ITV bosses recoiled in horror as an MP made claims about a nickname he heard This Morning staff had for its show's viewers. ITV chief executive Dame Carolyn McCall faced questions from MPs on Wednesday (June 14) about Phillip Schofield's shock exit from the network.
Schofield, 61, resigned from ITV and was dropped by his talent agency YMU after admitting to an "unwise but not illegal" affair with a younger male colleague. A week before he admitted to the rumoured relationship, Schofield stepped back as host of This Morning after rumours of a 'feud' between him and co-host Holly Willoughby behind the scenes hit the headlines.
He later stepped back from ITV altogether after he admitted to lying to Holly, his employers, and others about his affair with the young man.
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Dame Carolyn, chief executive of ITV, has now faced questioning about the broadcaster’s approach to safeguarding and complaint handling alongside ITV managing director Kevin Lygo and general counsel and company secretary Kyla Mullins about Schofield’s exit during Wednesday morning’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee session in Parliament.
Dame Carolyn started by telling MPs the "imbalance of power, the imbalance of dynamics" made the relationship between Schofield and 'person X' "deeply inappropriate", and ITV would have taken action, but no evidence of the relationship appeared during ongoing reviews.
She said "we were repeatedly told nothing was happening”, and both men denied it "both formally and informally". She added: "There was only hearsay and rumour and speculation… Nobody on the board would have turned a blind eye to something as serious as this."
Later during the session, the ITV bosses were asked to address claims that This Morning staff referred to their audience as ‘Tower Block Traceys’. The trio were presented with allegations that some of their employees had placed the offensive nickname on their viewers.
MP John Nicolson asked: "Can you confirm that daytime production staff on This Morning referred to their audience in production meetings as 'Tower Block Traceys?'" to which Dame Carolyn leant back in her chair with a gobsmacked expression, while Lygo asked Nicholson to repeat himself, the Metro reports.
"I’ve never heard that phrase," Lygo replied. When the Scottish National Party politician came back and said "a number of people’" had told him that nickname was used by ITV staff, the bosses again said they were not aware of the term. "It’s truly dismissive,’ he said.
"If an idea is too high-brow I’m told that people say "would that really appeal to the Tower Block Traceys?" But all three of those being quizzed hook their head, while Nicolson said it was a "horrible thing to say".
"It’s not what ITV would be looking at for a target audience," Dame Carolyn then said. "We wouldn’t describe our audience in that way and I know one thing, it is that the daytime team on every show really cares about the audience, so that surprises me," she added.
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