Morning Live

Agreed. The show does, unsurprisingly, have a bit of an air of ‘pilot’ about it when you look at the somewhat cobbled-together set and the generic looking titles. I’m put in mind of the first trial-run of The One Show from Birmingham when it was clear they’d not invested too much into it at that stage in case it failed.

If it comes back, I’d expect it all to look a bit more glossy and polished (and maybe longer). But from the first episode alone, I think it was quite a strong, confident start.

Ratings are in :

BBC One (inc HD)
0600-0915 Breakfast 1.5m/39.7%
0915-1000 Morning Live 1.4m/24.9%
1000-1100 Homes Under The Hammer 1.1m/21.0%

ITV (inc HD - but not ITV+1)
0600-0900 GMB 0.9m/22.9%
0900-1000 Lorraine 1.3m/23.2%
1000-1230 This Morning 1.2m/22.5%

Not bad - Morning Live got a higher volume and share than any ITV morning show on its first outing, though it's close.

BBC One won every 15 minute slot from 0915 to 1000.

Caught the end of it today and yeah, that set! what were they thinking?

I think it's very unlikely that the team behind the show were watching German TV for inspiration. (Laudable as that would be)

No - why would it be Reith? Most BBC shows don't use Reith - it's only really used by News output, and online, as it's a corporate font. Most other shows use fonts that are chosen by their production/design team to match the 'feel' of the show they are making (or in some cases whatever the online editor fancies...).

The production team have put the content and presenters above the set design (unlike many other programmes). The second outing today hasn't lost any of its character or fun 'team' feeling. Its a very good show and it does no harm to look as though they have been down to the local car boot to furnish it.

LOL. But EBU members (often led by the BBC) do actively share best practice regarding formats and show off their ideas to other broadcasters, even more so since a certain Tony Hall became President of the EBU.

Both Morning Live and Live nach neun both have about the same mix of pre-recorded 'human interest and consumer news' reports and interviews over their approximately 45 minute timeslot, all on similar themes (and incidentally both launching with sets that looked like they'd bought up bits and pieces from a 1960s/1970s furniture sale relative to the different styles of each country - Morning Live is too cluttered for the small studio space it has though).

Therefore, the overall look and 'flow' of Morning Live felt very familiar to me, moreso than This Morning and Lorraine. ..but then again Breakfast TV programmes around the world have elements that are inspired from similar formats elsewhere (good news for makers of brightly coloured sofas).

Yes - it's common for EBU broadcasters to send members of their teams to visit the BBC - NRK, SVT, DR, ETV, YLE and ZDF etc. have all had people visit various bits of BBC NBH over the last few years. These were mainly editorial rather than technical visits.

The BBC has sent staff members to visit other European broadcasters like TV4, DR, TV2 Norway and TV2 Denmark etc. but these were often more technology fact-finding visits, rather than editorial.

Maybe they're waiting for Oneness to be disposed of? The ONE in the One Show logo is always the same as the BBC One logo. That's why it changed after the initial pilot run (the circles idents had launched in the meantime) and hasn't changed since.

Yes - The One Show logo is a version of the BBC One logo (the ONE in the title refers to the channel). The One Show also uses BBC One's channel typeface for most of its on-screen graphics.

The studio design changed significantly in 2014 when the studio moved from White City to New Broadcasting House - but the trademark green sofa and skeletal coffee table designs were retained (though physically replaced) The White City studio had a lot of fabric, wood and initially fake breeze-block elements, whereas the move to New Broadcasting House introduced the current light box and sliding perspex panel window treatments.

The current sofa design is a variant of the sofa introduced during the Summer 2008 studio refresh. When the show launched in London, in 2007, it had a very different set of sofas (one green corduroy, one blue velvet ISTR)

Here is the original London studio design

It must be a big job to reset everything for the evening performance?

Yes, with social distancing it must be quite a task - actually quite a reversal from the direction of travel the BBC has been going with minimal changes to the physical elements of the set, in favour of screens/lighting changes at the flick of a switch.

But, if Morning Live was to be made permanent, it's quite plausible they will make changes in the same way the original pilot run of The One Show was very different to the permanent version of the show (not even in the same place). But if Morning Live and The One Show were to co-exist permanently, any future set design for the studio would surely make more use of shared physical elements.