TV Presenter, Eamonn Holmes enters the work-life balance debate

In an exclusive video interview with web site company www.expertsonline.tv, top TV Presenter Eamonn Holmes has shared his views about the challenges people now face trying to balance work commitments with their family responsibilities. Despite all his success, Belfast-born Holmes has come to realise the importance of achieving the right work-life balance and the dangers for all of us in not facing up to the issue.

(PRWEB) June 28, 2004 --- In an exclusive video interview with web site company www.expertsonline.tv, top TV Presenter Eamonn Holmes has shared his views about the challenges people now face trying to balance work commitments with their family responsibilities.

Despite all his success, Belfast-born Holmes has come to realise the importance of achieving the right work-life balance and the dangers for all of us in not facing up to the issue.

It is a big problem for people and a huge time-bomb just waiting to explode," he says. We seem to accept the American ethic of work and thats not a good thing. We have a different culture."

He remembers well the words of his father, a carpet fitter. He had to work extremely hard just to pay the bills but said the graveyards were full of rich corpses. He said there were no pockets in a shroud."

For Holmes, such comments are not mere rhetoric. When offered his latest GMTV contract, Eamonn insisted on reducing his work-load rather than taking the extra money which was on offer. "It didnt go down very well, but I commute to Belfast and I hurt when away from my children and then I dont work so well."

Holmes admits that not everyone in the work-place has the same flexibility, but that being a freelance or running your own business can give you choices.

As a carpet fitter, my Dad was originally an employee but left the company to go out on his own. It was a big decision back in the 60s."

In an industry where many presenters soar and burn out after a couple of years, Holmes has now graced our screens for more than two decades. "Its a bit like being in the Grand National. You keep getting over the fences and then suddenly think -- 'Hey, Im still here".

He says adaptability is the key to television survival as it is in so many professions. "You have to understand what the market is doing and change accordingly."

After training as a journalist, Holmes ambition was to be a sports reporter but started his career as a farming correspondent. I was a city boy, I knew nothing about farming. I spoke to my old journalism tutor who told me to do what all good reporters should do -- find out!"

Holmes accepts that his original ambition is unlikely to be achieved. "Sports presenters on television are now ex-players or good looking sports babes. Years ago it would have been anathema to have women fronting sports programmes, but they are very good at it." So as the fashions changed, Eamonn adapted -- with tremendous success.

I set out to do a quiz show. Even though I had been a national presenter, I went back to Belfast to do a local quiz called 'All Mixed Up. My agent said I was mad. But it was a success and the man on the scoreboard also worked on the National Lottery programme in Manchester.

I was asked if I would do a five minute spot on the programme which went out each Wednesday. I finished at GMTV, drove to Manchester, did the show, and drove back again the same evening -- often arriving back in the small hours."

Hard work -- but it led to Eamonn being asked to host the National Lottery Jet Set which turned out to be the most-successful of all the lottery formats. It was the best thing that happened to me, showing how being adaptable can not just mean survival, but success."

Watching Eamonns mastery in the studio and his ability to put guests and contestants at their ease, it is too easy to assume that his career has been an unbroken run of success. No so. There have been setbacks along the way.

Im the epitome of the company man, but had a bad experience when the company didnt want me. Like my dad, I also had a time when I couldnt pay my bills. I had a sense of huge injustice when the company dropped me, but with a family, having a sense of injustice is irrelevant, you have to get on with things. So I went freelance, went out 'on my own as my dad would say."

This full video and audio interview is available along with other celebrities on free to access web site www.expertsonline.tv