Back in May, ITV announced a major shake-up to its daytime TV programming. The change will come into force in January next year and see Good Morning Britain extended by 30 minutes until 9.30am and Lorraine cut by 30 minutes to run from 9.30am – 10am.
Another change to Lorraine will see the number of episodes slashed, as it will only air for 30 weeks of the year. During the other weeks when Lorraine isn’t on the air, Good Morning Britain will be extended and run from 6am – 10am. Loose Women will continue for an hour from 12.30 – 1.30pm.
Lorraine Kelly has spoken about the cuts and her self-titled show being slashed, she told The Mirror: “I don’t see me going anywhere until people get fed up, you know? Until people say, I’ve had enough of that one.” Speaking about the cuts, she said her first thought was for her team affected.
Speaking about her team, Lorraine said: “It’s really heartbreaking to split up the team, a lot of my team have been with me for more than 20 years and they’re my friends. I’ve grown up with them. They were babies when they started with me and now they’ve got babies of their own.”
The presenter said the main focus for her was to save as many jobs as possible. Lorraine said she was pleased that a lot of the team had since been redeployed on other shows.
Giving further detail about the aftermath of the cuts, the 65-year-old said: “It’s been difficult with the cuts, it’s been hard. I’m a lot happier about it now but it was honestly and genuinely all about the team. I wasn’t annoyed or angry about this for me, it was about the team.”
She denied any retirement plans, saying she will be leaving the show on a “zimmer frame”, despite the cuts having a significant impact on daytime TV viewing, Lorraine revealed she was expecting it and had an “inkling” something was happening behind the scenes.
She said she was currently on a year’s contract – but denied reports she would leave at the end of it. “We’re all freelancers. We’re all just on a year’s contract,” she said.
ITV’s Managing Director of Media and Entertainment, Kevin Lygo, explained the changes as he said: “Daytime is a really important part of what we do, and these scheduling and production changes will enable us to continue to deliver a schedule providing viewers with the news, debate and discussion they love from the presenters they know and trust as well generating savings which will allow us to reinvest across the programme budget in other genres.
“These changes also allow us to consolidate our news operations and expand our national, international and regional news output and to build upon our proud history of trusted journalism at a time when our viewers need accurate, unbiased news coverage more than ever.”
He added: “I recognise that our plans will have an impact on staff off screen in our Daytime production teams, and we will work with ITV Studios and ITN as they manage these changes to produce the shows differently from next year, and support them through this transition.
“Daytime has been a core element of ITV’s schedule for over 40 years and these changes will set ITV up to continue to bring viewers award winning news, views and discussion as we enter our eighth decade.”