This week, some of ITV’s most well-known shows made significant changes, but viewers didn’t like the new Lorraine format.
Lorraine viewers said its new format was ‘hardly worth getting up for’ after the show was cut back to 30 minutes as part of ITV plans to save money. As of today (Monday, January 5), the Lorraine Kelly-fronted show airs from 9.30am to 10am and is also being filmed at anew, smaller studio in Covent Garden, London.
ITV bosses announced a swathe of planned changes last year to the staffing and scheduling of some of its biggest daytime shows including Loose Women, This Morning, Good Morning Britain and Lorraine, which will only air for 30 weeks of the year. But after tuning in for day one of the changes, some viewers were left unimpressed.
One user said, “Lorraine is only on for 30 minutes.” Hardly worthwhile for her to do that. Another also noted that Lorraine’s total on-screen time was “24 minutes minus the ads.”
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Lorraine, Loose Women, and This Morning bid their former studio at the Television Centre in White City, London, goodbye as a result of the changes. All three are being filmed in the basement of the former members’ club The H Club Studio.
Production teams for the three programmes were also merged as part of the sweeping money-saving plans, leading to an estimated 200 job cuts. Lorraine addressed the changes in her first episode of 2026, telling GMB’s Susanna Reid: “t’s all changed and all the same, if you know what I mean. Yeah. It’s all good.”
Speaking exclusively to the Mirror last month, 66-year-old Lorraine explained that while it “wasn’t her decision”, it was is a sign of the times in the TV entertainment industry. “I’m just glad that we’re still there,” she said.
“We’ve still managed to save some jobs. A lot of my team are going to This Morning. And so yeah, it’s not my decision. It wasn’t a decision that I made.”
As well as taking umbrage with the shorter 30-minute Lorraine slot, the new studio was also a hot topic on social media, with one viewer joking that the veteran presenter “could have presented that from the Photo Booth at Tesco for the time it took.”. Another described it as “small” and “cheap-looking”.
According to Kevin Lygo, managing director of ITV’s Media and Entertainment Division, “Daytime is a really important part of what we do,” the changes will allow us to continue to deliver a schedule that gives viewers the news, debate, and discussion they love from the presenters they know and trust, as well as saving money to allow us to reinvest across the programme budget in other genres.
“These changes also help us consolidate our news operations, expand our national, international, and regional news output, and strengthen our long-standing reputation for reliable journalism at a time when our viewers are more and more in need of accurate, objective news coverage.
Source: Mirror
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