Jenni Falconer

0:04Hello and welcome to The Midpoint. My guest today has been a fixture of our media landscape for over three decades. Starting out as a contestant on Blind Date, she's been a regular on GMTV for much of the 2000s, hosted a lottery show. She's hosted ITV support programmes for I'm a Celebrity and for the last 12 years has been a regular on Global's award-winning radio stations from Hart to her job of the last two years hosting Smooth's Breakfast Show. And it's her passion for running marathons that's led her to hosting the podcast The Running Show. She's just about to turn 50 literally in the next week but looks like she's managed to turn back the clock.

0:40So maybe her latest business venture into collagen is something to do with it and her perennially youthful looks. I'm sure we're going to find out. Let's go meet Jenny Fultner.

0:53Jenny Fultner, welcome to The Midpoint. Thank you. Do you know this is exciting because I listen to this quite regularly. I listen to podcasts when I run, Gabby. And if I'm on a long training run, I have your voice in my ear. Oh, dear. An awful lot. Well, that is very kind of you to say so. We'll get onto your running very soon. But the first thing we need to address is that we speak to you today, I think about a week away from your actual 50th birthday. I know. This is the midpoint, is it? Yeah, well, the midpoint can be any age. I haven't said this for a while, but it can be any age from about 38 onwards, according to the Economic and Social Research Council.

1:26But I think you're probably someone who's going to hit 100 because you seem to be going backwards in terms of your youthful appearance. Oh, of course you're okay. That might be to do with ecology, and we'll talk about that as well. but maybe it's to do with you running I don't know how do you feel though at nearly 50? Strange isn't it because you spend all your years dreading 30 and 40 and now coming up to 50 I'm not I'm not fearful of that kind of new chapter in fact it's almost like I feel more empowered now and you know previously you'd go and work out and you'd really look after yourself and everyone would see it as vanity but I think actually all of that I feel like it's all longevity now and everything's changed and I'm enjoying the age I am I'm more confident than ever which obviously we both work in media and along the way you know you can you can have kind of zones and times of life where you feel confident and then when you lack it massively and now I think I'm very relaxed I feel confident I'm pleased with what I've achieved and I just kind of want to keep going and so yeah it's it's a good age to be.

2:28You articulate that brilliantly because I think there are periods in our industry and in other industries, I'm sure, but we just haven't experienced them, where your success is at the whim of somebody else, isn't it? Somebody else deciding you're the right person for this. And I don't really care about that anymore if you don't think that I'm right for that. I'll just do the things that people do want me to do and not chase things that aren't maybe meant for me in the same way. I agree. I mean, years ago, when you start out, you are looking at everyone else. And And that phrase, comparison, is a thief of joy.

2:59It is absolutely true. There is space for everyone, everywhere. You've just got to find what suits you. I mean, we're just discussing, my daughter has just chosen her GCSE subjects and she doesn't know what she wants to do in life. And I'm like, well, lots of people don't know what they want to do in life. I didn't even discover that I loved radio until I was in my 30s. And now that's pretty much the main thing that I do for work on a day-to-day basis. and I absolutely love it. But until my 30s, I'd never, ever done anything in radio. So, yeah, you can learn and you can find out more about yourself all the time.

3:35And, you know, I'm about to turn 50 and I feel that there's still probably a lot of things that I've yet to try and yet to learn. And I'm quite excited about it. Yeah, and right at the very beginning, we first saw your lovely face on television on Blind Date, right? When I was 18. That was the very young Jenny, you know, filling in a form and going, I imagine it was a form in those days and kind of not online, and going to a TV studio for the first time to do something. Was that your eureka moment where you thought, oh, I'd quite like to work in this industry? Yeah, I had no intentions of being in television.

