ITV bosses have been asked to address claims that This Morning staff referred to their audience as ‘Tower Block Tracey’s’.
The broadcaster’s chief executive Dame Carolyn McCall, managing director Kevin Lygo and general counsel and company secretary Kyla Mullins appeared at a government committee on Wednesday following the revelations that one of its star presenters, Phillip Schofield, had an affair with a much younger colleague.
During one part of the hearing, the trio were presented with allegations that some of their employees had placed a pretty offensive nickname on their viewers.
MP John Nicolson posed the question: ‘Can you confirm that daytime production staff on This Morning referred to their audience in production meetings as “Tower Block Tracey’s?’
Visibly recoiling in shock, McCall leant back in her chair with a gobsmacked expression, while Lygo asked Nicholson to repeat himself.
‘I’ve never heard that phrase,’ Lygo said, a statement echoed by McCall.
While the MP came back and said ‘a number of people’ had told him that nickname was used by ITV staff, the bosses again said they were not aware of the term.
‘It’s truly dismissive,’ he said.
‘If an idea is too high-brow I’m told that people say “would that really appeal to the Tower Block Tracey’s?’
All three being probed shook their head, while Nicolson said it was a ‘horrible thing to say’.
‘It’s not what ITV would be looking at for a target audience,’ McCall then said.
‘We wouldn’t describe our audience in that way and I know one thing, it is that the daytime team on every show really cares about the audience, so that surprises me,’ she added.
Earlier this month a former This Morning employee spilled what it was like working on the set of the breakfast programme, which involved being barred from speaking to Schofield and Holly Willoughby.
From September to December 2019, Emily Maddick was the Head of News at the show but quit due to what she labelled ‘bullying, sexism and a toxic culture of fear and intimidation’.
Recalling a ‘climate of fear’, Maddick said she had ‘overheard’ what she found to be sexist comments at time, and pointed to instances of bullying that left her concerned about the ‘mental health’ of her team.
While she said she worked with ‘some brilliant, kind and supportive colleagues’ and the show had done ‘exceptional and important’ campaigning over the years, she decided it was time to leave after being asked to secure a story ‘about a woman who was breastfeeding her husband to keep their marriage alive’.
This Morning airs weekdays from 10am on ITV1.
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