Despite it being billed as 'the most important one in years' some ITV viewers were seething at the fact the budget forced This Morning to be cut short and Loose Women to be scrapped completely on Wednesday.
As the nation waited for Chancellor Rishi Sunak to open up his red box, with changes to furlough, Universal Credit and stamp duty among the announcements expected, Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby brought This Morning to a premature end at 12.10pm rather than its usual 12.30pm finish, as ITV aired The Chancellor's Budget news special.
In the lead up to the budget announcement, anchor Nina Hossain spoke to experts and gave viewers glances at Prime Minister's Questions from Parliament before consumer editor Chris Choi spoke to a panel of members of the public on what they were wanting and expecting from the budget.
And Rishi Sunak's reveal at 12.30pm meant that while This Morning only lost 20 minutes, Loose Women didn't happen at all, with the news special going right through to 2pm before Judge Rinder.
Reacting to the axing of Loose Women, one viewer tweeted: "Honestly, couldn’t think 2021 could get any worse until I’ve just noticed Loose Women isn’t on this afternoon.. like this lockdown couldn’t get any worse."
Another posted: "no @loosewomen today?" along with a crying emoji and a third wrote: ""Chancellor's budget is on next, so exciting."
However, taking different tact, another reacted: "What a shame there's no #loosewomen today... said not a soul"
