GMTV (1993 - 2010)

I think its critical the way they approach the impending relaunch. They want to make it different and fresh, yet they don't want to alienate the viewers too much so it still has to feel like GMTV. But the one thing I don't want them to do, is no matter how badly it goes wrong, to revert to how it used to be. They do that all the time meaning they end up stuck in a rut, and thats their problem with why GMTV is in the state its in.

One idea I think could really boost the show and make it feel more journalistic is to basically copy Saturdays BBC Breakfast and have Kate/Emma doing the newshour by themselves from the desk, and being joined on the sofa at 7am by Ben/Andrew. Ben and Andrew obviously aren't qualified enough to do that.

ITV1 breakbumpers being used from this morning.

I honestly can't believe it's taken the acquisition of the remaining shares held by Disney to bring about any form of ITV1 branding within the service. Surely with a 75% stake they could have enforced ITV1 branding upon them and treated it more like a programme on ITV1 rather than a standalone channel anyway? After all, they were able to bring the Disney supplied children's block under the CITV banner.

I understand the reasons for acquiring the extra 25% but the above actions could have been achieved years ago, without Disney profiting as a result of them.

Wouldn't it depend on whether or not ITV were selling GMTV's advertising? If you're operating a GMTV Sales Team then it wouldn't make much sense to brand the airtime slots as ITV1, even if they were your major shareholder.

Perhaps the Sales Teams have now merged, so it makes sense to brand the advertising as such.

ITV reportedly want to have GMTV coming from the This Morning studio

http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/2010/03/08/fresh-panic-at-gmtv-studio-ruse-115875-22093910/

Unless its two sets in the one studio (which would inevitably limit This Morning), I think that would be a massive mistake.

Why not the skyline studio?

because the whole point of a production merger with This Morning is to cut costs. I'm guessing they want to use the same crew etc, but they could easily achieve that by having the same crew working on both shows at the 2 studios.

I would imagine halving the studio hire bill is also quite attractive.

But using the same studio facilities as well as the same crew also reduces costs more.

Well in that case, why not just rename the bloody thing? Just get rid of GMTV full stop and just have a 'newshour' from 6-7 then a This Morning style programme from 7-12:30. Honestly, did ITV just buy GMTV on a whim? They're going to f**k it up.

How much did ITV buy Disney's stake in GMTV for? Any figures?

£22.25m

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