Trisha Goddard says GMB and This Morning only employ black presenters in ‘jokey’ roles

Former chat show host was responding to rumours that ITV is planning to recruit more black talent

Trisha Goddard has suggested that ITV’s daytime shows only employ black presenters in “jokey” roles.

The chat show host said that she supported recent rumours that ITV is looking to recruit more black presenters, amid internal concerns about on-screen representation.

“I want them to stop talking about it and just do it,” Goddard told The Daily Mail. “We don’t need to have a discussion about it, just do it.”

She also expressed concern about the black presenters currently employed by the channel, and the limits of their responsibilities in comparison to their white counterparts.

“They do have black people involved in This Morning and Good Morning Britain but having them as the weatherman or the jokey competition person,” Goddard said. “As with Andi Peters and Alison Hammond, again it puts you in a position.”

However, Goddard did add hat she understands that the respective editors of This Morning and Good Morning Britain, Martin Frizell and Neil Thompson, aren’t entirely at fault for the problems.

“It’s not just them, it’s a whole machinery,” she explained. ‘They don’t just get to choose who they want to choose without anything else … You’ve got to have the top management willing to do these things. The producers don’t have 100 per cent autonomy at all.”

Goddard recently revealed that she and her family had experienced racist abuse after comedian Leigh Francis donned blackface and prosthetics to impersonate her on his early Noughties sketch show Bo’ Selecta.