25 facts about Loose Women to celebrate 25 years…
1. The show first aired on 6th September 1999, with Kaye Adams, Nadia Sawalha, Jane Moore and Baroness Karren Brady on the panel
2. One of the first ever Loose Women TV listings – as included in Radio Times Magazine on the week of 6th September 1999 – read: ‘A new weekday magazine show aimed at women with colourful chat, spicy gossip and celebrities. Hosted by Kaye Adams and Nadia Sawalha’
3. Seven generations of panellists appear on Loose Women – from Gloria Hunniford who is 84 to GK Barry who is the same age as the show (25 years old)
4. The show has reached 14.4 million people already this year, making Loose Women the most-watched weekday lunchtime slot on a commercial channel
5. Loose Women (including Loose Women specials) has won 12 prestigious awards – including: a National Television Award in 2010, Royal Television Society Awards in 2021 and 2023, a 2018 Drum Award, TRIC Awards in 2009, TV Choice Awards in 2007, 2008 and 2009, National Reality TV Awards in 2022, 2023 and 2024, a Mind Award in 2017 and a 2024 BAFTA nomination
6. In September 2023, Loose Women swapped the studio for the stage and embarked on a 16-night nationwide Loose Women Live tour for the first time ever – including a night at the iconic London Palladium
7. The panellists drink an average of 3 hot drinks per show. That’s almost 55,000 hot drinks over the last 25 years!
8. There have been approximately 4550 Loose Women episodes and specials since the first episode in 1999
9. Loose Women has expanded online with huge success and currently has over 2.7M followers across its social platforms – the show reaches more than 22M unique social media accounts every month
10. The 18 panellists in the Silver Jubilee shoot have a staggering total of 9.3 million followers between them on Instagram alone
11. Some viewers may not know that Loose Women shares a studio with sister ITV Daytime show Lorraine
12. There have been at least seven proposals on the show, eight if you include Janet’s proposal to marry herself! Janet’s marriage to herself was then officiated on the show by Frank Lampard. Other Loose Women nuptials include two dogs and another between two rabbits at Easter
13. Loose Women has a live studio audience every weekday lunch – with up to 90 fans attending per show
14. Loose Women is shot on five cameras during every lunchtime show
15. The show has hosted nine all-male Loose Men panels, to highlight men’s mental and physical health, and was first launched on International Men’s Day on 19th November 2020
16. The panellists featured in this shoot have over 50 pets between them – including alpacas, goats, dogs and cats!
17. Loose Women has interviewed both the former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and current Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer (before elected as PM but whilst leader of the Labour Party) as well as other key party leaders and MPs including Nicola Sturgeon, Sir Ed Davey, Nigel Farage and Stephen Flynn
18. For a brief period in the year 2000, the show was renamed Live Talk
19. The show is currently filmed in London but has previously been recorded in studios at Granada TV in Manchester and Anglia Television in Norwich. In London the programme has been produced at the LWT Southbank Studios and Television Centre. This year, a whole episode was also recorded at the Eden Project, Cornwall to mark World Earth Day
20. Over the years, the Loose Women have appeared in many other television programmes – including Janet Street-Porter and Linda Robson guest starring in Hollyoaks as themselves! Janet also did a cameo in Neighbours and three of the women in the Silver Jubilee portrait have appeared in ITV comedy Benidorm (Janet, Denise Welch and Nadia Sawalha)
21. Dame Kelly Holmes has been awarded a DBE, as well as holding two Olympic Gold Medals, Katie Piper and Gloria Hunniford also have OBEs and Janet Street-Porter has a CBE
22. The show broke a Guinness World Record in 2016 when Ayda Field Williams ‘smashed the most pumpkins in a minute’ on Loose Women
23. One of the questions the panellists get asked most, is where they get their outfits from – following the show, details are now uploaded to: https://www.itv.com/loosewomen-fashion
24. Highlighting the impact of Loose Women’s campaigns, after Sarah, Duchess of York helped launch our Don’t Skip Your Screening, aiming to tackle the 1.2 million missed mammogram appointments in England alone, visits to the breast screening and mammogram pages on the NHS website increased by a one third in the week the special aired
25. Loose Women also launched its Facing It Together domestic abuse campaign in March 2024. Refuge, who run the National Domestic Abuse Helpline, ‘had to put extra staff on the phone lines and live chat services that week to accommodate an increased demand’ and Respect, one of the leading organisations working with male survivors of domestic abuse, revealed that demand for the Respect Men’s Advice Line website increased by 81% that day
