BBC Breakfast

LOL! Dan Walker was on the sofa, talking about Sport.

Personally I think Breakfast has deteriorated in quality since Bill and Sian left. It's become increasingly patronising with a lot of time wasted on pointless "chats" between presenters and in jokes. I'm not advocating a return to the stuffy days of Breakfast News, but as a long time Breakfast viewer, I think the programme had the right balance in the 2000s rather than the 2010s.

Since Bill left, I've found myself becoming more irritated by the programme on a daily basis. I only have a short time during which to watch the programme before work and I'm finding myself channel-hopping a lot more than I ever did before. I'm sure someone is bound to say that I'm not entitled to an opinion because I don't watch the whole programme, but in my opinion the whole point of breakfast television is that you dip in and out. Anyway, the irony is I can't find a suitable alternative - ITV isn't worth bothering with, Sky News has far too much opinion at the time I want to watch and CNN is too Americanised with frequest ad breaks. I suspect this is why Breakfast continues to be the most watched - it's the best of a somewhat iffy selection at breakfast time. The main reason I stick with it is because it doesn't have ad breaks, if I'm honest. If another provider offered a newsier format without ad breaks, I'd seriously consider switching.

Listen to the radio - that's what I do now of a morning!

It's a good idea chris - as soon as I get in the car I do listen to Today on Radio 4. For some reason, though, I've always preferred watching television over breakfast. I guess it's one of those habits that's hard to break!

Sky News Sunrise is frustrating as the first 30 mins of each hour is newsy, then they pad it out with paper reviews or fluff. As mentioned, ITV isn't worth bothering with, which leaves you with Breakfast as a halfway house. They do business bulletins, but in typical BBC fashion, they'll be cut from the running order for interviews and when they do them, they're consumerist in nature.

However, there is one decent BBC news programme at breakfast time which sets the news agenda for the day, Today on BBC Radio 4.

If you think Steph Mcgovern is unprofessional, just tune into GMB when Kate and Ranvir are presenting. Erm, well if shouting over each other and fake laughs is what you are after.

Steph gets a lot of unfair criticism because she doesn't use RP in her delivery.

People don't watch TV shows just for the presenters, the content and format are usually far more of a deciding factor.

After all - Susanna Reid got two-to-three times the audience on Breakfast that she does on GMB. She's still the same person, just presenting different content...

Plus GMB has competitions, adverts and far more 'fluff' than Breakfast does (at least in the 0600-0830 portion of Breakfast)

(And if you were talking about Steph McGovern - I don't find her unprofessional at all. She's got a North East of England accent, but I find her warm and pretty competent, and a pretty good presenter.)

Steph McGovern has a lovely Teesside accent, it reminds me of when I lived up there many years ago. It's always nice to hear regional accents on the BBC.

I watched Steph for the first time today for the best part of 2 hours ( we were waiting for early morning builders)... oh she was lovely. I felt her down to earth, genuine interaction with all the other presenters kept me watching.

Taste is subjective. Different people find different things appealing, and you may sometimes find that your particular preferences (which are perfectly valid, and you are perfectly entitled to) aren't those of the majority.

The two programmes' respective styles are not really aimed at the exact same individual viewers (but I'm sure there will be some viewers who like both programmes equally).

I've pretty much always found ITV's breakfast offerings to be nigh-on unwatchable, and am very much a BBC Breakfast person (and this remains the case for me, even if some of the "C/D/E Team" (etc) stand-ins are perhaps not necessarily the most charismatic of presenters). Your tastes are clearly opposite to mine. Neither of us are "right" or "wrong" - we're each entitled to like what we like.

"How is it more popular?" Well... erm... because it is!

It therefore appears to be demonstrably true that, of those people who are inclined to put the telly on at all at that time of day, the majority proportion prefer the kind of style and tone that BBC Breakfast offers over what GMTV/Daybreak/GMB/whatever-it's-called-this-week offers. It's just one of those things.

BBC Breakfast has also changed over the years, if you compared it to an edition 10-15 years ago it would be unrecognisable. Do you remember when they used to have updates from the London stock exchange as the business news, rather than something about Aldi and Lidl like they do now, and that's before you even think about the version of Breakfast News GMTV used to compete with in its hay day.

Regarding Steph, I find it amusing that she never knows what face to pull at the start, always starting with a very cheery 'hiya' and then having to move straight away from a smiley face to the sternest face imaginable as her co host reads some grave news. Everyone else seems to master that art a big less obviously.