Fiona Phillips has conceded that it may have been a ‘silly’ decision to give up her role on ITV’s GMTV.

Phillips left the show last December hoping to spend more time with her family and pursue new projects, however due to the credit crunch, Phillips has been finding hard to obtain any TV work.

Speaking to the Daily Express, she explained: “It was a pretty silly time to give up a big job. In one week I lost two programmes lined up for April and May and a Channel 4 teatime show in June, all because of money. There aren’t many people commissioning things. If I’d been paid for every meeting I’d been in, I’d be a multi-millionaire.”

Phillips also claimed that part of the trouble may be the fact that she is over 40 years old.

She said: “You only have to look at the male-female pairings. Who’s the ancient one and who’s the one barely out of nappies? Men run television. They have this thing in their heads that you have to have some young, sexy woman and an older man.”