4:04I actually always wanted to be an architect. And there was a bit of a recession going on and everyone had said, you won't get much work if you're an architect. So all the subjects I'd chosen, which would have geared me towards being an architect, I kind of had to reassess. And I thought, OK, well, I'll study languages and see where it takes me. And I was all set to go to university. I'd just done my A-levels I got the call I'd gone through all the auditions and I got the call to say we're going to film Blind Date so I'd literally just finished my A-levels been on a two-week piss up to Tenerife with my friends and off I went to Tenerife um you love Tenerife oh my god and I'd been on that holiday with my friends and then off I went to film Blind Date and I just suddenly went wow this is amazing I mean I got a really kind of warped sense of what television is like because you know I am there on a show with Cilla Black I was a picker so I was guaranteed to go on the whole experience and we went on a trip to France we filmed I mean sports and activities which is absolutely what I love doing and we were filming with an amazing crew who actually in the last 30 odd years since I filmed Blind Day I have run into many of them several times they still work in the industry and I just loved it they sold me a really good ideal of television.

5:21That was the upper echelons of TV. If we're talking kind of department stores, we're talking the Harrods of TV shows, though, in terms of the budget. Cilla Black herself, who was the woman of television. I don't know who you'd compare her to today, maybe Claudia Winkleman. There were like 20 million viewers on Saturday night. Yeah, which is even more than the traitors. I mean, probably twice as many, three times as many. The viewing figures were insane. And you were there kind of in the midst of this, like experiencing the very best of tv it was i mean it was it was an incredible experience so i turned around and i said i'd really like to do this for a living and how they laughed they probably hear that quite a lot i imagine quite a lot and in fact zoe who was one of the press officers at itv who do you know i have run into several times she's worked in the press officer for a long long time i actually don't know if she's still there but she's always like you know Jenny um you've got to try and get experience and see what happens now there was no social media so what happened was if it was a success the press picked it up and as it happened it was quite a big show and we made me and Donda who I chose we made like the front pages of the sun the mirror I mean it was insane but so much so that I got offered an opportunity to go into work experience at BBC Leeds where I was at uni in Leeds and so I said okay I'll do it if you can give me kind of a little interview on air and let me try things out on air and they went okay you can do this and then I did an interview on air and a producer from Scotland heard me and then I got an audition wow and it kind of happened it sounds like it happened quite easily so were you only in your first year of uni at this point first term first time yeah first term and it went out a Christmas so I'd just done my first term.

7:01What did your fellow students think? Well I missed Freshers Week because I was filming Blind Date so yeah it was just it was a bit strange. I left university though in by Easter because I had a TV show. So you didn't finish the degree? So I left university and then I did a TV this is sorry this is my new show which probably isn't very interesting. I left university and went off to Scotland to do a big show for BBC One Scotland and then it got decommissioned. I was like, oh, so with the tail between my legs, went back to university and started again. And then the show got recommissioned. So then I juggled them both.

7:36So I had three years of juggling. Well, by that point, you'd learned an important lesson that TV can be quite precarious. TV can be fickle. But it was a great experience. I kind of juggled university life and television life until actually I got quite a big ITV contract. And they were like, you can't fit filming in around your lectures and exams anymore. You have to decide. So how far did you go? I was on the cusp of going and living in Spain and Italy for my year. Your third year. Right. So how are the languages now? Because you did like, how many languages did you do? I was reading up on your degree and it sounded a lot.

8:08I did Spanish, Italian and Latin. Yeah. And I absolutely loved them. And I had done Spanish at school and I'd done exchanges and I was quite good at Spanish at school. But Italian was new at uni. I absolutely loved it. I mean, so I remember one year I entered this Italian essay writing competition and I won it and I won a month at Perugia University. But I couldn't do it because I was filming. So I said, I'm so sorry. I actually have to turn this prize down because I am filming. It's like the most ridiculous excuse. And then I entered the next year and I won it again. And anyway, they absolutely banned me from ever entering that competition again.

8:47I don't know if I'd have won it ever again, but it was just very lucky. I loved Italian so much. And so where I could use my languages in filming, I did. And as that happened, I did a lot of television travel shows. So it was great. I got to use Spanish and Italian. But, I mean, Gabby, we are, you know, 30 years on. And I am on holiday Spanish and holiday Italian now. But you, at that time, as you mentioned, you were ITV. You were involved in so many of the big staple shows on ITV, whether it was whatever. GMTV or wherever, the breakfast programme on ITV has been rebranded and called different things over the years.

