The encyclopedia · Advertising & PR · Marketing decision · 2023
This Morning lost its 21-year anchor; ITV's review found a culture of silence
The flagship show's host left with immediate effect in May 2023; by December an independent review was criticising the culture he left behind.
ITV · This Morning · 2023-05-26
What happened
On 20 May 2023 ITV announced that Phillip Schofield was leaving This Morning with immediate effect, ending a 21-year run as the show's anchor after weeks of press coverage of a falling-out with his co-host. His own statement said: 'I understand ITV has decided the current situation can't go on.' The broadcaster initially said he would stay with ITV for other programmes.
Six days later, after he gave a newspaper interview about a relationship with a much younger male colleague on the show, ITV cut all ties. The broadcaster said it was 'deeply disappointed by the admissions of deceit' and that 'Phillip made assurances to us which he now acknowledges were untrue and we feel badly let down'. He resigned from ITV, stepped down from presenting the British Soap Awards, his planned prime-time series was scrapped, and his talent agency YMU ended its relationship with him.
Why it happened
- A two-decade anchor made the show inseparable from his name: when the trust broke, the exit was immediate and total — not a sabbatical, not a transfer, a clean cut made in public.
- ITV's own statement priced the betrayal in its words — 'we feel badly let down' — a broadcaster built on trust saying out loud that it could not work with him again.
- The review was the second cost: commissioned after the exit, it found junior staff had long believed speaking out would harm their careers — the scandal exposed the process, not just the presenter.
The lesson
A flagship built around one presenter's name carries his risk in full: when the trust broke, the broadcaster's only moves were the exit, the statement and the review — in that order, in public.
Aftermath
ITV published barrister Jane Mulcahy KC's independent review on 7 December 2023. It found no toxic culture but said that culture was 'still not filtering down to junior employees, many of whom remain convinced that to speak out will have a detrimental impact on their careers'. Schofield did not return to ITV.
Sources
- Phillip Schofield leaves This Morning with immediate effect — BBC News, 20 May 2023
- Phillip Schofield: ITV cuts ties with presenter over relationship with younger colleague — BBC News, 26 May 2023
- No toxic culture at This Morning, review finds after Schofield saga — ITV News, 7 December 2023
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