Kevin McCloud reveals he was almost rejected by Grand Designs bosses

It's hard to imagine a world without Grand Designs, given it's been on air since 1999. However, the show's presenter Kevin McCloud admitted not everyone was keen on the idea in the beginning. Grand Designs documents some of Britain's most ambitious self-build projects, many of which take years, and sometimes even decades, to complete. It's now a staple on Channel 4, with new episodes set to return later this year.

However, when the show was first being commissioned, executives reportedly had reservations, with one even questioning whether Kevin, 67, was the right person for the role. The designer told the Daily Express: "I'd been doing some stuff for BBC programmes. I'm a nerd and I was talking about nerdy stuff like architecture, lighting, paintmaking for a couple of programmes. This was all ancient history because it was in the last millenium.

"I was doing all this stuff and I was working for a producer called Daisy Goodwin at Talkback Productions. At that time she was at the BBC. She said she was leaving the BBC and she had this idea she was going to pitch to Channel 4 and asked if I would be interested.

"I said yeah and I think we did a taster tape. It was a kind of pitch and the channel saw it. Nobody knew who I was and I had a job at this time anyway."

Kevin recalled: "I remember Peter Fincham, he was the managing director of Talkback and he said he went to the BBC with Daisy to have a meeting with the commissioning editor, who said, 'I don't like the title. I don't really like the programme and I don't think the presenter is right for Channel 4.' But then they commissioned it!"

It's clear no one understood just how popular the show would become as Kevin confessed: "I thought it would last for one series."

Kevin admitted that the process behind making Grand Designs is far less structured than people might expect, describing it as an ongoing series of informal conversations rather than a tightly managed brand.

He explained: "It's a wonderful thing. You might call it a brand, but since we don't have any brand managers and nobody's ever bothered to write a manual, it's just a series of conversations between a handful of people.

"It's not like 10 people ever get together in a room and say, 'What is Grand Designs for the next years?' If that happened, the room would fall silent. Nobody would be able to answer it."

Kevin added: "Instead, it's a conversation between me and my executive producer or the director, usually in a pub with a pint. That's about as organised as it ever is!"