When Vanessa Feltz’s daytime talk show ended in 1998, Labour was in government, and Five and Robbie Williams were driving fans wild on tour. Fast forward 27 years and… well, not much has changed. Labour is back in power and a reformed Five and a reinvented Robbie Williams are still pulling in huge crowds. What has changed is the competition facing Vanessa, as she makes a return to our screens on Channel 5 with her own lunchtime programme after a nearly three-decade absence. And what’s also different is the tone of her new show, which she describes passionately as an escape from the “relentless and frightening” daily news agenda.

Starting Monday (March 24), the 63-year-old Express columnist and veteran broadcaster will occupy a prime spot in Channel 5’s schedule with a new 70-minute show. Simply titled Vanessa, it will run from 12.45pm five days a week, coming after morning heavy-hitters Jeremy Vine and Storm Huntley. It will also pit her directly against ITV’s Loose Women, which began in 1999, a year after Vanessa left ITV. However, Vanessa isn’t remotely concerned about the clash. “I’m a great admirer of the Loose Women,” she explains. “Lots of them are my personal, close friends who I’ve known for years, and we all support each other. We all get on brilliantly. “But I’m hoping that some people might like to vary their viewing schedule just occasionally, and shake it up a little bit, and make it over to Channel 5 to have a look at my beautiful living room. I’ve got this beautiful little bit of pale pink and pale green, beautiful rug and beautiful cushions, and it’s all really lovely. The set is delightful, and I hope that they will feel it’s an alternative, it’s different, it’s new.”

The broadcaster is a more than ready for a bit of healthy competition and is happy to take it in her stride, admitting: “It also might be they love the Loose Women, and I do too – I’ve absolutely nothing but admiration and friendship for them – but viewers may well want to seek another option or alternative. You know, you can have steak every day and an occasional hamburger or the other way round. What’s wrong with that?”

It has meant stepping down from ITV’s This Morning after 33 years as a contributor. “When I told everyone I wouldn’t be able to do the show anymore, they were lovely about it. I heard from Alison Hammond and Holly Willoughby immediately and the bosses were charming,” she says. “I’ll miss working with them all.”

Morning TV is a hotbed of news and debate, stirring up the nation over their coffee – a set-up Vanessa welcomes as the ideal segue into people’s real lives away from the headlines. Best known for her insightful commentary and straight-talking nature, the star insists her new offering will be very different. For starters, she reveals, there will be absolutely no requirement to follow news stories of the day.

“I think it’s going to be great fun,” continues Vanessa. “It’s quite different from anything I’ve ever done before, because it’s not going to be political at all, and it’s not going to be dictated by the news agenda. It’s going to be about all the things that people really want to talk about in real life. I think loads of people are looking for refuge from the news agenda, which can be quite relentless and frightening and depressing and unnerving. We never quite know where we’re going these days, and everything’s moving very fast.”

Vanessa has never been afraid to challenge convention nor speak truth to power. Viewers can expect that side of her to come through on the new programme – but she is also keen to bring some light relief into the talk show arena. “This is a nice little oasis in the middle of the day to have lunch, relax and talk about other things – the things that really matter, like relationships and families, parenting, dating, sex, kids, in-laws, fashion, gossip – all the fun stuff. Basically it’s all the stuff that isn’t spoken about in the news, all the stuff that you really do want to talk about in real life.”

No stranger to talking about her own real life and relationship woes, she previously revealed she “feels less whole” without a husband in her autobiography, Vanessa Bares All, last year. Discussing her ex-husband Michael Kurer, who walked out on their 16-year marriage and two daughters, Allegra and Saskia, then aged 13 and 10, she recalled him cruelly telling her: “You are just so fat, so fat. It’s hideous. You are hideous. I keep waiting for you to get diabetes.”

The presenter first gained national recognition with The Vanessa Show on ITV, which ran from 1994 to 1998, before moving to the BBC, where she presented a range of radio and television programmes, including on BBC One and Radio 2. In 2022, she left the BBC after nearly 20 years, looking for new challenges. She joined TalkTV, where she hosted her own show for two years. A year later, Vanessa left her role as a presenter on the station and, in November, replaced former Countdown star Carol Vorderman, 63, on LBC. She will continue to host her Saturday and Sunday afternoon shows on the station.

Part of her enduring success is without doubt her ability to adapt for the digital age. Her latest hit has been a spoof YouTube show, cheekily dubbed With Love, Vanessa – a parody of Meghan Markle’s Netflix lifestyle show. And there certainly is an audience for it – at the time of writing, With Love, Vanessa had 215,000 views. Yet Vanessa insists the show isn’t taking a swipe at the Duchess.

“I’m not one of these kind of regular, routine Meghan bashers. In fact, far from it. I defended Meghan very often in public, on the television, to the point that [royal editor and long-time friend of Meghan] Omid Scobie contacted me to say that Meghan was very grateful, and really appreciated my support,” she says. “It’s more about Meghan’s programme. It’s not an indictment of her personality. I’ve got no hostility towards Meghan. It’s just that genre [of show]. ‘Elevate your packet of pretzels’ just seems to lend itself to parody. So, it’s not personal, and it’s definitely not against her.

“I just was on my YouTube channel, and instead of just discussing the Meghan show, I thought, ‘Well, I’ll just make my own.’ It’s gone all the way around the universe. It’s been viewed in Brazil and all over America, Canada, New Zealand, Australia. Most of the comments – and there are thousands and thousands – say the funniest things and they’re thoroughly enjoying it as a lifestyle show.”

Conquering social media is on the to-do list for the commentator, according to Vanessa: “There’s a market for everyone. There are still people who like terrestrial TV. There are still people who like to feel that when something’s happening, they can watch in real time. I’ve got 400,000 followers on Instagram and I love every one of them.”

Vanessa previously revealed that many fans reached out to her via Instagram to offer their support when her partner of 16 years Ben Ofoedu, 52, was exposed as a cheat. “I enjoy Instagram a lot, and I’m really going great guns with this new YouTube channel. And I think the whole [multimedia] thing can give people the opportunity and autonomy to watch you wherever they fancy, which is great.”

And it’s the idea of giving viewers what they want when they want it that makes the new show different, Vanessa reveals. “There isn’t really going to be a script. If callers ring in and say, ‘You’re talking about this, Vanessa, but I wish you were talking about something else altogether’, I’ll just move it. We’ll talk about what they want to talk about. There’s no agenda.” She adds: “Television’s never been so real, honest or unpredictable.”

Dame Joan Collins and PM’s wife Victoria Starmer are top of her wish list for guests, but she also plans to bring in some of her long-standing friends for a chat. With a long list of pals and a track record for getting straight to the point, the conversation really could take any turn, she adds: “I’d love to have my dear friend Anneka Rice on. I’d like to have Lorraine Chase. There are just lots and lots of ladies who’ve got loads to say, and maybe someone we haven’t seen enough of recently.

“Maybe we have seen them, but we’ve seen them in a particular role, and this will show a different side of them. [It will let them] tell stories about their own experience and get their own views on things. I hope that my guests will unleash a different part of themselves and they will react genuinely to whatever it is everyone else is talking about rather than coming on specifically to talk about a particular thing.

“Usually, when you get a celebrity on a show, they’re there because they’ve just launched a fitness video, or they’re about to be in a soap, or whatever. But I hope the reason to be on my show will be that they just fancy having a good chat. [Hopefully] we’ll see a different side of people, a more human side. I hope it’s going to be kind of refreshingly different from most TV shows – good fun and a good place to park yourself for an hour a day while you’re having some lunch.” That’s certainly food for thought.