Kelle Bryan reveals positive side to Loose Women losing its studio audience
Loose Women star Kelle Bryan says while it was "wonderful" having a live audience for the daytime show, there are some areas where the change in production has improved things.
Kelle Bryan thinks Loose Women has become "more about the conversation" since losing its studio audience.
The ITV programme has undergone some major changes for 2026 after the channel made cuts to its daytime television output, which has seen the panel show moving to term-time only broadcasts, as well as no longer having a live audience watching the discussions.
She told Woman's Own magazine: "It's a very different show, but it's like retro Loose Women, and back to COVID times. During the pandemic, that's how we did it to be safe and get the show back on the road.
"We're very used to doing that, and it actually makes it more like a podcast on telly, because it's more about the conversation.
"We get a longer time to talk because there's less interaction with the audience."
The 50-year-old star insisted while they loved having the audience, the stripped back production means there are less technical considerations during filming.
She explained: "The audience were wonderful, but you've got to take into consideration all of those loops in the time they take for a round of applause or to interact.
"Now we get more time to delve into the topics, and a lot of women prefer it this way.
"We get to eke out the issues rather than top and tail, which sometimes happens because of the time limitations.
"Going forward, we get to really thrash out those topics."
Earlier this year, Coleen Nolan insisted she was "going to miss" all the staff who have lost their jobs, while she thought being without an audience would be "really weird" for the panellists.
She told the Not My Bagg podcast: "It’s just a different vibe, I think it will be okay but I'm just going to miss a lot of different people behind the scenes.
“They've all got to find new jobs. So there's a sadness. I understand that it's a business, and sometimes in business hard decisions have to be made and nowadays it is all about budgets.
“It will still be live but there will be no audience and I don't think they are having guests. I just feel like it will be like a podcast but on live television.
“But, it could have been worse. They could have said: ‘By the way, we’re not recommissioning it. See you later.’ It's still here, it's still going.'
“I love having the audience there. You know, you get all the feedback from the audience and the adrenaline from the audience. So that's going to be really weird for us.”
