ITV chief Dame Carolyn McCall has admitted she’s been unable to sleep at night because of the savage job cuts she’s making.

The network is making a reported 220 staff redundant and halving the long-running Lorraine show to 30 minutes and broadcasting it and Loose Women for only 30 weeks a year. The changes come in next week.

‘I did lose sleep over this,’ she tells me. ‘These are not easy things. From a human point of view, it’s very difficult.’

Dame Carolyn, 64, joined ITV as chief executive in 2018 after seven years as boss of low-cost airline easyJet.

Speaking at a red-carpet event in London before Christmas, she stresses household names are not being axed. ‘You’re going to see Loose Women. You’re going to see Lorraine,’ Dame Carolyn tells me.

Dame Carolyn McCall, 64, joined ITV as chief executive in 2018 after seven years as boss of low-cost airline easyJet

‘It’s a sensible decision. Viewing habits have changed – we can’t deny that. This makes daytime [television] more resilient,’ she adds.

Lorraine Kelly has described the cuts to her show as ‘heartbreaking’, saying of the crew members who are losing their jobs: ‘A lot of them have been with me for more than 20 years and they’re my friends. I’ve grown up with them. They were babies when they started with me and now they’ve got babies of their own.’

Dame Carolyn, inset, says: ‘We just have to behave properly. We will always treat people well. We will always be open and tell them as much as we can, we will always do it the right way. Our primary duty is to make sure we have a really strong duty of care.’

Her reign at ITV has been far from smooth as she weathered the Phillip Schofield scandal, which ended with his departure in 2023 after he admitted lying about an affair with a younger male colleague.

Here's a job for a brave soul. Prince Harry is seeking a ‘head of partnership development’ at Travalyst, which he set up to make travel more environmentally friendly. Let’s hope the successful candidate has survival skills as Harry and Meghan’s 11th publicist has just left her own role.

 Pop princess Dua Lipa rakes in an eyewatering £70m

Accounts for Dua Lipa's company Radical22 Live reveal it enjoyed a £45.6million turnover in the year to last March

It's a very happy new year for Dua Lipa, who’s added almost £70million to her pop riches. 

Accounts published yesterday for the 30-year-old star’s company Radical22 Live reveal it enjoyed a £45.6million turnover in the year to last March. 

Her takings generated a £5.9million pre-tax profit while Dua paid herself £11.3million. Her live music sales come on top of a £23.2million turnover reported by her other firm, Radical22, just before Christmas.