Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby reflect on lockdown and working throughout the pandemic
Holly: I knew we were doing something important
Phillip: It's made me appreciate work and friendship
ITV's flagship daytime show This Morning remained on air throughout the global pandemic and achieved its highest ratings in 19 years, with over 10 million viewers tuning in to the show during the first week of lockdown in 2020.
Following on from the next stage of lockdown easing yesterday, hosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby took a moment recently to reflect on the most challenging year in the shows 33 year history and how it has changed them.
Martin Frizell, Editor of This Morning said, Phillip and Holly - together with our hard working crew - have quite frankly all been heroes in my eyes for their determination and positivity throughout the pandemic. They helped to deliver a live two-and-a-half-hour show each day throughout the whole of lockdown, when sometimes we didn't even know what or how we could deliver a show some days!
But together we have done it and I'm extremely proud that we were there every step of the way for the nation who were gripped for vital updates on Covid and the vaccine, but also for items that helped to keep spirits up and smile during this most extraordinary year.
PHILLIP AND HOLLY QUOTES:
How do you think this year has changed you?
Phillip: It's made me appreciate work and friendship. It's also made me appreciate the small things in life that when we can get them all back, I don't think I'll ever take them for granted again - the fact that I could actually get in my car and drive to see my mum, go and see mates or have mates round. Those simple, simple things. I'm not even fussed about vast international holidays and things like that, I just want to sit in my garden with some mates.
Holly: I agree. I think it's those small things, those small liberties that you take for granted that you never thought that anybody would take away from you ever. You couldn't even see that as a possibility. How has that happened?' which was exactly how we felt as it was happening. You know, that kind of panic and fear and, God, what is this?'
I've learnt so much and I hope a lot of the things that I've learnt will stay with me. It's funny, because I can see it with the kids as well, I think all generations are going through it.
What supported you most during this past year?
Holly: The viewers. I think knowing what you were doing was being well received made all the difference, otherwise why else would you do it? We've been told by viewers we were like the nation's comfort blanket, which is just amazing.
Phillip: And the viewers were our comfort blanket too! It's the core things. I mean we're lucky because of the job that we do with that extended family, so you have support from viewers and then you shrink down into what everybody had at that time hopefully, you have either your friends or your family, and that was what we all suddenly needed the most. You needed someone to be there if you were struggling or they were struggling and you were there. It's the simple things in life, the fundamental support of friends and family. And then we were lucky to have the extended work colleagues that we could see, and beyond that, this enormous team or family of people who were going through it with us as well.
Do you feel proud about what you and the This Morning team have achieved during lockdown? What has been the highlight for you?
Holly: I don't know how they've done it half the time actually, because I think in the beginning nobody knew what we were getting into really. We didn't know what one day to the other was going to look like, things were changing so quickly and you know, we had a whole office bustling with people and then day by day it was getting less and less and less. Then it was just the two of us, Martin [Frizell, Editor] was here and just a couple of people on camera, and we were all a little bit scared actually and so to be able to adapt and change whilst worrying about what was going on, worrying about their own families, what was going on at home. You know a lot of them are parents themselves and they would've been trying to balance that with homeschooling. There was a lot on everyone's plate at that time.
Phillip: It's this sort of enormous shared experience and quite unique in telly terms. Certainly the way we chose to want to be there for our This Morning family, the viewers, was that we wouldn't be hysterical, we would want to report in a sensible way, give it time, no knee jerk reactions - hold on a second, let's just sit back and think about this. We're all still here, we're all okay, everything's alright, we'll be fine.
And of course, that's not being glib and trite over the fact that over 128,000 people [in the UK] have lost their lives. Of course that's important, those families utterly devastated. But if there was something that was said, we would look at it in an analytical way, lets make sure we know that this is right before we take it any further, and I think that's been an enormous calming effect on people who've watched. Yes we've reported it, but I think we've been quite sensible, we've been quite calm, there hasn't been hysteria and we've also allowed ourselves to laugh senseless, because that's what you do when things like this happen.
We'd go on air and Lorraine had finished, and it meant that because we were in the same studio unusually, we didn't get any lights, and our lights would be off until Lorraine went off air for four minutes of that commercial break between the two shows. Our lights came on, cameras came on and
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby reflect on lockdown and working throughout the pandemic 
