ITV daytime bosses have reportedly held crisis meetings with staff working on its four flagship shows after a rapid decline in ratings left the broadcaster panicked

Staff working on ITV’s biggest daytime shows could face pay freezes and job losses, it has been reported.

ITV bosses are said to have taken drastic measures to try to offset the financial damage caused by a rapid decline in ratings, after being hit with a huge slump in viewers. The broadcaster’s four most popular programmes – Loose Women, Good Morning Britain, This Morning and Lorraine – will reportedly be affected.

It is understood meetings have been held by ITV’s daytime boss Emma Gormley to break the news. It comes after Ant & Dec stepped down from Saturday Night Takeaway after 20 years and Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby were replaced by Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley on This Morning, who bagged a staggering £550,000 for their hosting roles.

But in their first month on the job, the show’s ratings slumped from more than a million to 692,5000. By the end of April, the average number of live viewers was 544,000. The drop has been compared to the ever-swelling viewing figures of streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Contracts brutally cut

It has been reported shorter three-month contracts could be favoured instead of long-term deals for ITV staff, while freelancers could be cut. A source has claimed this could be because TV bosses will be able to reduce staff numbers with ease if the situation doesn’t improve.

As reported by The Sun, a source said: “ITV is really tightening their belt. There have been concerns for months at the top but now that it’s trickled down to the shop floor it feels very depressing. A lot of staff are being put on three-month contracts, probably so they can get rid of people easily.”

They claimed pay freezes are already in place and that ITV is trying to keep costs down by “not trialling new talent on regular segments”. It has been reported bosses are hoping ratings will pick up during the UK election campaign. The source added the news is “particularly difficult to stomach” following the costly This Morning relaunch.

Annual event axed

ITV’s annual summer do, which sees the biggest celebrities let their hair down on company cash, could also be axed to keep overall costs down, it has been reported. Kate Garraway and Richard Arnold are among those who regularly attend the event.

Redundancy review

To cut costs on some of ITV’s biggest shows, some employees could face being scrapped later in the year. A leaked memo, released by COO Chris Kennedy, was partly republished in February by Broadcast magazine, said that no redundancies were planned at the time, but the situation would be monitored for six months.

It read: “We’ll review progress halfway through the year and if we can relax these controls, we will. If we need to strengthen them further, we will.”

An ITV spokesperson told the Mirror: “Town hall meetings happen frequently for teams to keep up to date with company news and also serve as an opportunity for staff to have questions answered. The latest one was to celebrate the success of Lorraine Kelly receiving a BAFTA Special Recognition Award and the two BAFTA nominations for Daytime last weekend. It was also a transparent portrayal of what is currently happening across the industry.”

They added: “As a broadcaster and streamer, ITV has a range of programming in its Daytime schedules. This Morning reached an average 4.2 million viewers a week in April alone, its highest so far in 2024. In 2023 This Morning was one of the most streamed shows on ITVX. Like all media, This Morning has expanded into the digital sphere with record-breaking results. This Morning remains Britain’s most talked about and influential daytime TV show and has never had a better connection with its viewer, with just under 160 million video views of This Morning content and reached 63 million unique social media accounts in April.”