Perfectly timed to coincide with new stories coming out of UK pointing to British expats now in the eye of investigators, a new documentary promising to retrace the final hours leading up to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann is due to be aired on British television on Tuesday night at 7pm.
Easily accessible to expats with or without satellite connections to UK, “A Global Obsession” will be presented by former journalist-turned-PR man-turned-lunchtime-TV-editor Martin Frizell.
Frizell, currently in charge of ITV’s lunchtime show Loose Women, is due to bring “exclusive insight” on “how a family’s worst nightmare became breaking news and turned into one of the biggest stories of all time”.
A press release on the programme airing on Channel 5 explains Frizell’s motivation.
He asks: “So why is Madeleine McCann still on the front pages all these years on? Sure, the story sells newspapers, it boosts ratings but it’s because of you. You want to know. Whether it’s because of your cynicism of the McCanns and the way they’ve marketed their daughter, because it’s the unsolved mystery, because perhaps it’s every parent’s worst nightmare or there but for the grace of God go I. Whatever the reason, you’d have to have a cold heart indeed not to wish closure on this for the McCanns and that story, the eventual discovery of Madeleine will be the biggest yet.”
Frizell worked in broadcast journalism for 20 years – for GMTV, Reuters, Sky News and ITV – before turning to PR last year as an executive director at GolinHarris, and then returning to TV broadcasting 18 months later.
Since joining the Loose Women show he has reportedly been on a cost-cutting cull, causing a certain degree of discontent.
The Daily Mirror wrote in July: “Martin is blaming everyone but himself for the show going down the pan. Nobody has a clue what they’re doing since he took over.”
Tragically, the Channel 5 press release also shows how other parents of missing children have hardly benefited from media exposure at all.
Daniel Entwistle, for example, was a seven year old who went out to buy sweets in 2003, and was never seen again.
Father David said afterwards: “They got Daniel on camera going past the garage and that’s the last sight of him.”
After the initial media interest, stories about Daniel were quietly dropped, and 11 years on he has still not been found, says the release.
Madeleine McCann: A Global Obsession will go on air days before Scotland Yard detectives are due back in Portugal to interview seven new suspects, among whom are understood to be two British men and a British woman.
By NATASHA DONN
