ITV has announced announces changes to the scheduling and production of its award-winning daytime shows, with projected savings helping to fund coverage of “events like next year’s football World Cup.”
Could there be a big football investment ahead at the broadcaster, with William Hill currently offering 3/1 on a certain recently unemployed, highly paid BBC pundit being part of ITV’s team at the World Cup next summer, which the BBC and ITV will share broadcasting rights for?
That is pure conjecture, and ITV thus far haven’t responded to us slightly cheekily raising the question. To be fair it’s probably safe to say that such a major reshuffle requires longer than the 24 hours since Gary Lineker’s departure from the BBC was confirmed, but it’s certainly interesting timing.
What we know for sure is that from January 2026, Good Morning Britain will be extended by 30 minutes to run from 6am to 9.30am daily, and will transfer to be produced by ITV News at ITN at their base at Gray’s Inn Road in London.
GMB will be made by a dedicated team within ITV News at ITN. The change will see ITV bring all its national news gathering into one hub, with Good Morning Britain benefitting from the journalistic and production resources already in place for national news bulletins, for the website and for digital platforms including ITVX.
Lorraine, This Morning and Loose Women will continue to be produced by ITV Studios and will be broadcast from a new location in central London. ITV Studios is consulting with its Daytime teams about a proposal that from 2026 would see the three editorially distinct shows produced by one team sharing resources and operations.
The “efficiencies” gained from the changes in the production of these shows – which Deadline reports could include as many as 220 redundancies – will be reinvested in other genres while ensuring viewers will continue to see all of the live, topical Daytime shows they know and love.
The changes, ITV said “will fund additional investment in dramas like Mr Bates vs The Post Office and in coverage of the biggest sporting events like next year’s football World Cup as well as the UK’s biggest reality and entertainment shows, and will strengthen ITV’s ability to continue to attract the biggest commercial audiences both on linear channels and online through ITVX.”
Kevin Lygo, managing director of ITV’s media and entertainment division, explained the changes more prosaically: “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 generating savings which will allow us to reinvest across the programme budget in other genres.
“These changes also allow us to consolidate our news operations and expand our national, international and regional news output and to build upon our proud history of trusted journalism at a time when our viewers need accurate, unbiased news coverage more than ever.”
In ITV’s 2026 Daytime schedule, Lorraine will run from 9.30am-10am, on a seasonal basis for 30 weeks of the year which aligns with the lead Daytime presenters who host their shows around a seasonal pattern rather than throughout the year. During the weeks Lorraine is not on air, Good Morning Britain will run from 6am to 10am.
This Morning will remain in its 10am-12.30pm slot on weekdays throughout the year, while Loose Women will be in the 12.30-1.30pm slot, again on a seasonal basis for 30 weeks of the year – the schedule it occupied for over a decade until 2016.
Lygo added: “I recognise that our plans will have an impact on staff off screen in our Daytime production teams, and we will work with ITV Studios and ITN as they manage these changes to produce the shows differently from next year, and support them through this transition.
“Daytime has been a core element of ITV’s schedule for over 40 years and these changes will set ITV up to continue to bring viewers award winning news, views and discussion as we enter our eighth decade.”
The expanded Good Morning Britain will continue its mix of news, interviews, debate and competitions while allowing for the inclusion of more regional news, more agenda-setting investigations and exclusives and more reporting on and analysis of the biggest stories of the day around the UK and the world.
Together with the 30 minute expansion of ITV’s early evening news in 2022, this means ITV will have provided a 20% increase in scheduled national and regional news each week day.
The change will form part of a renewed agreement between ITV and ITN, for ITN to produce national, international, London and digital news for ITV for the next five years, with options to extend.
