Loose Women panel fear axe from show in favour of younger co-stars

Daily Record

4 days ago

The Loose Women panellists are said to be fearing for their future amid the ITV schedule shakeup - as they believe they will be axed to make way for younger co-stars.
Loose Women's panellists are said to be worried about their future on the show as younger stars "take over." There has been a constant panic backstage behind ITV's midday show, with several of its leading ladies being open about the major changes to this show, which will happen next year.
Last month, ITV announced a major shift to their daytime schedules, which will affect both Loose Women and Lorraine Kelly's morning programme, Lorraine. Although the breakfast news programme, This Morning, will remain unaffected even with a large loss of viewers over the past few months.
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Lorraine and Loose Women will be cut to just 30 weeks of airtime throughout the year, the Mirror reports.
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Sources are now claiming that the older members of the Loose Women panel - Coleen Nolan, Kaye Adams, Nadia Sawalha, Denise Welch, Ruth Langsford and Linda Robson - feel as thought there are being left behind, with Kaye and Nadia being the only two original panellists from the shows launch in 1999.
Reports suggest the oldest panellists believe they will be replaced by the younger members of the panel, GK Barry, Olivia Attwood, former singer Frankie Bridge and Stacey Solomon, who has not been on the show since 2023.
The younger panellists have millions of social media followers, and use platforms like TikTok to build their following, with mum-of-five Stacey having over six million followers on Instagram alone.
A source told Closer Magazine: "The other girls feel like they can't compete with Stacey's stats."
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The source goes on to claim that everyone on the panel is being encouraged to build their online following on platforms like TikTok, but this has been labeled as a "full-time job in itself."
However, ITV bosses are reportedly telling panellists that any that is done and changed is not a personal move, but that has not gone down very well. The insider continued: "Nadia has been warning her co-stars it's not about who you are anymore, but how many followers you have."
Although decisions are yet to be finalised, the source went on to state: "In the long term, it could mean a farewell to the golden oldies. Coleen has been on the show, on and off, since 2000, a quarter of a century. Viewing numbers are down, and financial cuts have been made to save the ship and there's a few that are expected to walk the plank."
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However, Nadia has openly spoken about the cut online.
Taking to her YouTube channel, the broadcaster said: "Do you know what, at the moment, all of us on screen are at work and are proud of what we do. But 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."
"So to all my friends and colleagues behind the scenes who have just got a huge shock out of the blue, I'm so sorry. Mark knows how upset I've been at home about it. I just can't bear it. So just be f*****g kind to people."
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She continued: "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, in five years, you don't know because we're not employees."
"So I can't tell you anything except I am on for my next contract. What has been brutal over the past week, and I am getting tearful about it, is that hundreds of people are going to be made redundant out of the blue."
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"A lot of my friends and colleagues have been there for decades and I cannot tell you how upsetting it was to see people walking around numb with shock and fear about what they are going to do. That has been so awful. It has been worse than whatever trolls have been saying about our show that we feel really protective of," she added.
Speaking previously on the fears the panellists are having, a source close to the ITV show said: "We are not planning any radical changes to the panel. All of our Loose Women are hugely valued and we celebrate each and every one and the experience and opinions they bring to the show every day."
"Many of our long standing panellists have appeared on the show for the majority of its 25 year run on screens and those stalwart Loose legends are at the core of the show's success and hugely popular with the audience."
"The show remains a big priority within our daytime slate, having secured a BAFTA nomination, launched a podcast and celebrated a milestone anniversary in the last year alone," they concluded.