Loose Women's Brenda Edwards shared her worries about her job amid ITV's budget cuts. The 56-year-old has been a panellist for the talk show since 2019 and hopes to keep her position on the programme to "raise awareness" on multiple topics that are regularly discussed on the show.
It comes as ITV revealed Loose Women will be airing for 30 weeks instead of 52 weeks starting from the New Year. Over 220 jobs at the channel are also being cut. Speaking to Women's Own magazine, she said: "You have to move with the times I guess, and I hope this is just an interim thing, and maybe in a few years' time [it will go back to how it was], but we can only wait and see.
"I don't like to make assumptions on anything because I don't know what's happening there but I hope I manage to get some shows and am able to use my platform to raise awareness for whatever I can."
She went on to discuss her fellow panellists, admitting she's a "big fan" of Janet Street-Porter and her 'feistiness'.
She added: "I just love her feistiness and outspokenness, which I think a lot of us have. She is doing her first-ever tour where she will talk to the audience, and it's going to be fab!
"I'm assuming she will talk about everything, including her life, so it will be amazing! We support each other as always. I remember when I was growing up all the women in my family loved Janet and what she stood for."
Brenda isn’t the only Loose Women star to comment on the move as fellow panellist Nadia Sawalha previously said the ITV budget cuts news came “out of the blue” and would be “absolutely brutal” for the show.
Speaking on her YouTube channel, she said: “What's been brutal, absolutely brutal, over the last week, honestly I feel tearful about it, is that hundreds of people... are going to be made redundant out of the blue, these are all the people behind the scenes that support us in every way.”
The cuts mean that around 220 out of the 440 staff involved in the programmes would lose their jobs following the decision published in May, reports the Guardian.
Whilst Loose Women will stay at the same running time, the number of times it appears on the air will be cut from 52 to 30 weeks.
ITV’s media and entertainment division Kevin Lygo has said that cutting Loose Women and Lorraine’s weeks aligned “with the lead daytime presenters who host their shows around a seasonal pattern”.
He explained: “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.”
