ITV bosses have denied claims during a parliamentary hearing in the UK that the broadcaster treated late Love Island presenter Caroline Flack as a "commodity".
Chief executive Carolyn McCall and managing director Kevin Lygo faced questions from MPs on Wednesday about former This Morning host Phillip Schofield's exit from the programme during a Culture, Media, and Sport Committee session, during which they were also questioned about ITV’s duty of care for its talent.
After Schofield resigned from ITV admitting to an "unwise but not illegal" affair with a younger male colleague, Caroline Flack’s mother Christine criticised the broadcaster, saying it had "learned nothing" from her daughter’s death and that on-screen talent were treated as "commodities".
Responding to the allegations McCall said: "We genuinely feel deeply, deeply sad about what happened to Caroline.
"People knew her well at ITV, I spoke to a lot of people at ITV that worked with her and loved working with her on the show because she loved the show.
"The family are obviously grieving. I would say we never feel that we treat anybody, whether it’s a presenter or a member of staff or a junior person that’s coming in for work experience, we would really not treat anyone like a commodity."
Former Love Island host Flack was found dead in February 2020 at the age of 40, and a coroner later ruled that she died by suicide after learning that prosecutors were going to press ahead with an assault charge after an incident involving her boyfriend Lewis Burton.
Mr Lygo told the committee: "Because of things going on in her private life, she said 'I don’t think I’m fit to do the next serious of Love Island’. We said, ‘OK, we understand that’ but made it very clear it was her show, that we would get a stand-in, she could come back when she wanted to because she hadn’t done anything wrong in our eyes.
"We were offering her work and all the rest of it. Nobody would agree that we treated her as a commodity."
McCall said the broadcaster works with UK charities including Calm and Mind.
She added: "As I’ve said since 2018, the duty of care on every show, but Love Island particularly, is extremely comprehensive and we are very happy to leave you the file of duty of care so the committee can see the lengths we go to protect both the participants on the show but also our staff on the show."
Source: Press Association
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