'We’re still here' - Lorraine Kelly calmly, pragmatically and defiantly stated in a recent interview, addressing the huge changes that will soon overhaul her long-running ITV show.
After 30 years on the air, Lorraine’s show will be reduced to a 30-minute time slot, running from 9:30 to 10, and air for just 30 weeks out of the year.
But, despite calling these changes 'heartbreaking' in the past, the much-loved presenter is keeping positive as this change looms closer, and 'the most important thing' for her remains the audience.
'My show's been on half past eight, quarter to nine, and nine o'clock, 10 past nine,' she recently shared in an interview with The Standard, 'So hopefully the audience will still stay with us'.
She continued, 'That's the most important thing to me… you know, that the audience are still enjoying what I do and the fact that people are so kind and they still watch after all these years and when I go out and about, people greet me like their friend, which is really, really lovely.
'I don't think that happens to all that many people. You know that you've got that connection, primarily because I've been doing it for so long, but it's something that I never, ever take for granted and I never take any, any of this for granted. I really don't, because it's, it's an honour.
'The show continues,' she says. 'And obviously it’s only going to be the half hour… but you know what, we’re still here. We’re still here.'
The changes to Lorraine’s programme come as ITV announced cost-cutting measures earlier in the year.
Lorraine spoke out on the cuts, calling them "heartbreaking" for her team and the other workers who faced losing their jobs.
She told the Mirror, "It’s really heartbreaking to split up the team, a lot of my team have been with me for more than 20 years and they’re my friends. I’ve grown up with them. They were babies when they started with me and now they’ve got babies of their own."
As the saying goes, when one door closes, another opens, and while Lorraine isn’t leaving her ITV show any time soon, she is branching out. As well as writing the sequel to her debut novel, 2024’s The Island Swimmer, Lorraine revealed that she has just wrapped a three-part travel series on Norway, set to air in January on Channel 4.
"If this works, maybe we’ll do more," she said, "We’ll just see, just see what happens."
