Eamonn Holmes believes he has to continue to "stay relevant" to remain in employment, despite his 40-year career.

Eamonn Holmes

Eamonn Holmes

The 60-year-old TV presenter - who has worked in the industry since 1979 - feels the need to "reinvent [himself]" at times to keep up-to-date with his audience.

Speaking on the 'Events That Made Me' podcast, he explained: "As good as you do, staying in employment, people like me have got to stay relevant. To stay relevant, you have to know your market ... you've got to see the trends coming and you have to reinvent yourself."

Eamonn always knew he wanted to work in television, although many of his classmates at university laughed at him when his professor asked what area of journalism they wanted to get into.

He recalled: "My journalism lecturer would go round the class and say, 'Right, what do you want to do when you qualify?' and people in my journalism class would say, 'I want to write for the Irish Times', 'I want to write for the Guardian' or I want to write for the Independent,' and when it got to me I would say, 'I want to be on TV, I want to be a TV reporter'.

"And the class would laugh. I suppose their point was you shouldn't really express ambition like that, but to me it was direction, it was the area of journalism I wanted to be in."

The 'This Morning' co-presenter hosted on 'GMTV' for 12 years, and 11 years on 'Sky News Sunrise'.

And while he knows it was difficult to get into the business, Eamonn believes it is harder to stay relevant and get more work once you're in.

He added: "What I would say about my job is that getting on the conveyor belt is very, very tough, very hard, but - staying on the conveyor belt is harder."


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