‘My show is for women’: Lorraine Kelly shares disappointment that ITV budget cuts heavily impact female viewers

Lorraine Kelly has been very honest about the impact of the ITV budget cuts on her daytime chat show, suggesting on several occasions that she hopes her audience will stay with her throughout the changes.

As a result of the huge shake up at the channel, Lorraine's long-running show has been cut from one hour to 30 minutes, and now only runs for 30 weeks of the year.

While she's often spoken out about the cost-cutting measures taken by ITV, she's now been the most direct she's ever been about who the changes really affect: a female audience.

Appearing on an episode of The Life of Bryony podcast, Lorraine suggests that her show is aimed at women, who already don't have enough TV shows specifically for them.

There's now even less for female audiences with a reduction in daytime TV aimed at this demographic.

Lorraine shares that her show is "For other women specifically," adding that men can, and do watch as well, but "They already have loads of telly" aimed at them.

The presenter continues, "We're not making it for them [men]," adding that "It's really important to me" to highlight women's issues, "especially the campaigns," she shares.

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Notably, Lorraine and her show have championed the Check + Change campaign. This was founded by Helen Addis, an ITV producer and breast cancer campaigner.

When Helen diagnosed with the disease at the age of 39, she found other women weren't checking their breasts as regularly as they should.

In response to this, the initiative advocates for the placement of a simple sticker on changing room mirrors, reminding women to check themselves for signs of breast cancer as they change.

It's been reported that the campaign has helped many women identify their breast cancer - reducing airtime for shows that highlight important issues affecting women such as this, could be detrimental to women's health.

Bryony Gordon, presenting the podcast, even shared her own story about Lorraine championing a book she wrote a decade ago. "I remember being so nervous," she tells Lorraine, adding, "and your show changed the course, it made that book a bestseller."

She adds that viewers really trust Lorraine and the themes she talks about and shines a light on.

For Lorraine, that level of trust in her from both those who appear on the show and those tuning in, is one of the reasons she does what she does.

Lorraine responds with, "When people trust you with their story, if they've been through something awful and you know they want to come and talk to you about it - that that to me is huge."