9:22And you've worked on different versions of that. Before that, I actually worked on a show called 3D, which was the predecessor to The Tonight Show. And I worked on We Can Work It Out, which was ITV's Watchdog. So I did do quite a lot of more documentary style shows. And then when I got GMTV, it just put me into entertainment. And oh my goodness, that was so fun. It was really fun. And also, back in the kind of 90s, 2000s, we talked about Blind Date, but entertainment television itself has changed so much because of, as you mentioned, social media has changed that, the desire for clips. These shows were just what they called shiny floor shows.

9:59Had so much behind them, didn't they? The resources, because commercially, obviously, ITV was driven with advertising, and these were big, big shows. Oh, there was, I mean, it was quite exciting, wasn't it? Even going on set was huge. Sets were in huge studios. I mean, now everything feels like they have to kind of cut costs and really do everything on a tight budget. We don't want to sound like those people that are saying it's better in the old days. It was quite good, though. It was really good. I mean, I remember when we were filming, we'd have lighting assistants on shoots. And we'd have someone doing lighting and a lighting assistant.

10:34We'd have a sound recordist and a sound recordist assistant. I mean, it was just nuts. Nowadays, you have literally the bare minimum that you need to do a shoot. But it was all fantastic. I think everything evolves. Everything evolves. And you have to learn new skills along the way. And you have to move with it. I mean, I'm still trying to learn to be better at social media. This is where I'm falling short now. Because if you want to do well now, you have to be a whiz on Instagram and TikTok. And I mean, I don't know how you are. I'm really, I would say, pedestrian. And when I see my daughter made a little TikTok the other day of something she's doing, she's 20.

11:10And it was so good. and she did it in minutes. It would have taken me a week off work. It's like breathing for them. Yeah. Somebody else, please can you help me do this? Because, you know, it's not my forte. And I don't mind doing it. And I understand it as part of what we do. I wish it wasn't. I wish I didn't have to be there because it feels like, I don't know, it's not the contract I set out to kind of sign, if you like, in this industry. This is why everything changes. And if you don't keep evolving and keep learning, then you're going to be left behind. and it's like now right but you know it's true anyone now who's going out to kind of get a career it's like well make sure you understand ai because you're going to need to exploit that because that's the key to success probably moving forward if you want to work yeah kind of especially in computers and online and in media i don't think we could have foreseen the changes that have happened when we were starting out in our in our careers yeah and and and how things have evolved and how you know women of our age actually are still there and there was a recent BBC with a report about things that are right and wrong with the BBC and one of the complaints that came out was there are not enough old women on the BBC did a big cheer did a big cheer a little jig around the house um and and actually the only way that we are going to keep being visible is to keep up with all of these things is it not necessarily to pretend we've invented it or that we're the best at it but you have to be involved in some way I do love the fact that there is so much more opportunity now for people who are I mean it's not even that they're older that just maybe more experienced a bit more wisdom and maybe got a few creases but apart from that we know we've been through a lot and I feel like um look there's there is opportunities for everyone and there are lots of new tech there's lots of new talent coming through in all these new fields but there's still space for us as well we've been doing this for a while and I feel like there's still lots for us to do and of course older people sometimes want to hear and see older people don't they which is one thing that I think my granny used to say when she went to Florida on holiday she loved it that the waitresses were nearer her age and and I always think about that that actually yeah actually older people do consume a lot of mainstream media still so you work um primarily your radio takes place at global with smooth and your podcast happening there as well which is I've recently started in the last couple of years doing podcasts with with global sports agents and um it reminds me a bit of when i was at sky at the beginning because it's this kind of universe of of output of different stations of different podcasts that that actually is kind of catering for everybody in that building you know you can kind of see how people move around from station to station it's a happy family for you i think isn't it or it's a place you've obviously really grown and found those radio broadcasting wings yeah i think through the years i've worked in different different companies whether it was Yorkshire Television that felt like a family I absolutely loved it and it was a really good place to learn live television and to grow and learn lots of new skills and get experience then I moved to GMTV again that felt like a real family but the thing is in television you never know how long you're going to be in that career for and then I moved to I mean I've been in lots of different jobs but the next kind of big family I went to was global and I worked on Heart for many years and then I moved to Smooth in 2000.

