GMTV (1993 - 2010)

I know most of us think that fiona should go but i think that the way she handled the Helen Newlove story this morning was professional, sincere and genuine and i think that to be able to go from the light hearted banter that annoys us to the serious stuff shows that she still has it. Just wish she'd calm down a bit though!

To dedicate that amount of time to the interview was quite good as well. GMTV seem to be making a habit of these "exclusive interview" features after 8. We had Heather McCartney, something else which I cannot for the life of me remember and now Gary Newloves family. I think that now the competitions are reduced considerably and Ben and Fiona are presenting together GMTV seems to have a new lease of life.

But that is probably just me....

Does anyone know whether there's a makeover for GMTV in sight?

Don't know because i thought there would be one last sept as usual, then i thought after christmas but no!!! I think that it needs to be revamped but maybe because they haven't as yet there may be a bigger change??

I am enjoying Ben & Fiona, mainly as the pairing is so wrong. Ben has the Eamonn act of not really enjoying working with Fiona, and acting as though he doesn't know what she's on about, and Fiona has the older women who's after a toyboy approach to working with Ben, but it does provide a bit of lightness in the morning.

I've been impressed with the interviews, though the best thing about it is that it's breaking up the channel, as it used to basically repeat itself from 6 until 8:35.
The News Hour could do with leaving behind the fluffy holiday features, and airing a full hour of news, though it is better now that competitions have gone.
The exclusive interview at 8 means that Today don't repeat their selves at 8 (other than the news & weather obviously).

I would love to see a revamp, essentially as it makes a channel/programme feel like a totally new one in my mind, and I tend to forget about how rubbish it may have been and look at the shiny newness of it all.

The problem with GMTV is that they haven't got as much money as before, so I'm not sure if/when they could afford to do something drastic. The only other limitation is the studio. There's only a certain amount that they can do with the set in a studio of that size. It would be nice to have an NBC Today style set, but where could it go, and could they afford it?
Maybe the easiest option is to try and get permission to build a studio somewhere on the actual southbank outside The London Studios so that they have the public passing outside. Or to lease a store somewhere in a busy spot in London and air from a shop essentially.

Again financial limitations will be there.

Isn't the old London Tonight studio in the same building as GMTV's, and IIRC GMTV went in there a couple of years ago? There was a really nice backdrop of London.
They could try and move to that studio, as everything fitted in there before. I'd love to see a NBC Today style set, all very clean and modern. I don't see why they stopped using the LED lights, they used to go all purple and blue for GMTV Today, and were different colours for the Newshour, and it sort of set a different tone.

But whilst we're on that, I don't know why they dropped that revamped backdrop so quickly, it was much sharper and so different to the current. It actually offered a view of something rather than a blur of a scene.

When they first moved into the studio I did like how they had the lights flashing many colours, mainly at the end of GMTV Today, rather than a clip on you tube where they flash at the start of the newshour that just looks stupid.

As for the News Hour, do you think that they should go for a NBC Today style desk just to break it up from GMTV Today a little?

EDIT: I presume that the reason that they don't use the old London Tonight studio is the fact that with such a lovely view ITV like to hire it out for events.

I wonder if there is any spare office space that can be converted. I presume that this is how the old London Today/Tonight and This Morning studios came to be.

I think if they put in a new newsdesk, they could present for the first 30mins from their, then for the sport, interview and newspapers do it from the sofa. Even if they got a live cam for the opening titles, going to the break looking out across London, that would look a bit better.

A bit like Breakfast? Which looked terrible as the position of the presenters was truly random.

That's a nice idea about the camera. It would be reminiscent of This Morning's break stings though.

I've always thought that the RI:SE Mk1 studio was a lovely set up, you had the video wall for the news and standing up features, the desk for the majority of the show, and then the sofa for the interviews (well when they put the sofa in and thank god they did, that bench thing was rubbish).

Something on that scale would be lovely, maybe having a smaller desk, and a larger sofa.

I noticed the Tyne Tees regional news opt-out had no 'itvlocal.com' dog, but just 'North East News', and also on their plasma screen it now has the GMTV logo on.

I also noticed Ben presented Mon-Fri last week, hopefully he will again this week!

Don't ITV Sport use the studio, and cover the windows up with a backdrop?
I'm sure the reason the skyline studio isn't used for GMTV, is because someone once said the it would make the show 'to Londoncentric'.
This of course is bobbins, as being to New York centric doesnt seem to bother NBC, CBS and ABC breakfast shows too much.