ITV chief Dame Carolyn McCall has admitted she’s been unable to sleep at night because of the savage job cuts she’s making.
The network is making a reported 220 staff redundant and halving the long-running Lorraine show to 30 minutes and broadcasting it and Loose Women for only 30 weeks a year. The changes come in next week.
‘I did lose sleep over this,’ she tells me. ‘These are not easy things. From a human point of view, it’s very difficult.’
Dame Carolyn, 64, joined ITV as chief executive in 2018 after seven years as boss of low-cost airline easyJet.
Speaking at a red-carpet event in London before Christmas, she stresses household names are not being axed. ‘You’re going to see Loose Women. You’re going to see Lorraine,’ Dame Carolyn tells me.
Dame Carolyn McCall, 64, joined ITV as chief executive in 2018 after seven years as boss of low-cost airline easyJet
‘It’s a sensible decision. Viewing habits have changed – we can’t deny that. This makes daytime [television] more resilient,’ she adds.
Lorraine Kelly has described the cuts to her show as ‘heartbreaking’, saying of the crew members who are losing their jobs: ‘A lot of them 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.’
Dame Carolyn, inset, says: ‘We just have to behave properly. We will always treat people well. We will always be open and tell them as much as we can, we will always do it the right way. Our primary duty is to make sure we have a really strong duty of care.’
Her reign at ITV has been far from smooth as she weathered the Phillip Schofield scandal, which ended with his departure in 2023 after he admitted lying about an affair with a younger male colleague.
Here’s a job for a brave soul. Prince Harry is seeking a ‘head of partnership development’ at Travalyst, which he set up to make travel more environmentally friendly. Let’s hope the successful candidate has survival skills as Harry and Meghan’s 11th publicist has just left her own role.
Pop princess Dua Lipa rakes in an eyewatering £70m
Accounts for Dua Lipa’s company Radical22 Live reveal it enjoyed a £45.6million turnover in the year to last March
It’s a very happy new year for Dua Lipa, who’s added almost £70million to her pop riches.
Accounts published yesterday for the 30-year-old star’s company Radical22 Live reveal it enjoyed a £45.6million turnover in the year to last March.
Her takings generated a £5.9million pre-tax profit while Dua paid herself £11.3million. Her live music sales come on top of a £23.2million turnover reported by her other firm, Radical22, just before Christmas.
Lady Bath eyes up I’m a Celeb
New year could be full of ghastly Bushtucker Trials for the Marchioness of Bath, who is considering going on I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!
Lady Bath, 39, who competed as Emma Weymouth on Strictly Come Dancing in 2019, tells me: ‘I love Ant and Dec. I saw them when I went to [watch] Britain’s Got Talent and it was great fun.’
Emma’s husband, Ceawlin, is the Marquess of Bath and custodian of the Longleat estate in Wiltshire – which includes the famous safari park and a Center Parcs resort.
Asked if she could rough it in the jungle Down Under, she says, laughing: ‘We live in a safari park, so yes, probably.’
Tice pops the question in the pub
Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice proposed to journalist and author Isabel Oakeshott on Boxing Day
This should be an exciting year for Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice – and not just on the political front.
I hear the former property tycoon proposed to journalist and author Isabel Oakeshott on Boxing Day.
Tice, 61, who has three children with his ex-wife, popped the question at the Royal Oak pub in Ramsden, Oxfordshire, but didn’t get down on bended knee. ‘He appeared to be rooted to the bar stool, with his hand gripping his glass of mulled wine,’ Isabel tells me. ‘He also asked for a 14-day cooling-off period, which I rejected. Politicians, eh? There’s always some small print.’
While the pair have been together for seven years, Isabel lives mainly in Dubai with her three children from her first marriage. ‘We make it work,’ she says of her long-distance relationship with Tice. ‘I’ll move back ahead of the next General Election.’
Playing a forensic pathologist has left Silent Witness star Emilia Fox with a real-life obsession for solving mysterious deaths. ‘I do think about it,’ says Emilia, 51. ‘I’m always asking the experts on the show, “What would you be looking for here?” It’s brilliant when you want more detail.’
Mary Beard’s burning grudge
Almost a decade after TV critic AA Gill’s death, Dame Mary Beard refuses to forgive him for his insults about her looks
Almost a decade after TV critic AA Gill’s death, Dame Mary Beard refuses to forgive him for his insults about her looks.
Gill sparked controversy when he rudely wrote of classicist Beard’s TV appearances in 2010: ‘The hair is a disaster, the outfit an embarrassment. If you’re going to invite yourself into the front rooms of the living, then you need to make an effort.’
Reflecting on ‘gratuitous criticism’, Dame Mary now remarks: ‘If that had happened when I was in my 20s or 30s, I wouldn’t have known how to deal with it. Resilience is something you learn.’ She adds of Gill: ‘Clever writer – but what a sexist. What a bastard.’
