GMTV (1993 - 2010)

It is a shame that two people are likely to face the axe. One thing about GMTV is the fact it has a range of presenters over the week so if you don't particularly like someone, they will be off in a day or two and it also keeps things varied. However unfortunately staff is one of the biggest costs for any business and with ITV slowly melting into the wrong side of zero in the bank balance department it is inevitable. Personally I would say John Stapleton & Lorraine Kelly should stand down. I have no disrespect for either of them but John is reaching retirement age soon anyway and appears on air possibly the least on the programme out of any presenter. Lorraine to me is massively overpaid for the hours she has to put in. She only works two days a week (with the exception of the odd week here and there) and her show is only around 30 mins if you take out the ad breaks (the shortest segment on GMTV) and yet recieves the highest of all salarys on the GMTV sofa. Lorraine is also highly likely to be picked up by another broadcaster or moved into the ITV daytime schedule should her employment with GMTV terminate. Ben and Emma are probably the safest of presenters due to them having less commitments elsewhere meaning they are potentially more flexible to work.

How can you say Ben has the least? He has the most!



She works more than that. Her show is practically full-time now! Granted though, she does pre-record a lot of her shows!

I don't mind if Kate goes tbh however it will be quite sad. Id Like Andrew to stay for Emma. John I think should go because it is more than likely that he will retire within coming years. Stormy times ahead for GMTV.

Reading that article it seems strange that Penny is lower in pay then everyone apart from Emma yet IMO Penny seems to put in the most doing the newsdesk on Mon-Thur and her slot generally every day.

Yeah, she presents the six, then the news from 7 - 9 !! Andrew's only saving grace is that he's good with Emma. I really can't stick him, but I have warmed to him slightly since he's been paired with Emma. That said, I wont be sad to see the back of him.

I think of the 4 'GMTV Today' presenters, they should only keep Emma. Andrew is rubbish whilst Kate and Ben have had a good run but its probably time for them to go. Kate and Ben also have various other projects so won't be out of work. And then they can cut costs by bringing in a lesser known male presenter.

What they should consider doing is running GMTV from 6am-8am with one set of presenters Monday-Wednesday and the others on Thursday and Friday. Lorraine at 8am and finishing at 9am. Or another idea would be to move the newshour to ITN and use ITV branding (GMTV as a 'news' channel will never be taken seriously again and ITN staff are already in at that time, whereas with GMTV they could ditch the hour in the morning) and then run GMTV from 7-9.25am as they currently do now, but I'd guess they'd need more presenters because god forbid one of them to do a 5 day week!! Helen and Dan etc would be good stand ins I suppose. If the ITN idea ever materialises (and with ITV, I'd say its when not if) I hope Penny stays with GMTV rather than moving to 'ITV News' and perhaps Emma should do the Newshour. She'd be more suited to that and Penny has the GMTV personality.

I can probably see a number of scenarios - not going to predict who will leave, but what might happen and the reasons why they might leave.

Staplegun is approaching retirement age and can't get through an interview without umm-ing and err-ing. Used to be a fairly good television presenter but now comes across as a bumbling grandad who's asking questions about things he's read in the papers in a retirement home.

Penny is so wasted on GMTV. Her wit is completely lost on the majority and she'd be better off elsewhere. If she were to go - would Sky be interested again? Maybe a Penny/Eamonn 'Sunrise'? Or would they invite her to five?

Emma is a relatively recent signing and is now the resident eye candy, Andrea Mclean having departed long ago. Good for the male viewers but do housewives/mums like her? While she comes across as rather vacuous, I doubt they'd want to bump her so soon - but is she worth her salary?

Taking Andrew off would leave him with only the odd gameshow, ITV special and tennis commentary to do. Seems a rather warm presenter, and probably would have thought he was the safest, but it depends on whether GMTV wants to become an entirely tabloid station. Andrew's, despite rather a lack of journalistic experience, good at doing serious news. Ben just sounds and looks like he could be reading the lottery.

Kate is a very good presenter and good at her job - and it's like Fiona Phillips was never there. Final nail in the coffin for GMTV if Kate goes, as I'd wager your average stay-at-home mum isn't too keen on having Crosby up full time. Let's not forget, Kate's pregnancy/motherhood/relationship has been splashed across page after page of mags and newspapers (thanks to C. Brooker for that one) so Bella/Best/Closer/HELLO!!!! readers may well feel closer to Kate. If she does leave, she's more employable than Phillips - maybe something in radio?

Just my take on the situation.

Sorry, that entire post came up on my screen as projectile vomit. Try again please, with a little more understanding of what the hell you're going on about.

1/10.

I don't understand why my post was so illedgible. I'll try again, this time in note form.
I was trying to say that the studio could be scaled down to just the sofa area, with the presenters reading all the news stories (similar to BBC Breakfast). That would save having another presenter in the news area of the studio, saving money.

I guess ITV have a couple of decisions to take with GMTV :

Copy Breakfast - which has a simple two main presenters who do both news and features, sport presenter, business presenter and weather presenter format for its entire 3hrs and 15 minutes) and treat the output as effectively a single show (with a softening of output as it gets nearer to daytime) Breakfast are also now consistently ahead of GMTV...

Stay with the current schedule, where you have different presenters reading the news bulletins, and a different presenter line-up for different segments.

If you remove the news presenter role, then you may have a problem with your sofa-presenters who don't have a huge amount of credibility in the journalism role. Would Ben Shephard really convince when reading stories and doing interviews on Gaza, the War on Terror etc. earlier in the day?

I would be surprised if they ditched the Lorraine Kelly stuff (but not flabbergasted) - but would be less surprised if they switched the rest of the output to a single pair of main presenters... That said, they need something to break it up, with an extra face now and again? Breakfast do this with sport, business and weather - but GMTV currently use news and weather?

Interesting times ahead... It will be interesting to see what happens at weekends as well.

Would love to see some non-kids stuff at the weekends. No soap repeats though please!

I was talking more about your balls about GMTV having 7 presenters as "excessive", as GMTV isn't a programme, it's a station that produces three different programmes (albeit from the same studio).

Decide what you want to do with the news area. Do it up, or get rid of it? Be consistent, at least.

It's worse than hearing Worzel bang on about the screens on the BBC.

It really isn't

Back to GMTV, I suspect that, if they do keep the news hour, it will revert to just being Penny as presenter - does an hour of news really need two presenters?

Penny then stays on for the rest of the morning as news presenter full time - eliminating the need for the another newsreader. Just through making Penny the sole newsreader you've lost up to two presenters every morning, but I think what happens to the other four will likely depend on what they decide to do with weekends.

I think, if they do start weekends, that they should put Emma and Andrew on Monday to Friday, loose Ben and give Kate her own show - similar to LK Today - but put on Friday to Sunday. Perhaps they could try making the weekend version a bit more like This Morning - add in the cooking-type elements? Kate could also provide a replacement show for LK Today over the summer too...

Should they not add more to weekends I think the former Today slot will remain much the same - though perhaps the presenters not on that day could start filing reports, specials or somehow become incorporated more into the general ITV schedule? Kate Garraway perhaps to stand in on This Morning for Holly?


I just hope they don't get rid of Emma and Andrew - Ben Shepard is annoying as hell and Kate can be ok depending on the co-presenter. Penny too - Penny's good!