Dame Carolyn McCall, the under-pressure chief executive of ITV, is by now familiar with fire-fighting.

During a tumultuous five-year tenure at the helm of the broadcaster, the TV boss has repeatedly found herself in the line of fire from MPs, floundering under tough questioning about the deaths of reality contestants on Love Island and The Jeremy Kyle Show.

Now, another parliamentary appearance looms amid outrage over ITV’s handling of Phillip Schofield, the This Morning presenter who left the channel following revelations about his affair with a much younger male colleague.

The hearing, which will once again call ITV’s safeguarding practices into question, is an unwelcome distraction for McCall as she battles to steer the broadcaster through a turbulent move into the streaming age.

As public and political pressure over the Schofield scandal mounts, fresh questions are being raised about the scale of the challenges facing McCall – and her future at the company.