14:26I started, you know, becoming more bountiful for one and changing and depleting for the other. No, you can, yeah. It's probably, there's probably days where you both lose your rag with each other and then it kind of, if you think about it, you're like, oh, maybe that makes sense. But, you know, it's lovely. I know you've got a gorgeous relationship with your daughter as well. And my little girl, I still call her little, She's 14 now, so she's not so little. But, yeah, she's lovely. Is she a runner? No, I've literally put everyone off running. I'm dreaming of the day. I know that you ran with Lewis when you did a half marathon.

15:01I said, Louise Minchin's run with hers. Sophie Rayworth's running the marathon with her daughter. And I keep saying to Ella, everyone does it. She's like, I'm not there yet. And I'm like, OK, tell me when you are. Well, Lewis has recently, she won't mind me saying this, diagnosed with PCOS. And when we went to see the specialist, she said, really, you know, extreme running's not great for you. And Lois went, yes! Because she did actually want to do another half marathon with me. But then she said, maybe we should just do some 5Ks together, Mum. But it was such a lovely experience. So you do need to tell Ella at some point she needs to sign up.

15:37It is. I think it's... Look, if anyone's listening to this and they've never run a race, it doesn't matter whether it's a part run, whether it's a 10K, whether it's in your own time with friends or an official race um it's it's a really lovely bucket list thing to do um not just because you have to set yourself a goal um but also because it's a challenge it takes you out your comfort zone and you've no way of improving unless you see what your body's capable of and by the way if you go out for runs i follow a training program and sometimes it makes me do things that really are very hard and it's very easy to go nah I'll just do it at my own pace and I'll just go and get the tube and I'll get home but I'll go home that way but actually when you push yourself and you do something that really is very uncomfortable when you finish you feel even better and it's hugely rewarding and I'm not going to lie I'm doing the marathon this year it's my 11th time I'm so excited I know it's a huge privilege to do it but when you do any race half marathon or marathon there are many many moments during those races where you're like why the hell did i sign up for this it's hideous but when you cross that finish line it is an overwhelming sense of achievement and i mean it's there's nothing like it it's like christmas why you go back it's why you go back they say people go back and have more children because they see the reward of it well it's the same with the marathon yeah and i can't see you stopping doing that anytime so you sell it so brilliantly you're making me want to sign up for something actually because because it is an amazing feeling it is unfortunately if i ran home from work today i would be running a marathon whereas you and it would probably take me two weeks um but you you have a quite a nice uh kind of commute that way don't you it's an eight mile yeah i think sophie rayworth who's another of my kind of running icons with you yeah so she does the same thing doesn't she she runs from the bbc i was doing a training run last week and she blew and drove past me and she rolled down the window she beat the horse goes jenny yeah and i was like go away you're so annoying she's so good at running and you know what gabby you were interviewing me i think at the finish line one day and i'd done a pb and she saw that and so she instantly got in touch with my trainer started training and now absolutely thrashes well she's done all the major marathons now she's represented england she's so good yeah and she was she was late to it so if you're listening to this and thinking it's too late for me it is never too late to start i think she was even into her 40s when she really started taking it seriously i think it was the um great north from was the first one she did brendan foster persuaded her to run that so it's not too late to sign up for that this year although it probably has closed already has it the great north run yes i mean it's the world's biggest half marathon and it's an amazing one to do so um but you could start as you say 5k couch to 5k this has become your podcast now we're talking running how do you manage to do this how do you manage to turn it around i think Because I don't know what happens, but wherever I am, I end up talking about something to do with running.

18:32I'm sorry. I am obsessed. I know it. Okay. Final questions for you about turning 50. Are you having a party? So I'm having, do you know what? I'm so scared that no one comes. I decided not to. Do you not feel that? I know so many people. It's huge pressure having a party. I know so many people. And if no one came, it would just be me and maybe my husband. That wouldn't happen. So what are you doing? So I, okay. So I've taken a day off and I turned to my husband and went, I've got my birthday's on Thursday. I've got the Friday off. Over to you. I might be going to Nando's. I literally don't know.

19:04So you could be going away for the weekend. Has he asked for your passport? No. And my daughter's going on a school ski trip on the Saturday. So we have to be around. But at the end of the month, my brother lives in South Africa. He's coming over. My sister-in-law lives in France. She's coming over. My parents are in Glasgow and they're coming. So we are going to go away and have a lovely weekend together then. All of you together celebrating. That's lovely. So we don't know what he's doing for your birthday. No idea. I mean, I literally have no idea. I'm just praying. He said that we're doing something that I can dress up for.

