Why One Major Talk Show Was Pulled From TV Last Week
Viewers hoping to catch their daily episode of Loose Women last week were out of luck. Beginning on Tuesday, March 14 Loose Women was absent from the ITV schedule. The long-running ITV lunchtime chat show was temporarily pulled from the schedule as ITV began coverage of the Cheltenham Races, show presenter Ruth Langford announced Monday, March 13.
Langford confirmed the schedule change at the end of March 13th's episode, telling viewers, "We are off for the rest of the week because of the racing at Cheltenham." According to Langford, Loose Women was set to return to normal broadcasting on Monday, March 20. Langford added, "I know it's a shame, but we will see you then." This means that while the March 13th episode – which saw Langford co-hosting alongside Katie Piper, Brenda Edwards and Janet Street-Porter – went on as normal, and no new episodes of Loose Women aired from Tuesday, March 14 to Friday, March 17. The talk show typically airs between 12:30 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. on weekdays.
In its place, per the Daily Mail, the ITV lunchtime news moved to the 12:30 p.m. timeslot, with coverage of the Cheltenham races beginning at 1 p.m. Ed Chamberlin hosted the coverage, which concluded at 4 p.m. Other ITV programming, including Good Morning Britain and This Morning, continued to air as normal. ITV's schedule did look a bit different on Wednesday, March 15 when coverage of the Cheltenham races began at 2 p.m., with an ITV News Special on the Chancellor's 2023 Budget airing at 12:15 p.m., Manchester Evening News reported.
Unfortunately for TV viewers, Loose Women being pulled from the air wasn't the only scheduling shakeup last week. BBC pulled the new Death in Paradise spin-off Beyond Paradise. The new series was temporarily removed from the schedule last week due to Comic Relief on Friday, with the show's Twitter account informing fans, "We won't be here next week – it's [Comic Relief]! – but don't worry, [Beyond Paradise] will be back on BBC One on Friday 24th. The BBC crime drama debuted in February 2023 and stars Kris Marshall as DI Humphrey Goodman, Sally Bretton as Martha Lloyd, Zahra Ahmadi as DS Esther Williams, Dylan Llewellyn as PC Kelby Hartford, Felicity Montagu as Margo Martins, Barbara Flynn as Anne Lloyd, and Jamie Bamber as Archie Hughes.