Celebrities

Jane Moore Slams ‘Snooty’ Backlash Over Brutal ITV Daytime Cuts on Loose Women

Published on May 30, 2025

Jane Moore has come out swinging at what she calls the “snooty reaction” to ITV’s decision to slim Loose Women down to just 30 weeks of broadcasts a year. The journalist and long-time panelist says some pundits greeted the news with lazy disdain and a whiff of sexism.

“One male commentator for a broadsheet casually dismissed Loose Women — on air for 25 years — as a ‘gabfest’… The snooty reaction from some quarters was immensely disappointing,” she wrote in The Sun. Moore, 63, did not reveal which paper or pundit made the jibe, but she clearly took it to heart.

Loose Women and Lorraine are both being pared back in a major schedule shake-up from 2026. ITV is thought to be redirecting the savings into extra sports coverage, a move Moore finds hard to swallow given how few all-female shows exist on mainstream TV.

She said: “When it was announced that one of the precious few, all-female shows was being cut back to 30 weeks a year to save money for, among other things, more sport, the snooty reaction from some quarters was immensely disappointing”, reported the Mirror.

The pundit’s beef is not just about airtime; it is about what the panel achieves. She reminded readers that Loose Women regularly tackles heavyweight issues. “We always cover the day’s main news stories, as well as important topics such as, among many other things, miscarriage, post-natal depression, menopause, midlife female invisibility (oh the irony) and breast cancer awareness.”

She reeled off examples of guests who were grilled rather than flattered: “Clearly he hadn’t seen the episode when Janet Street-Porter turned to then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and demanded ‘Why do you hate pensioners?’… Or when a squirming Nigel Farage was put on the spot and declared afterwards ‘that was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done’.”

Moore also pointed out that the programme lifted a Royal Television Society award earlier this year for its domestic-violence campaign Facing It Together, proof that daytime chat does not have to be trivial. Loose Women has been on ITV since 2000; Moore first joined in 1999, took a break in 2002 and returned in 2013.

The current on-screen team ranges in age from 25 to 85, with veteran Gloria Hunniford at the upper end. Reports suggest both the roster and the weekly hours will shrink alongside the run length next year. Lorraine Kelly is rumored to be equally unimpressed.

Her self-titled breakfast show, which has aired since 2010, will also be trimmed to a 30-minute slot. An ITV insider said: “She has been an icon of ITV but serious cuts need to be made and her show has been cut to just 30 minutes, which after ad breaks will be a very short chunk of time.”

Moore believes the sneering tone some commentators adopted exposes a double standard. She notes there was no such outcry when male-fronted sports or comedy formats were ring-fenced during previous cost-cutting sprees. Critics argue that if ITV wants to boost sport it should not do so at the expense of one of the network’s longest-running female-led forums.

With the broadcaster under pressure to balance books and broaden appeal, the debate looks set to rumble on long after the current series signs off. For now, fans still have Loose Women on screens most weekdays, but from 2026 they will see a tighter run. Whether ITV’s gamble pays off or leaves a midday gap others rush to fill remains to be seen, yet Jane Moore has made it clear she will keep calling out the knockers—because, as she puts it, “lazy misogyny” is one habit daytime viewers are not prepared to tolerate.

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