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ITV is slashing the budgets of its biggest daytime shows including Good Morning Britain, Lorraine, Loose Women and This Morning, including halving the number of jobs and significantly reducing the time some of them are on air.
The cuts at ITV Studios, which makes all four shows, mean more than 220 of 440 staff involved will lose their jobs.
The biggest impact will be at Lorraine, which will be cut from an hour to 30 minutes in length and air for just 30 weeks a year rather than 52. Loose Women will stay at the same running time but will be cut to 30 weeks.
This Morning will remain the same length and frequency, while Good Morning Britain will be extended by 30 minutes, running from 6am to 9.30am. For the 22 weeks of the year that Lorraine is not airing, GMB will run a further half hour until 10am.
Kevin Lygo, the managing director of ITV’s media and entertainment division, said that cutting the number of weeks Lorraine and Loose Women are on-air “aligns with the lead daytime presenters who host their shows around a seasonal pattern rather than throughout the year”.
Under the plans, which come into effect from January, production of GMB will be handled by a dedicated team at ITV News, which is made by ITN, the company that also holds the contracts to produce the news for Channel 4 and Channel 5.
More than a dozen jobs are expected to go because certain back-office roles are duplicated at GMB and ITV News.
In an email to staff, Laura Wilshaw, editor of ITV News, said that GMB would need to be produced on a “reduced overall budget”, adding that the intention was to continue to “faithfully recreate the Good Morning Britain programme viewers love as much as we can”.
ITV Studios will continue to produce Lorraine, Loose Women and This Morning but is consulting on a plan to reduce the three separate teams to one.
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A spokesperson for ITV said the move was not related to the performance of any of its shows, but about centralising its national news-gathering production in one place and investing its resources in high-profile shows such as Mr Bates vs The Post Office and events such as the football World Cup.
Lygo 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.”
Rachel Corp, the chief executive of ITN, said the news organisation had confirmed another five-year contract to continue to produce the news for ITV.
