Anna quits Afternoon Show

Anna Nolan is to quit RTE’s The Afternoon Show.

The former Big Brother runner-up is not renewing her contract with the production company behind the flagship daytime magazine programme.

Presented by Anna and Blathnaid Ní Chofaigh, the show was due back on screen for a third season in the first week of September.

“I’ve really enjoyed the two seasons I spent presenting the show, and particularly working with Blathnaid. However, I feel that the time is right to move on, and try new things,” Anna said in a statement released today.

The magazine show has become a household favourite, focusing on an array of issues from food to fashion, health to hair, movies to makeovers and gardening to gossip.

The future of the programme, which began in September 2004, now hangs in the balance.

The former nun came second in the original series of Big Brother and has since become an acclaimed television presenter.

She has presented RTÉ’s Ask Anna, her own BBC series Anna In Wonderland, in which she travelled the world in pursuit of all things bizarre, and hooked up with Davina McCall to co-present Closure on BBC1.

Green Inc, the production company that makes The Afternoon Show, is run by television presenter Patrick Kielty and Stephen Stewart.

A company spokeswoman said the production team would miss working with Anna.

Formed in 1996, Green Inc was recently placed in the top 10 of the UK’s most prolific companies and ranked as one of the most respected companies in the UK by Broadcast magazine’s Peer Poll.