ITV daytime set for shake-up with one fan-favourite show extended and another pulled off air
FANS of ITV’s daytime shows will be faced with a dramatic shake-up later this week.
This Morning and Loose Women will be affected by the horse racing at Aintree Racecourse on Thursday and Friday.
The good news for This Morning fans is that the show will be extended by an extra 30 minutes.
Instead of hosts Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard signing off at 12.30pm, they will run until 1pm.
But as a result, Loose Women will be axed completely.
Both Thursday and Friday’s episodes of the lunchtime panel show will be pulled from the schedule because of the annual horse racing competition.
Instead, the ITV Lunchtime News will be broadcast at 1pm, followed by a regional news update 20 minutes later.
At 1.30pm, when Loose Women would usually be coming off air, ITV will go live to Aintree Racecourse in Liverpool for ITV Racing: Grand National Festival.
Ed Chamberlin will present the coverage for three-and-a-half hours on each day.
This is not the first time fans of ITV’s daytime shows have faced shake ups over the past few weeks.
Last Wednesday, Loose Women was canned because of the Government’s Spring Statement.
And the Loose ladies found their diaries being cleared completely at the beginning of March to make way for the Cheltenham Festival.
This Morning’s Cat and Ben also had to finish 15 minutes early from Tuesday March 11 until Friday March 14 for Cheltenham, wrapping their show at 12.45pm.
Meanwhile, Loose Women fans have already had a slight change to the schedule this week.
On Tuesday, ITV aired a special edition of Loose Men.
The spin-off was led by Craig Doyle, with Jeff Brazier, Jordan Banjo and Iain Stirling filling the panelist seats.
A big subject the lads discussed was toxic masculinity – a topic sprung from the gripping Netflix series Adolescence.