Lorraine Kelly breaks silence on cuts to her ITV show
Lorraine Kelly says it is "heartbreaking" that ITV has slashed her eponymous show's on-air time from an hour to 30 minutes, as well as it being broadcast for 30 weeks from January 2026.
Lorraine Kelly has described the cuts to her ITV show as "heartbreaking".
In May, ITV announced that the on-air time for Lorraine will be slashed from an hour to 30 minutes, as well as be broadcast on a 30-week "seasonal basis" from January 2026, resulting in a big number of jobs being axed.
It was speculated that the 65-year-old TV host was set to leave her eponymous show after her one-year contract expired, but Lorraine has insisted she is not going anywhere.
The star told the Daily Mirror newspaper: "I don't see me going anywhere until people get fed up, you know? Until people say, 'I've had enough of that one.'
"It's really heartbreaking to split up the team. A lot of them 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."
Lorraine admitted she initially struggled to come to terms with the cuts to her programme - but the star feels happier about it now because many of her team have landed new jobs on different shows.
She explained: "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."
The cuts have not made Lorraine - who is a freelancer on a year's contract - think about retiring sooner.
She insisted: "Absolutely not. I am going to be toddling off on my Zimmer frame, and even then, I'll be coming in.
"I look at people like Gloria Hunniford, still doing Loose Women. I mean, Gloria is in her 80s.
"You look at Angela Rippon, you look at these astonishing women who are just getting into their stride in their 70s and 80s, and I look at them, and I think, 'Yep, I'm still going to be there.'"
And Lorraine shared that she and her team go above and beyond to secure fantastic guests - despite the programme not having "much money".
Lorraine admitted: "We don't have that much money, and we actually punch way above our weight for the quality of guests that we get on.
"I mean, I've just been talking to George Clooney [about his new film Jay Kelly], for God's sake. He wanted to talk to me."
In May, ITV also announced that from 2026, over 220 jobs will be axed, and that the on-air time for Loose Women will be reduced to 30 weeks instead of 52 weeks.
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".
Mr. Lygo, 67, also does not think that the golden days of daytime TV are over at ITV, 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.”
