Good Morning Britain in 2020

I always actually thought that the Greenwich Mean Time 'pips' were generated by BT (as in the old 'speaking clock'). I didn't ever think that the BBC did it themselves.


Every day is a 'school day', it seems.

It's only day two and Bill Turnbull has one mission - and that’s to make sure the show runs on time.

We think he’s fitting in very well! 😂@billtu | @susannareid100 | @RichardAArnold | #GMB pic.twitter.com/gjqzlQCImo

— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) February 25, 2020

Excellent! And maybe with all of his experience in Breakfast TV, they ought to listen to his advice.

I don't want to be the kind of person who barges into a thread for a show they don't watch and says "I watched it for three seconds the other day and it was rubbish", but the timekeeping on Good Morning Britain really is appalling. Funnily enough I did see it at 8am the other Friday (so not even a day when P**rs was there) and at 8am they were in the middle of chatting to Max George, ex of The Wanted, about his new single, and then at 8.03 moved on to discussing Billie Eilish's Bond theme. Presumably the news followed at some point.

It's not like it has to hit every single item in the schedule dead on time, but surely they can at least try and hit the top of the hour. Even The Big Breakfast at its most disorganised and self-indulgent managed to do it. It's plain bad manners! People are looking around for news at that point and they're frittering the audience away on some pointless whimsy.



Indeed, it seems odd to think that Tony Livesey used to be the editor of the Sport, which is just a total waste of paper, and is now a really credible journalist. I have listened to him quite a bit in recent months as Brexit coverage has spilled over into the sport slot and he's been very assured and very good at explaining complex issues. He's really put in the hours to go "legit", so fair play to him.

Never been anything to do with BT/GPO, the speaking clock is something unrelated.

The Greenwich Observatory used to generate them, the BBC took over the task in 1990

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwich_Time_Signal

Because the speaking clock did use pips on it ("at the third stroke the time sponsored by <somebody> will be six twenty three precisely"), its common to think it and the pips from the BBC were one and the same thing.

Gladys Knight is rumored to be appearing tomorrow.......

Interesting that BBC Breakfast still had close to 44% share yesterday (according to the editor's tweet). I eat my words. Surprised if there wasn't any uplift for Good Morning Britain as a result of Bill Turnbull presenting.

Just a few days might not be enough to provide any trend. Also it depends what a viewer wants most, to see Bill presenting or the programme they are used to. He's well loved and respected and when he left it was a shame for Breakfast, but have people moved on?

Most people wouldn’t know he was on, and even if they did they’d probably have forgotten when they did their usual morning routine.

I'm struggling to imagine any other method via an audio domain of signalling an accurate time check?

Yeah, to be honest I wouldn't have expected a major shift anyway. The reality is people love familiarity and if they always put on BBC One, they will continue to do this. There may be a couple of viewers interested in seeing Bill on ITV, but I wouldn't expect a major change, particularly without much advertising as to the fact he will be presenting.