Years of internet gossip...but ITV bosses knew zip

Before the culture, media and sport committee could begin two hours of staring down ITV's big bosses and demanding that they must have known about Phillip Schofield because absolutely everybody knew about Phillip Schofield, they had to go through the formalities and declare if any of them had any conflict of interest to declare.

- TOM PECK

Four of the parliamentary committee had worked at ITV before, one as a news anchor. Practically all of the rest of them had accepted hospitality from the broadcaster over the years. Dame Caroline Dinenage, the chair of the committee, had done neither, but then again did have to say that she is the daughter of How presenter Fred Dinenage, who until 18 months ago had worked there for more than 40 years.

The central question in the Schofield scandal hasn't changed, nor moved on so much as a single centimetre, in the weeks if not months that no one has seemed to talk about anything else. And it's this: "HOW DID THEY NOT KNOW?"

How did the people running ITV not know about a secret so open that Google's auto-complete has been telling people about it for more than a year, whether they wanted to know or not?

To that end, it arguably didn't help matters that a large number of the people doing the interrogating had to declare a clear interest in ITV-based gossip. How could they not have known either?

ITV chief executive Dame Carolyn McCall was there, and she didn't know. As was the network's general counsel, Kyla Mullins, who didn't know either. Having been watching these committees for quite a few years now I can tell you that, as a general rule, when they've had to bring a lawyer with them, it's generally not going to go well. And then there was Kevin Lygo, ITV's director of television, who also definitely didn't know.