Loose Women star Gloria Hunniford has hit out at plans for the Loose Women to be filmed without an audience The presenter is also concerned at the impact of the cuts
Loose Women star Gloria Hunniford has revealed the programme’s on-screen talent will dodge the chop despite sweeping cuts affecting behind-the-scenes staff.
ITV chiefs are restructuring its Daytime line-up with 220 out of 440 positions facing the axe.
However, presenters including Christine Lampard, Ruth Langsford and Kaye Adams are expected to retain their positions.
Gloria, 85, explained: “The cuts will be behind-the-scenes staff, because you’re going to have all three programmes in one studio.”
Regarding the Loose Women panel, she confirmed: “I think everybody is staying – absolutely,” reports the Mirror.
Gloria continued: “We are very concerned about the team, because we have a very large team and they’re all very clever and they work b****y hard. It’s very sad to see it breaking up.”
The redundancies form part of a massive ITV Daytime restructure with 220 out of 450 daytime positions at risk.
This comes despite the programme’s reputation for pioneering campaigns such as Change + Check, plus recently achieving its strongest viewing figures for four years under highly-regarded editor Victoria Kennedy.
Gloria explained that the fresh arrangement means from January there will be three live transmissions from one new studio in London’s Covent Garden.
The television veteran added: “I’ve never seen three live programmes come from one studio but they tell me it’ll work. You’ll have Lorraine in the morning, then This Morning, and then you’ll have Loose Women.
“There’s no point in thinking, will it work? It has to work, you know, and people make it work.”
The alterations also mean that Loose Women will no longer be recorded with a live studio audience, something Gloria fears could impact the show’s dynamic. She remarked: “I think we’d be able to do it very well but, on the other hand, the audience is lovely and they join in and everything.”
This follows TV host Lorraine Kelly describing the programme reductions as “heartbreaking” as she spoke candidly for the first time about her show facing significant cuts. The presenter also pledged to remain with her eponymous programme despite earlier rumours suggesting she might consider leaving.
She commented: “I don’t see me going anywhere until people get fed up, you know? Until people say, I’ve had enough of that one.”
Discussing the reductions which see her programme shortened from an hour to 30 minutes and broadcasting for just 30 weeks out of 52, she revealed her initial concern was for her affected colleagues.
She confessed: “It’s really heartbreaking to split up the team, a lot of my team 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 expressed relief that many of her crew members had subsequently found positions on other programmes. She continued: “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.”
However, she firmly stated that these plans have not hastened any retirement thoughts.
“Absolutely not. I am going to be toddling off that show in my Zimmer frame and even then, I’ll be coming in….I look at people like Janet Street Porter, Gloria Hunniford, still doing Loose Women, I mean, Gloria’s 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.”
She did admit to having a suspicion that budget cuts were imminent. “It was kind of like, we sort of had an inkling that things were going to change,” she says.
“Because we’ve made a lot of cuts, and we’ve been trying really hard to make sure that because we don’t have that much money, 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 (for his new film Jay Kelly), for God’s sake. He wanted to talk to me.”
She confirmed that she is currently on a year’s contract but refuted claims that she would depart at its conclusion. “We’re all freelancers. We’re all just on a year’s contract,” she said.
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