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Good Morning Britain has been pulled off air 20 minutes early after the staff were asked to evacuate the studio.
During the episode airing on Monday (9 March), presenter Susanna Reid told viewers that she could hear an alarm sounding in her ear, before asking producers whether she and her co-host Ed Balls needed to do anything.
The show then went to an ad break, but instead of returning to Reid and Balls in the GMB studio, the channel began airing This Morning 20 minutes early.
When cameras cut toThis Morning presenters Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard – who seemed to be unaware that they were on air – Deeley could be heard asking producers: “They’re not coming back or they are coming back?” Shephard then asked, “What are we doing?” as a logo for This Morning quickly appeared on screen.
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Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard began hosting ‘This Morning’ 20 minutes earlier than usual (ITV)
The opening credits of the ITV show then began to roll, with Deeley and Shephard explaining afterwards that GMB had been cut short as the building had been evacuated. “We are hopefully going to find 20 minutes of content,” Shephard added.
He later told viewers that those in the GMB building were safe, saying: “They are all absolutely fine but they had to leave the studio.” It is currently unknown whether the fire alarm was a drill or in relation to an actual fire.
A spokesperson for Good Morning Britain told The Independent: “Due to an unscheduled fire alarm at the Good Morning Britain studio this morning, our team had to leave the set temporarily.
“While they were able to re-enter the building shortly afterwards, the programme had to end earlier than planned. We apologise to viewers for the disruption, with thanks to the This Morning team for appearing on air 20 minutes ahead of schedule.”
Regular guest Dave Fishwick took to X shortly after the evacuation, telling fans that he was due to go on air before the fire alarm. “Susanna Reid had just announced me live on @ITV@GMB when the fire alarms went off, so everyone had to leave the studio immediately!” he wrote.
In a video alongside the tweet, he said: “It’s all kicking off. Everybody’s getting out safe, everybody’s doing what they should be doing. Myself and Kate Garraway,” before panning the camera to the presenter. “This is a comeuppance, isn’t it?” she said. “Come back tomorrow, we’ll get you back tomorrow. I hope it’s not a real fire or anything but we’re all out just to be on the safe side.”
GMB is filmed at ITN’s Gray’s Inn Road building, with the show having moved there at the start of the year. This Morning is now filmed at a studio in Covent Garden. Both programmes used to share a building in White City.
The studio move took place as part of ITV’s overhaul of its daytime programming, which saw GMB extended by half an hour while Lorraine’s runtime was cut down by half. The show, hosted by Lorraine Kelly, now just runs for 30 weeks of the year, while the broadcaster’s daytime division faced hundreds of redundancies as a result of the changes.
Announcing the changes last May, managing director of ITV’s Media and Entertainment Division Kevin Lygo said that the new schedule would enable the company to generate savings that they can “reinvest across the programme budget in other genres”.
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Ed Balls and Susanna Reid were forced to end ‘Good Morning Britain’ early (ITV)
He added at the time: “These changes also allow us to consolidate our news operations and expand our national, international and regional news output and to build upon our proud history of trusted journalism at a time when our viewers need accurate, unbiased news coverage more than ever.”
Earlier this year, it was reported that the broadcaster’s cost-cutting measures had resulted in backstage “meltdowns”. The Daily Mail reported that it was “incredibly chaotic behind the scenes” in the new studio, with the sets for Loose Women, This Morning and Lorraine “crammed” into a basement.
“Backstage the dressing rooms are limited,” a source said. “There just isn’t enough space, especially when there are four women getting ready to be in front of the camera at the same time. It’s not an ideal situation at all.”