Record Breakers icon Cheryl Baker, 71, addresses the show's comeback after 24 years off air - as she takes swipe at 'ageist' TV industry

Daily Mail​

18-05-2025

Cheryl Baker has weighed in after it was revealed children's TV show Record Breakers is making a comeback after 24 years.
Cheryl, 71, previously hosted the show for 10 years alongside Roy Castle, between 1987 and 1997, and has said she would love to feature in the reboot.
The singer - who won Eurovision with her group Bucks Fizz in 1981 - took a swipe at how the TV industry is 'ageist' because she doesn't think she will be asked to return.
Cheryl told The Sun: 'If they wanted someone to be, not necessarily a presenter, because there's always somebody younger than me. It's a very ageist industry in television.
'But it would be nice if they had me as a roving reporter or something like that. So that would be nice but no one's spoken about it so I doubt it's going to happen.'
It's thought that Holly Willoughby 's husband, TV producer Dan Baldwin, is behind the reboot.
It now has the title World Record Breakers: The Rivals, but Cheryl says the show 'needs to be jazzed up,' and 'needs to be more exciting than it was.'
The TV star also confessed that it's still difficult for mature women to land a mainstream gig on the telly.
Cheryl says there's a lot of people out there like herself with 'an awful lot of experience they don't get the opportunity anymore.'
She added it 'would be nice if it's changing to include all ages and all nationalities.'
It comes after the Eurovision winner claimed that the contest has become 'too sexual' and is no longer suitable viewing for children.
Cheryl complained the contest has 'gone too far' in recent years, with 'body parts all over the place'.
The singer became famous for her risqué skirt ripping routine during the band's winning performance of Making Your Mind Up.
But Cheryl insists the song contest is now too 'extreme' and that this year's UK entry, Olly Alexander, failed to impress because his performance was 'suggestive'.
Eurovision winner Cheryl has claimed that the contest has become 'too sexual' and is no longer suitable viewing for children (Olly Alexander for the UK this year)
Olly, 33, performed his raunchy track Dizzy in a neon-lit bathroom surrounded by shirtless male dancers, dancing provocatively in red shorts and leather cod-pieces.
Cheryl has argued the reason the public didn't vote for Olly was due to the 'suggestive' nature to his performance.
She said: 'If I had to put my finger on why the public didn't like Olly Alexander's routine and why he got 'nul points' in the public vote, it would be because it was quite suggestive - which is in keeping with Eurovision becoming very sexual and extreme in recent years.'
She complained: 'There are body parts all over the place in many of the acts. I think it's gone a bridge too far and everybody needs to address that next year.
'Friends of mine, who are very well respected in the music industry, said they couldn't let their grandchildren watch it because it was too sexual and I take their point.
'I think it's gone too far. Would I have let my children watch it when they were young? Probably not.'
Olly ended up in 18th place out of the 25 acts in the grand final in Malmo, Sweden, a far cry from 2022 UK entrant Sam Ryder, who finished runner-up to Ukraine with his hit song Spaceman.