Christine Lampard lands This Morning role amid Loose Women summer break
Christine Lampard has been confirmed as one of This Morning's summer presenters after ITV's daytime schedule overhaul saw Loose Women taken off air during the summer months.
Christine Lampard is set to remain a familiar face on ITV’s daytime line-up after securing a presenting role on This Morning.
The 47-year-old presenter, who has been a regular on Loose Women for years, landed the role while the broadcaster pauses Loose Women for the summer as part of its cost-cutting schedule changes.
Christine will front This Morning alongside Craig Doyle during the holiday period while regular hosts Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley are away.
The announcement comes after ITV reduced Loose Women from a year-round programme to a 30-week schedule, meaning the long-running panel show will not air over the summer.
The changes were introduced as part of a wider shake-up to ITV’s daytime output, which also saw Lorraine reduced to a 30-minute programme during its weeks on air.
Christine has become one of ITV’s best-known daytime presenters through her work on Loose Women and This Morning, while she is also widely recognised alongside husband Frank Lampard, the former England footballer and ex-Chelsea manager.
ITV and This Morning announced Christine’s return to the programme on Instagram, sharing Polaroid-style images of the presenters against a blue background alongside their names.
The broadcaster also confirmed a series of other presenting pairings for the summer schedule, including Paddy McGuinness with Josie Gibson, Andi Peters with Rochelle Humes and Craig with Angela Scanlon.
Josie will also present alongside Rylan Clark, while Sian Welby and Joel Dommett are also set to host the programme.
Fans welcomed the announcement in the comments beneath the post.
One wrote online: “Christine and Craig, our Irish duo.”
Another said: “Christine and Craig will be a blast along with the others.”
A third added: “Loving the Craig and Christine combo.”
Christine has appeared as a stand-in presenter on This Morning since 2013 and became one of the programme’s regular anchors in 2016 after first joining as a guest panellist.
The latest presenting role follows ITV’s major overhaul of its daytime schedule, which came into effect in January.
Under the changes, both Loose Women and Lorraine now air for 30 weeks of the year rather than continuously.
Lorraine, fronted by Lorraine Kelly, was also shortened by 30 minutes, with the programme airing for half an hour during its scheduled weeks.
The restructuring formed part of ITV’s plans to deliver £35 million in cost savings, with more than 220 jobs affected across the broadcaster.
Kevin Lygo, Managing Director of ITV’s Media and Entertainment Division, 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 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.”
Kevin added: “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.”
