Blind Date to return after 14-year absence... on Channel 5

'BLIND DATE'
(Image credit: ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

Hit Saturday night dating show Blind Date is returning for the first time since 2003, and it will screen on Channel 5

Hit television show Blind Date is to make a comeback after more than 14 years off air.

The massively popular Saturday night dating programme was hosted by the late Cilla Black for its entire 18-year run on ITV.

It will return to screens later this year on Channel 5, a source confirmed to the Press Association.

Cilla Black

(Myung Jung Kim/PA)

 

“Blind Date is the original dating show and it’s huge news to bring it back,” a separate source told The Sun.

“It’s a classic format that will be rebooted to make it young, sexy and modern. Expect sparks to fly.

“In an age of Tinder, you have got to earn the right to love on this show.”

Cilla Black

(Yui Mok/PA)

 

It will be produced by So Television, which also makes The Graham Norton show for the BBC.

The show, which launched in 1985, came to an end in 2003 after Cilla sensationally announced she intended to quit the show live on air.

The TV and music star revealed that the show had become more like work than fun and said she wanted to leave before it became a 'chore'.

It was reported at the time that the show’s production crew were unaware that she would make the announcement.

 

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.