Susanna Reid and Kate Garraway, ITV favorites, were seen holding back tears as GMB and This Morning’s sets were torn down amid cuts.
As massive recycling bins were seen packed full at Television Centre as the two shows made their move to a new location, popular Good morning Britain hosts Susanna Reid and Kate Garraway could barely contain their emotions.
On Thursday morning, the audience and the behind-the-scenes crew gathered for an emotional debrief, and many tears were shed as they marked the end of a long run on British television.
It’s believed that a sad Kate was sitting on the studio floor as a colleague spoke, while Susanna and weather presenter Laura Tobin stood behind the famous GMB desk, all looking overcome with emotion, with some staff raising a glass of bubbly to toast to the team, as everything is set to change.
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Workmen could be seen removing all the Christmas decorations from the studios, leaving them bare before handing the keys over to a host of new shows. GMB will now be filmed at ITN headquarters in Central London while the other daytime shows will be filmed at The H Club in Covent Garden.
It comes as a raft of changes at ITV following drastic budget cuts come into effect on Monday, with a whole new schedule which will see GMB run for half an hour longer, and morning talkshow Lorraine, hosted by Scottish presenter Lorraine Kelly, chopped by 30 minutes.
This Morning and Loose Women will run as usual, but Loose Women will now only run for 30 weeks of the year. The changes saw 220 jobs lost in a bid to save money.
According to a source quoted in the Sun, it’s a “devastating time” for the entire team, and to see the sets come apart was “devastating.”
They said, “There are staff who have worked for ITV Daytime for years – from GMTV to Daybreak to GMB – also on Lorraine, Loose Women and This Morning.
“A new era has been reached because the teams have been relocated and divided.” Many people are saying goodbye forever even though they weren’t ready to leave.
Television Centre, which was used by ITV Daytime since 2018, will not gather dust amid the new changes, however with a host of popular shows, such as Limitless Win, Strictly and the National Lottery draw and Saturday Night Live UK to be filmed there.
The huge changes were announced last August by ITV boss Kevin Lygo, who said at the time: “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 as generating savings which will 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.
But it’s believed the shock changes ruffled a lot of feathers behind closed doors, including some of the stars of the soon to be drastically-reduced daytime chat show Loose Women – who are paid on an episode by episode basis.
Others, however, were philosophical about the shake-up, including the famously outspoken Janet Street Porter, who told the Mirror last November, “I’ve had to make cuts myself. I’ve been made redundant,” she explains. “For those concerned it’s very traumatic and I empathise. I’ve been kicked off shows, told to my face they don’t want me any more. It’s really wounding.
However, she continued, “Sometimes change, especially in your career, can be for the better and give you resilience because there is another job out there.” I’m not talking about the Loose staff right now, but what worries me is that some young people don’t have the ability to look at something that isn’t working their way and get past it without collapsing or breaking down.
Source: Mirror
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