19:33I mean, who knows, but I'm excited. I'm not looking into it. I'm just going to see what happens on the day. For my 30th, Kenny was throwing a surprise birthday party. He told me we were going away somewhere. And I was with a couple of girlfriends going for dinner about three weeks before. and my phone pinged and Kenny was inviting me to my surprise party he'd sent the wrong person the text the two girls in the car said don't look at your phone I said it's too late and he texted them and said tell Gabby and I had to be honest because I just thought I can't this is awful so I knew where it was I knew what time it was happening and everything so I told him and he said right I'm cancelling it I'm cancelling it and we're going off to this country house somewhere don't worry about dressing up you know when we get there something's happening and so i kind of had this quite casual dress on anyway he'd kept the party so i turn up at my surprise party wearing something that i'd probably wear to empty the dishwasher and and one of my girlfriends i could hear go she definitely didn't know look what she's wearing um so he kind of double he kind of double bluffed it but um it was you know it was lovely but yeah don't he hasn't done that clearly well he might have done he might have done a surprise party he's done a surprise party before years ago I want a show called Only Fools and Horses.

20:43Oh, I remember that. Matt Baker did that, didn't he? Were you on that series? Yeah, that's it. That was it. It was series of Sarah Cox and Nicky Chapman, and I won it. And so he did. I didn't realise. We just got out of the stables. You had to become show jumpers, didn't you? He said, right, we're just going to go out, and on the way, we're just going to stop in and see our friend Sam. And I was like, well, we're going to be late for this event that we're going to. And we went in a back way, because I wanted to walk a different way. and I looked in and I was livid. All my friends were in there, all my work colleagues, and I went, I can't believe they haven't even invited me on the night out.

21:19I was seething. And then James was going, think about it. It took me a good few minutes. I was literally livid. Were you wearing the horse grip? I hadn't been invited. Oh, this is for me. Oh, it is for me. Oh, right. I did throw Kenny's surprise 50th and took him away the night before so that the house could all get set up. while we were away. And then said, on the morning of your birthday, I've got one of your really good friends who's going to take you to a golf course you've always wanted to play at. And he said, well, why are you not coming? I said, well, I'm not playing at the moment because I got, you know, bad back.

21:50And I deliberately in the hotel dropped his passport on the floor pretending that I'd had it in my... And he went, what's that? I'm like, oh, nothing. And he went, who's picking me up? I said, somebody's going to pick you up. And I didn't... Anyway, of course, he came back home and I'd managed to get together a surprise party. Yeah, so it was one of... I was really proud of pulling that one off because there were a lot of moving parts. He did say the cab driver was apparently going, texting, going, he's nearly there. So he knew that obviously at that point that there was a surprise party. But I think it's good to have a few minutes notice beforehand.

22:21I'm really sorry you've reminded me. I know you don't want to go on. It's not a surprise party podcast, but can I tell you one other thing I did? I did do a surprise for James once and I booked for us to go to Saint-Tropez for the weekend with some friends and it was going to be amazing. And he said for his birthday, listen to how unsexy this is he wanted to go to the cinema and you're sushi he says the bar quite low for you and i was like okay anyway you might be disappointed at 6 a.m on his birthday the doorbell went and it was my friend lucy and she goes hi happy birthday and he was like why are you here she goes i'm here are you ready to go and he's like i do not do not understand and i went james here's the list go pack and instantly he was angry he's like I thought we were going to do a sushi and I'm like no we're going somewhere better anyway the whole week I didn't tell him anything until we got to the airport he saw we were going to Nice that's when he lightened up he was livid livid I don't even know why he wanted to see something stupid at the cinema but anyway he was so angry did you go and get my box of your sushi at the airport and go eat that on the flight so unapprecious well whatever happens I'm sure it'll be fantastic and continue being a beacon of health and positivity for all of us women who are in that middle stage of life.

23:35And also anybody who's listening thinking that they might start running has already got their trainers on, I think, with your enthusiasm. So thank you so much, Jenny, for coming in. Thank you for having me.