Carol McGiffin says struggling Loose Women should be axed as she takes a swipe at 'boring' show after it was hit by budget cuts

Carol McGiffin has taken another swipe at her former show Loose Women, as she said the struggling programme should be axed. 

The presenter, 66, was a fixture on the famous panel for over two decades, but left in 2023 due to 'contract issues' with bosses.

Carol has now said Loose Women has become stale after budget cuts stripped the show back to its 'bare bones.' 

ITV announced huge cuts to its daytime lineup last year, with Loose Women seeing its studio audience axed, while the show's episode output was reduced to just half the number of weeks of the year.

Carol said: 'I left in 2023, it's a long time now, I left it behind. I don't want to be on TV anymore, I'm not cut out for it anymore....

'It's boring now, there's no audience, they've cut it back to the bare bones. So what do you expect… maybe it's time to put it down.'

She went on to tell The Sun: 'It's done, it's over. I'm sure a lot of people still love to sit down and watch it, but not me.'

Carol previously opened up about the decision to leave the show back in 2023 in her weekly column for Best Magazine.

Carol said: 'I haven't been on the show for two months now because I've had to step away from it. It was causing me too much stress, which was mostly down to a difficult contract issue I'd been challenging since January.

'The problem was, ITV were insisting, for the first time since I went back in 2018, that if I wanted to carry on doing the show, I would have to sign a contract that was totally unjust and unworkable for me, so I had to say no thanks.

'And I know it looks like I've thrown my toys out of the pram, but the whole saga was affecting my health.'

The Mail on Sunday later disclosed that a free speech row was at the centre of her departure, after a backlash over her tirade in an interview on TNT talk radio.

She previously said on air during a TNT Radio interview for The Freeman Report, with James Freeman: 'I always look back at when I started working in television and radio as the good old days because they were much less policed, I suppose.

'Much less restricted and it was a freer place to be. When I look back at the old Loose Women I used to do from 2000, all the way until I left in 2013, they're completely different.

'There is so much offence. People take so much offence at so much and they never used to.'

Back in May 2025, it was revealed that Lorraine and Loose Women were set to be axed for half the year and Lorraine's runtime has been slashed by 30 minutes, as ITV Daytime bosses announced huge cuts, with job losses in excess of 220.

Host Lorraine Kelly has faced the brunt of the cuts with Good Morning Britain now taking her 9am to 10am slot for 22 weeks of the year.

For the remaining 30 weeks of the year, Lorraine will present five days a week, meaning her Friday stand-in presenters Ranvir Singh and Christine Lampard are no longer needed.

ITV sources told Daily Mail at the time that they have decided to cut resources on their daytime schedule so that the network can invest in more drama programmes.

It was also announced that ITV Studios will no longer make Good Morning Britain but instead it will be made by ITN - the organisation which makes ITV News.