'I hope I manage to get some shows...' Loose Women star Brenda Edwards hopes to stay on show amid ITV's budget cuts
Brenda Edwards "don't know what's happening" with regards to Loose Women airing for 30 weeks instead of 52 weeks from 2026, as well as over 220 jobs being axed at the broadcaster as a result of ITV's budget cuts, but she hopes to get "some shows".
Brenda Edwards hopes she will keep her Loose Women job amid ITV's budget cuts.
The 56-year-old singer-and-actress became a panellist on ITV1's daytime talk show in 2019, and although she "don't know what's happening" with regards to Loose Women airing for 30 weeks instead of 52 weeks from 2026, as well as over 220 jobs at ITV being axed, Brenda hopes to retain her position on the desk to "raise awareness" of different things.
She told the new issue of Women's Own magazine: "You have to move with the times I guess, and I hope this is just an interim thing, and maybe in a few years' time [it will go back to how it was], but we can only wait and see.
"I don't like to make assumptions on anything because I don't know what's happening there but I hope I manage to get some shows and am able to use my platform to raise awareness for whatever I can."
Brenda adores her fellow Loose Women panellists, but it is the no-nonsense Janet Street-Porter, 78, that she is a "big fan" of.
She said: "I just love her feistiness and outspokenness, which I think a lot of us have.
"She is doing her first-ever tour where she will talk to the audience, and it's going to be fab!
"I'm assuming she will talk about everything, including her life, so it will be amazing! We support each other as always.
"I remember when I was growing up all the women in my family loved Janet and what she stood for.
"She is a force of nature so I think she will discuss things in the past that have happened to her and life on Loose Women, of course."
Broadcaster-and-journalist Janet agreed with her Loose Women co-star Kaye Adams, 62, who admitted on her How to be 60 podcast in June that ITV's "out of the blue" move to air the daytime panel show for 30 weeks instead of 52 weeks from 2026, and to axe over 220 jobs was a "terrible" decision.
She previously told The Guardian newspaper's G2 section: "I don't agree with how they've done the cuts."
Fellow Loose Women panellist Nadia Sawalha, 60, spoke out about ITV's "brutal" budget cuts in a video uploaded to her YouTube channel in May, and revealed she and her fellow stars could be "let off" at any moment from the programme due to their self-employed contracts.
However, Janet - who joined Loose Women in 2011 - is confident she will not lose her job as the axe swings.
She said: "Oh, I know I'm going to keep that job."
As well as Loose Women, the morning magazine show Lorraine will now operate on a 30-week "seasonal basis", while a raft of shows will be broadcast from a new location in central London.
Kevin Lygo, the managing director of ITV’s Media and Entertainment Division, recently said the broadcaster was going through a "transition".
He said: "I recognise that our plans will have an impact on staff off-screen in our Daytime production teams.
"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."
