To host a late-night television show comes with an enormous amount of pressure. It doesn’t matter how much talent or experience the host has, especially when their name is the one on the series. That seems to be the case for one late-night host who abruptly quit the format earlier this month.
Claudia Winkleman, host of The Claudia Winkleman Showon BBC One in the UK, confirmed that she will not return for a second season of her late-night show. In a statement, Winkleman said that “sometimes you have to try something to see how it fits, and I realised I was just too nervous to enjoy it.”
Winkleman’s late-night show premiered in March and ran for seven weeks during the spring. The seven episodes featured a format similar to that of The Graham Norton Show, and it welcomed guests such as Jeff Goldblum, Lisa Kudrow, Jamie Dornan, and Dan Levy.
The BBC had high hopes for Winkleman. She was already well established in the British television industry thanks to her roles as host of Strictly Come Dancingand The Traitors. The idea of Winkleman headlining her own late-night show gained steam in early 2025 when she had a successful gig as a guest host on Graham Norton’s show.
The program did receive mixed reviews, with some critics suggesting the show was too disjointed or too similar to The Graham Norton Show. Per the BBC, episodes averaged between 1. 5 and 2 million viewers. By comparison, Norton typically pulled in 2.5 to 3 million viewers per episode.
Clips of Winkleman’s show also never really took off online, where so many late-night TV shows find a bigger audience. Outside of a few Shorts, longer cuts of The Claudia Winkleman Showfailed to top 10,000 views on the show’s official YouTube channel.
Many inudstry insiders viewed Winkleman as the most likely successor to Norton as the UK’s number one late-night TV star. Norton has reduced his workload in recent years and even produced Winkleman’s show. But now it’s clear that Winkleman has no interest in pursuing the format after just a small taste of what late-night has to offer.
But fans of the presenter won’t have to wait long to see her back on television. She’ll return to host the second season of The Celebrity Traitorslater this year. The reality show will feature a stacked lineup of players that includes Bella Ramsey (The Last of Us), singer James Blunt, Michael Sheen (Masters of Sex), and comedian Romesh Ranganathan.
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This article was originally published on www.lastnighton.com as Late-night TV host abruptly quits: ‘Too nervous to enjoy it’.
