DAYBREAK disaster duo Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley have been axed after being given a thumbs-down by viewers.
ITV bosses finally lost patience with their star presenters as ratings continued to dwindle.
The pair, who were poached from the BBC last year with golden handcuff deals of £1million a year, will now disappear from the breakfast sofa “within weeks”.
A source said last night: “They ran out of time to turn Daybreak around. The advertising numbers had fallen off a cliff because Adrian and Christine were such a turn-off. In today’s climate that was unacceptable.”
Bleakley and Chiles have both been informed of the decision.
Chiles, who hosts ITV’s Champions League Football coverage and has a Sunday night chat show, was prepared to admit he had been axed from Daybreak, according to the source.
But Bleakley, who is engaged to Chelsea star Frank Lampard, wants it to be said she is leaving for new projects.
Last night it emerged she is to replace Holly Willoughby next year as host of ITV’s Dancing on Ice – where she will hope to pick herself up after the Daybreak debacle.
Following a lavish £15million launch last September, Daybreak saw ratings settle at a poor 700,000 – half their BBC Breakfast rival – prompting advertising revenues to plunge.
ITV are now planning an April relaunch and will try out a number of different presenters, preferring two relative unknowns.
Chiles, 44, and Bleakley, 32, were poached from the BBC’s massively successful One Show by ITV chief Peter Fincham.
He continued to back the highly paid pair, despite Daybreak pulling in 200,000 fewer viewers than its axed predecessor GMTV.
However, ITV chief executive Adam Crozier insisted that the pair were dumped.
Chiefs want the show freshened up and David Kermode – the star editor who helped to revive BBC Breakfast – was hired last month.
The source revealed: “With a new editor joining, it is only fair to allow him to reinvent the series in the hope it can compete with BBC Breakfast, which was the original aim.
“If changes aren’t made, the audience is never going to grow and the show will be standing still or going backwards. That’s not an option.
“It may seem harsh but Christine and Adrian been given more than a year to prove themselves. They have to go. They have been given the bad news and will be off the programme within the next few weeks.”
The Mirror revealed in the summer that bosses were trying to axe the pair from the “horribly under-performing” show. One insider described them as an “expensive headache”.
Last night Bleakley said she was delighted to be joining co-host Phillip Schofield on Dancing on Ice.
She said: “I’ve always been a total Dancing on Ice addict so it really is hard to sum up how excited I am to be joining the team.
“My only concern was what a big task it is to follow Holly and I can only promise her, Phillip and everyone at home that they couldn’t have a bigger fan of the show on board.”
http://m.mirror.co.uk/article?a=m4:23572462
