My Greatest Mistake: Daisy Goodwin TV Producer & Presenter
'No one would watch a pair of posh, stuck-up cows'
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Your support makes all the difference.About four to five years ago, I was offered Trinny and Susannah by their agent and told to come up with a show for them. I looked at them and thought, ooh, no, they would never, ever work on TV. No one was going to listen to a pair of posh, stuck-up cows. How wrong I was.
I also made the fatal assumption that television producers sometimes make, which is to think: "I get them, but the audience won't." Of course they will. We as TV producers underestimate the wit and sophistication of the audience at our peril.
The show ended up being made by the BBC, with a producer who saw their potential and made it work. I think it's a brilliant format and they've managed to make Trinny and Susannah into comedy characters. I have to take my hat off to them and, although I wouldn't entirely say that they aren't stuck-up or posh, it's obviously a quality that has been missing on British television and one that they supply in spades.
I think I was also right that they weren't likeable, but I was wrong not to realise that likeable doesn't necessarily mean ratings. They have made themselves into a sensation, and now I feel a bit like the man who turned down The Beatles. And I have to say, I watch the show What Not to Wear every week through gritted teeth, because I didn't have the imagination and the humility to see what it could have been.
I don't really care now if they're posh and unsympathetic, as it gave me a lot more courage. I've just presented a poetry series and I think before that I would have felt I was too posh and too unsympathetic, but if they can get away with it, so can I.
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