[Blubatt]

Although perhaps understandable due to its long and complex history, it's irked me a little bit that a lot of the reports have gotten the dates of his chat show wrong. So, a brief history:

Paul had filled in for Des O'Connor on ITV's Today with Des and Mel. On the strength of this, he was given his own chat show, weekdays at 5pm from October 2004. This was successful almost immediately, it regularly beat Richard and Judy on Channel 4 in the ratings and the show won a BAFTA in 2005.

After a dispute with ITV when they "forgot" to renew his contract, and wishing for more creative control, the showed moved to Channel 4 in March 2006 and began to be made by his own production company. This continued until 2009 when, unhappy with proposed budget cuts, Paul signed a new deal with ITV and the Channel 4 show ended in December 2009 with a big farewell programme.

His initial run on ITV was very short then.   Do we know how long Lily was on The Big Breakfast for.    I know they left not too long after Gaby finished in 1996 (but was on with Zoe for a bit before Vanessa Feltz was bought in as a questionable replacement), but not quite sure when they replaced Paula.

He left ITV in January 2005, the show started in October 2004.