Inside ITV daytime cuts chaos as furious celebs fear ‘bloodbath’ sackings – and your favourite hosts could ‘quit’

ITV’s brutal restructuring of its daytime shows has left celebs furious and fearful of mass sackings.

Lorraine and Loose Women are the biggest victims of the schedule changes with both set to air for only 30 weeks of the year from January.

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Presenter Lorraine Kelly‘s daily show has also seen its running time slashed by 30 minutes as bosses extend Good Morning Britain‘s slot to run from 6am until 9.30am.

An insider told The Sun: “Everyone was completely blindsided, it was a total shock and people are feeling very deflated because nobody saw this coming – viewing figures are actually up for Lorraine and Loose Women has been scooping awards recently.

“Staff are really panicking about their jobs – many have worked at daytime for decades and are completely heartbroken.

“There’s now a scramble for who will wait for a payout and who wants to stay.”

Some 220 jobs will be lost as part of shake-up – around half of all the people working across GMB, Lorraine, This Morning and Loose Women.

While it’s predominantly production and backroom staff taking the fall, we can reveal some on-screen talent are already looking for new career opportunities to beat the axe.

Not all of Loose Women’s 26-strong pool of presenters and panellists, which includes Denise Welch, Christine Lampard, Coleen Nolan and Charlene White, will be required with the new seasonal schedule.

“Hosts will have their salary cut as they are paid per episode on Loose Women,” said the insider. “There are real fears some of the stars could quit because it’s a significant drop in income for them.

“That’s why lots of the women have clothing lines, podcasts, Instagram deals, lots of other things going on to bring in money.

Deflated long-serving staff members, who don’t have the luxury of lucrative brand deals to fall back on, are terrified their days on daytime TV are nearing an end.

The mood is at an all time low after a prolonged period of uncertainty which began in 2023 with the turmoil that surrounded Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby‘s futures on This Morning.

The drawn out presenting change eventually saw bosses settle on Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard last spring.

The source said: “Behind the scenes the production staff are panicking about how this will work – and if they’ll even have a job at the end of it.”

The budget-tightening move will also reflect a shift in audience appetites.

Political and world events are becoming increasingly popular with viewers and as a result lightweight content is being replaced by grittier subjects.

GMB, which is being overseen by a team at ITV News, is relatively unscathed as a result of its newsier edge, while Lorraine has taken the biggest hit despite ratings being on the up.

Loose Women, which faces some competition from Vanessa Feltz‘s new show on Channel 5, could see a change to the types of topics it discusses.

Kevin Lygo, managing director of ITV’s media and entertainment division said it is hoped money saved from live daytime programming can be used to make award-winning dramas like Mr Bates vs The Post Office and cover major sporting events like the FIFA World Cup.

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 as 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.”

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