GMTV (1993 - 2010)

Given that 'ITV News' has to be owned by ITV, given that the entire brand revolves around generic ITV1 (for which ITN have nothing to do with) I'd imagine ITV. To be honest though I don't know that it makes any difference anyway - if the news output of GMTV can't expand, and ITV News anchors and correspondents don't appear, they could quite easily keep the GMTV brand for news, regardless of ITN's involvement.

Also, surely it's more cost effective to provide the service from the same studio and building facilities of GMTV, rather than ITN (unless ITN covered the London news in the same way the lunchtime bulletin works, with (say) Faye presenting both the main news and the London bulletins from the national set, with the backdrop changing from ITV Yellow to London skyline. As I understand it the overnight/ early presenter also presents the London morning news?

By brand rights, I meant could ITV switch news providers for ITV News and keep the same branding (the logo aside) or is that exclusive to ITN? Maybe it wasn't the right turn of phrase on my part. And could they use the same branding whilst having 2 different news providers- one for GMTV and one for ITV? But I guess if GMTV is ever technically integrated into ITV1, they'd probably get around it that way.

I'd prefer them to keep the GMTV News brand, its a nice change I guess and keeps GMTV with its own identity before it morphs into This Morning (strip the news away and thats pretty much whats left), but I think its inevitable that in some way, the ITV News brand will eventually be incorporated into GMTV somehow.

ITV to merge This Morning, GMTV and ITN to make 'super show'
http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/2010/03/26/itv-to-merge-this-morning-gmtv-and-itn-to-make-super-show-115875-22139157/

Could this really happen?

It sounds terrible to have them all as one show. But I think they should utilise what they have and make the presenters more suitable for each show. For example Eamonn & Ruth would be far better on GMTV whilst Kate & Ben seem more suitable for This Morning.

Aside from Lorraine, GMTV doesn't really have staple presenters at the minute in the way that This Morning have Holly & Phil. GMTV is a bit mix & match. GMTV need outside and recognised names to give itself some kind of identity.

Nina Hossain seems a random choice to replace Lorraine Kelly over Easter though.

I guess if this became a reality, the schedules would probably end up something like:

6am- ITV Day: GMTV
9.25am- ITV Day: This Morning
12pm- Loose Women
1pm- News
1.30pm- Jeremy Kyle

So inevitably that would have a knock on effect on ITV1's daytime schedule as well as ITV2's. That would be a daft move considering ITV are currently winning daytime. It would also be interesting to see how this would work with STV and UTV. I doubt it will materialise to anything though but I can see there being a similar production team across the entire morning.

I think that article's an early april fool.

GMTV is still a separate franchise to ITV1/STV/UTV/Channel, so creating a 6 hour programme would not be possible.

The reference to ITN just makes this article a load of nonsense. ITV only owns 40% of ITN, so they cannot 'merge' ITN with GMTV and This Morning (This Morning isn't a news programme anyway). Also, ITN is not a programme on ITV in the mornings, it's the news provider for the ITV network, as well as a provider of a whole range of other services. If the article was saying that ITN was to become the news provider for GMTV, with GMTV and This Morning being brought closer together (which have both been suggested previously), then maybe this article would be a bit more credible.

Also, there's no reference to the Jeremy Kyle show; and on the 4 occasions where the article mentions sources and insiders, it doesn't say who they are.

I also think the following statement is very unlikely:
"Every member of GMTV star Lorraine Kelly’s production team has been offered voluntary redundancy"

This would be like Channel 5 wanting to merge Sky News with The Wright Stuff and Live from Studio Five, which would obviously never happen.

Please let that be the one and only fantasy schedule!

It wasn't meant to be a fantasy schedule, just realistically what would probably happen. And clearly its more hassle than its probably worth because it has to many knock on effects. They ought to keep the two shows separate whilst on air, but sharing the majority of a production team.

There's no reason why they couldn't do this.

Separate franchises they may be, but there's nothing to stop them having a unified programme title and production team which spans across both GMTV and ITV's hours.

The story is probably hogwash though.

I don't think this article is accurate as it only appears in the Daily Mirror and as quickly as Digital Spy ran with the article they removed it.

So there doesn't seem much truth in it, and I cant see ITV wanting to scrap the 'This Morning' brand.

I think it's more about what is happening behind the scenes rather than what we see on screen. This Morning and GMTV are essentially quite different shows (the former is very watchable, the latter excruciatingly painful) and I imagine the audiences are not as similar as some people might think.

The Mirror write-up is rubbish.
The only new bit of information is that Nina Hossain and Ruth Langsford will be covering Lorraine Kelly during the summer months, because GMTV want to the keep the show running all year around rather than resting for 8 weeks a year when Kelly is on holiday.

So 'GMTV with Lorraine' won't be with Lorraine?