Holly Willoughby quits ITV’s relaunched series after just one season: “No one saw this coming!”

Holly Willoughby has quit as co-presenter of the rebooted ITV series You Bet! after just one series.

The presenter, 44, hosted the revival of the 1990s challenge show, alongside her Dancing on Ice co-star Stephen Mulhern, who will now front the show solo when it returns to screens later this year.

You Bet! was relaunched with Willoughby attached to the programme in August 2024, after last airing in 1997. The show was previously presented by Bruce Forsyth, Darren Day and Matthew Kelly.

An ITV spokesperson said: “Unfortunately Holly couldn’t commit to the dates to host, but will hopefully appear as a guest panellist on one of the shows in the new series.”

ITV’s reboot of the game show marked the channel’s biggest entertainment launch with younger viewers since The 1% Club launched in April 2022.

Willoughby appeared in two special episodes last December, which saw celebrity guests including Rob Beckett, Alison Hammond, Judi Love, and Olly Murs predict whether competitors could complete a series of challenges.

If stars guessed correctly, points were added to their score based on the number of studio audience members who voted the same way.

Holly Willoughby has quit hosting ‘You Bet!’ alongside Stephen Mulhern after one series (Kieron McCarron/ITV/Shutterstock)

At the end of each episode, the You Bet! Studio audience voted for their favourite contestant who won a £10,000 prize. The celebrity with the highest score also won £10,000 for their chosen charity. Meanwhile, the A-lister with the fewest points faced a forfeit.

Reaction to the revival’s first episode on social media was, however, underwhelming, with many people sharing damning assessments of the show’s quality.

“ITV continue to get revivals wrong,” one person wrote. “#YouBet had a great concept with a good theme song and they’ve changed that and bringing all the trappings of modern celebrity in it. Too many cuts to the hosts and guests and no focus on the challenge and dramatic music. What a waste.”

The presenter left ‘This Morning’ after 14 years in October 2023 (ITV)

“Why does ITV make an a**e of things when they reboot classic game shows?” another asked. “Wheel of Fortune with Graham Norton was dire, likewise some of Epic Game Shows with Alan Carr, Deal or No Deal with Mulhern padded out to an hour instead of Noel Edmonds’ 45 minutes and now You Bet…”

“I bet that I won’t watch this again next week…” joked a third.

Someone else complained: “Can confirm the #YouBet reboot is so far dreadful. The theme tune is clearly from the stock library, the first timed task was clearly edited down (gotta fit more ads in) and the editors think we’re more interested in what the audience think instead of just showing the task.”