Mark Labbett says the chase is back on repeats again. ITV has new episodes in the can, yet viewers have spent nearly six months cycling through old ones before getting only two weeks of fresh runs.
“After nearly six months of repeat episodes of The Chase, we had two weeks of new episodes, and now we are back to repeat episodes again,” he wrote on X. The complaint landed as another viewer asked, “Any idea what the thinking is behind this? If the episodes have been filmed, why hold them back?”
Labbett's budget-cut answer
Labbett replied that repeats are “becoming the norm” because ITV is “not making a lot of anything right now” due to budget cuts. He added: “If they weren’t showing repeats of The Chase, they would probably show repeats of something else.”
That is a blunt read of the schedule, and it matches the wider picture inside ITV. In 2025, the broadcaster said it would delay some programmes and target £20 million in savings after a significant decline in advertising revenue, so the decision to lean on repeats rather than rush out completed quiz episodes fits a cost-control playbook rather than a viewer-first one. Man United Manú Kone Transfer
Anne Hegerty in July
Anne Hegerty said in July that The Chase's hectic filming schedule had “worked us into the ground”. She has also said the Chasers are paid per episode rather than drawing a regular salary, and told Digital Spy she had made “about £100,000 more last year than I normally do”.
She also put the franchise’s scale at “about £100m a year” when spin-offs are included, which explains why the series still matters even when ITV parcels out new episodes slowly. A year-long production break was revealed after an intense filming run from September until May, so the current repeat pattern is sitting on top of a show that has already been pushed hard in production.
ITV's daytime squeeze
ITV's wider schedule changes in January 2026 cut Lorraine to 30 minutes and moved the extra half-hour to Good Morning Britain's 10.30am to 12.30pm slot, while This Morning and Loose Women stayed in place. That context makes The Chase's repeat run look less like a one-off and more like part of a broader reordering of daytime output.
For viewers of The Chase, the practical read is simple: completed episodes exist, but ITV is choosing not to clear them yet. Unless the broadcaster shifts course, the repeats will keep filling the space that new episodes could occupy, and Labbett's answer suggests the holdback is about budget discipline rather than anything inside the quiz itself.
