Good Morning Britain

And don't forget STV's contribution to the ITV News budget - if they part fund it, they deserve their share of any ad revenue generated during that slot.

There was another reason for this as well, in the late seventies there was a lot of discussion about the presentation of news on television, with John Birt and David Elstein famously writing in The Times about the "mission to explain". But you were limited in how you could innovate when you only had the BBC and ITV, so one reason to launch a new breakfast franchise was to provide an opportunity to create new programming, and especially a new news service, on a national basis. If breakfast TV was just a programme on ITV with ITN doing the news it would have been more of the same, but offering a new franchise created competition in the system, ostensibly provided more choice for the viewer and allowed people like David Frost to experiment with new ways of presenting news and current affairs on television, away from the traditional ITV system. So that was the big advantage and why they offered it as a separate thing.

As Morning Glory pointed out, though, the bid document repeatedly made reference to "if a breakfast franchise is awarded", giving them the right to not offer it at all if none of the bids were good enough. Then when the next franchise round came around, a couple of ITV regions did suggest in their submissions to the white paper that there was no need for a breakfast franchise and the regions should become 24 hour operations. Of course by then there were many opportunities to do something on a national scale.

As for Good Morning Britain's relationship with STV, it's all very well STV wanting to keep their own identity and independence, but if it's no service for the viewer, I don't see what the point of arguing about it is. If you end up with a poorer service for the viewer because you have to make endless compromises because of internal politics, it's of no value in the end. Viewers get confused and irritated and switch off, so you get no viewers.

It's hardly about identity and independence, more about valuable air time surely?

Wouldn't it be cool if they used the Good Morning America studio, overlooking Times Square. Just slap a GMB logo on the front of the desk and they're ready to go!

The BBC is using the GMA set so that won't be happening!

Considering GMB was based more on the Today show, and that NBC is (I think?) ITV News' partner network in the US, perhaps Today would be more likely?

NBC have lent Studio 1a to Channel7 when Sunrise did their 5 countries in 5 days tour. Am I right in thinking 1a also has an upstairs which is used by KLG and Hoda from 10.00am. That might be dropped on election day making the upstairs available. Alternatively today itself doesn't come on till 7.00 so depending on how the change it for the election that could be an option.

Today won't be on the air until midday our time so it would give them a few hours turnaround. The only problem is that the view outside might be a little dark... something ITV are probably keen to avoid.

They had the wrong narration at 6am this morning:

'The voice' seemed to think it was still Tuesday. I really hope not.

The upstairs studio at Today uses monitors for the windows, so that's a possibility. However, a studio with a fake backdrop kind of removes the point in being there.

If not an actual studio, then a balcony overlooking the skyscrapers would look quite nice.

They could have a studio on the plaza, as that will be floodlit for NBC's coverage. That, or NBC studio 3A, with a recorded daytime shot of the plaza on the big screens (they're 4K and look realistic).

If the plaza is lit will the today set be an issue? The set is very flexible with the screens and light boxes, they would just need a GMB logo covering the front of the desk.

Where is NBC's election coverage coming from as I presume they will have an overnight results service.