I've watched about 30 minutes each morning from Monday to yestersay and I like what I see, it does the job and you know what time to tune in for the information and what have you.
I only have 2 problems with it, the banter and that all the News is Local, granted it's useful but it would be nice to have a little National News on there, even if it's nicked from Sky News or something.
I'd like more national. Think the banter is what makes it different from the BBC or Granada and 3 hours is a long time to fill if there arent that many guests on the show. Don't know why it isnt being promoted very much, the M.E.N normally promote all their programmes quite heavily.
:-(
A former member
I watched a short (maybe 30-40 minutes) stint this morning and I'm very impressed overall. For a start, Byron isn't quite as annoying as I remember him and the set looks pretty neat. I'm not so sure that National news would be a good thing, given there's GMTV, Breakfast and Sunrise, although maybe a short briefing every so often would help. Overall a good positive impression and I'll be tuning in tomorrow.
A friend who lives in Manchester told me a funny story. She went to visit her parents in Crete and was shown Channel M by her parents american neigbour who watched it all the time. My friend had to confess that she had never heard of it!!!
I think people are watching, certainately more than what they used to, but I agree there has been little promotion for Channel M Breakfast, all I saw was some special adverts on the Lamposts on the central reseveration of Princess Parkway through Mossside and the occassional trail on Channel M.
I'm still enjoying the Breakfast show, it's something different although I'm getting ticked off that they keep shifting the Traffic and Weather, they used to be at :00,:15,:30 and :45, but now they can often be later.
I just wanted to say, I don't know who reads this website as i'm not a regular user, but I love the fact we have a breakfast show in Manchester. I do think the news is on far too often and the stories are repetitive, maybe if they were on every half an hour that could work better. I like the style of the show but think the guests could be on for longer, the interview lengths seem te be very short yet if they got rid of some of the news reads it may allow more time, espeically later on in the programme.
I noticed this morning that the News bulletins have been alot shorter, the 8.00am one ended at 8.02am, although they usually have a News related item they talk about which is on before half past the hour.
Apparently Andy Crane broke his hip during the Run on Sunday, so I don't think he'll be on Channel M News for a while now, hope he has a speedy recovery.
And the News has also got different opening titles for the Summer too.
I have seen the sports reporter doing the news in place of Andy, I think he is very good, maybe they should use him on breakfast when Andy comes back?
Yes, Matt Critchley, he's quite good, he has filled in for Andy before. He does his share on Breakfast, as do the vast majority of the Channel M team which shows they're making the most of their staff as most of them have been seen on Breakfast, 5pm or 9pm at some point.
There do seem to be alot of presenters on the show, maybe that is a good thing, I really like some of them and i'm sure some of them will be moving off to bigger channels soon.
Well, I hope Channel M has better luck with the CityPulse/CityNews format than the station I work for has.
(I work for Citytv Calgary and we're being taken over right now by CTV (still hasn't been officially approved yet). They cancelled the evening newscasts last July. We still do a 12pm news show, with the same theme music as Channel M)