Beloved GMB Host Escapes ITV’s Ruthless Shake-Up – While Veteran Stars Brace for the Axe Amid Budget Cuts
One Good Morning Britain star has managed to survive the huge cuts at ITV as the breakfast show and its other daytime companions undergo major format changes starting next year
One Good Morning Britain star has managed to survive the huge cuts at ITV(Image: Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)
One Good Morning Britain star has avoided being axed amid a string of cost-cutting measures on the Daytime shows. The ITV shows are undergoing major changes next year, with the breakfast show being extended by 30 minutes.
As a result, Lorraine has been cut to just half an hour a day and will only air for 30 weeks a year. This Morning will air as normal, and Loose Women will remain to be an hour long, but will be cut to just 30 weeks a year too.
However, one person who has remained on the show and will be doing so for the foreseeable future is Richard Arnold. Richard fronts the showbiz section on ITV’s Good Morning Britain most weeks.
Richard Arnold’s future at ITV has been revealed(Image: ITV)
“Richard is one of ITV daytime’s best-loved faces never mind on GMB. Viewers enjoy his slots and he remains very much part of the furniture,” a source told The Sun, confirming Richard would be keeping his job.
It comes after other top name ITV stars have expressed their own fears at their future on the show and that of their colleagues.
Coleen Nolan – who is one of the stars on Loose Women – told the Mirror in an exclusive interview: “The crew have become family. I’ve watched them grow. Some of our runners from back in the day are producers, married with kids. I’ve shared my life with them. They’re in limbo, not knowing what they’re going to do. Loose Women isn’t ending, which I’m so thankful for, but it’s changing.
“It’s going to be very different in the respect of the size of the crew, but it’s still running. Which it should be – there isn’t another show that celebrates and supports all women of every size, age, whatever. But it’s heartbreaking to see some of my colleagues not knowing what they’re going to do. Many of them have young families and mortgages.”
Loose Women star Nadia Sawalha also expressed her fears for the team at the show – and herself.
“What’s been brutal, absolutely brutal, over the last week, honestly I feel tearful about it, is that hundreds of people… are going to be made redundant out of the blue, these are all the people behind the scenes that support us in every way,” she said.
“Behind the scenes there are people that are really suffering, and what you don’t realise is when you attack the show you attack them, because you never see all the army of people behind the scenes and how hard they work.”
She added: “What people don’t realise at Loose Women is that we’re self-employed. I am self-employed. Every contract is a new contract. I could be let go tomorrow, I could be let go in five years, you don’t know because we’re not employees.”
