MySQL replication using a lot of IO
2 questions:
- Where is the IO problem ? On the master or on the replicas ?
- If the IO contention is on a replica, can you create a TEST replica, replicating from the same master, but having innoDb engine ?

The thing with MyISAM storage is that an UPDATE / INSERT query will lock the whole table. And the replication thread on each replica is also a serial process, running just one query at a time (event) from the master binlog.

My suggestion would be change the storage engine for all tables, from MyISAM to InnoDb, then re-check the replication parameters.