Loose Women star Nadia Sawalha could focus on her YouTube channel if she was axed from Loose Women
Nadia Sawalha said she is glad to have her successful YouTube channel - The Sawalha-Adderleys - during a period of uncertainty at Loose Women due to ITV's budget cuts.
Nadia Sawalha may fall back on her thriving YouTube channel if she is was axed from Loose Women.
It has been rumoured that the number of panellists on the ITV lunchtime talk show could be reduced as part of the broadcaster's budget cuts - which has already caused the programme to air for 30 weeks instead of 52 weeks from January.
Nadia started her YouTube channel, The Sawalha-Adderleys, in 2014, where she shares videos covering family life with husband, 55-year-old film producer Mark Adderley, and their two daughters, Maddy, 22, and Kiki, 18, and it has amassed over 150,000 subscribers - something Nadia is incredibly grateful for.
Asked how she feels about ITV's budget cuts impacting the show, Nadia - who, with Kaye Adams, 62, became Loose Women panellists when the programme began in 1999 - told the new issue of Woman's Own magazine: "This is the only way television can survive.
"Daytime television is struggling, so costs had to be cut, and 350 people lost their jobs in a day.
"I was heartbroken seeing all our colleagues so distraught, worrying about mortgages.
"It's not like there are 100 jobs somewhere else in television.
"Everywhere is making people redundant, so I'm really glad that I have my channel as well, because who knows?"
So far, none of the Loose Women panellists know if their jobs are at stake.
It has been reported that ITV may consider having more younger celebrities as Loose Women panellists, joining the likes of 26-year-old influencer GK Barry - real name Grace Keeling - and former The Saturdays girl group member Frankie Bridge, 36, to boost the show's ratings.
However, Loose Women panellist Janet Street-Porter, 78, has previously claimed ITV values the elder stars of the discussion programme, including Nadia, Gloria Hunniford, 85, and Ruth Langsford, 65, because the "audience totally relate to us".
Janet told Bella magazine in July: "There are no plans to get rid of the older women, despite of what some people have said!
"In fact, the reverse is true. ITV actually put out a statement saying we are the valued members of the show because the audience totally relate to us.
"I think Loose Women has become a programme that's trusted by a lot of women because we talk about the issues that they are concerned about - whether it's female health, domestic violence, or how politicians don't really understand working women.
"I think the show has managed to connect to women who wouldn't otherwise have a voice.
"And it's delivered with a lot of laughs because we don't take ourselves too seriously."
Despite the changes coming to ITV daytime - which will also see over 220 jobs being axed - Loose Women panellist Katie Piper recently said her fellow show stars are staying positive.
Katie, 41, added on a recent episode of Love Island star Amy Hart's Mum's Club podcast: "We're a group of resilient women, as are our audience, and we'll get through it, and I'm sure we'll still make great telly."
As well as Loose Women, Lorraine will operate on a 30-week "seasonal basis".
Addressing the budget cuts at the Edinburgh TV Festival in August, Kevin Lygo - Managing Director of Media and Entertainment at ITV - revealed the broadcaster will make its daytime shows look the same next year, but he said it will be "challenging".
Lygo, 67, also does not think that the golden days of daytime TV are over at the broadcaster, but stressed there would be changes to match the evolving way people consume entertainment.
He said: "As a commercial broadcast, you earn most of your money with big audiences in peak time.
"That is what advertisers want, and the cost of those has gone up and up and up. Those are the things that drive us commercially.
"Those morning shows have been on forever, and they are brilliant, and they are watched, and they are seven hours of TV a day, but they do cost a great deal of money.
"So we thought, 'Is there a way of keeping those long-standing brands on air and keeping the familiar faces on that give comfort to people?'
"So the editorial brief was if you have a lot less money, which you will do from January, to try to make it so the audience isn’t shocked.
"They should look more or less the same, they are less funded, so that will be challenging to the producers.
"But, unfortunately, that means people doing a perfectly good job will lose their jobs because we need fewer people making them.”
