puffy eyes.
“But even as all that was going on she could go in front of the camera and get on with it. There is a steely side to her that is very impressive.”
ANOTHER FORMER Seoigecolleague complained that the presenter cultivated a "me and them" attitude when it came to the production team. "She was the biggest star in the room and nobody was allowed to forget it," she said.
Some of these comments can be dismissed as professional jealousy and sour grapes. If Seoige were a man, her healthy ego and awareness of her place in the celebrity pecking order would likely be viewed as attributes.
Even so, British publicist Max Clifford suggests Seoige will have to be careful not come across as “cold and abrasive” on Daybreak, which is being modelled on the Today programme in the US.
"I've been interviewed by her before and I did not experience the warm, affable approach that is crucial to success on breakfast television," he says. "She should be watching presenters on the Todayprogramme very carefully. They have warmth and they have an authority that makes viewers trust them.
“She has a real chance to make a name for herself in Britain but she needs to work at softening the edges.”
She also needs to work at helping people pronounce her name or, failing that, perhaps she could revert back to her original family surname Joyce. During one of her recent GMTVstints a co-presenter called her "Granya Soudja".
With the move across the water, the glamorous Galwegian is doing a not-inconsiderable service to UK-based Gráinnes everywhere who, up until now, have suffered the ignominy of being called everything from Grainy to Granny with a million variations in between. Not anymore, hopefully.
CV Gráinne Seoige
Who: TV presenter Gráinne Seoige
Why is she in the news?She has landed a job on ITV's new morning show Daybreak
Most likely to say:"It's Show-i-ga, SHOW-I-GA, in ainm Dé!"
Least likely to say:"Christine, honest to God, I don't want your job."
