Good Morning Britain

I have to admit I don't watch the show, as the general content and chit-chat about the presenter's lives doesn't appeal to me, but from what I've seen, the last set did feel more coordinated.

I know they want it to look "American" but some US shows are restrained compared to this. I mean, what's the point of having "ITV News" written horizontally down the side of the wall five times? Why have seven small weather screens when you've only got two map charts to put on them? Why bother having a screen at the top of the ceiling like a rail departure board, just to show the date? Seems a bit pointless, but each to their own.

EDIT: I will pay a compliment: the desk looks good.

I do agree with some that they need to restrain themselves and stick a rigid timetable. This still is a morning programme. Segments should begin and end on time. There is something about the format I dont like and its the chit chat at the beginning. That needs to be restrained until after they get thru the main news at least 15 mins into the programme. TODAY/GMA usually goes in hard news at the top of the hours and the silliness starts a little later in the hour. (changes channel to CBS THIS MORNING) But thats just my two cents.

I feel like I’m a bit slow but I’ve just realized that in the new opening titles, the cut from the London skyline shot to the studio is actually live.

No surprise this thread moved three times as fast as the others today. Really good job with the new studio - completely refreshed but actually not that unfamilar to what it replaced - very much in the same style. Only thing I wasn't too sure about was actually something others have praised - the shots behind Charlotte during the news segments. I thought they were a bit out of focus when I skipped through it earlier, so if anyone could provide some screencaps that would be appreciated.


First time I've seen a whole show in years (well, fast forwarded through most of it) but really evident how news heavy it was today. Yes, there were the out of place competitions and ITV's continual need to give Richard Arnold airtime, but out of the whole two and a half hour there were probably about 10 minutes in total on non-news content. It's probably the only show on ITV all day where you'll get detailed discussion about the Syria crisis.

Surely there's no way to have the background in focus unless they moved her closer to it or had her face out of focus instead?

It looks fantastic. Makes you realise that GMB has got confidence in its product and quite rightly.

It looks a great studio and that title sequence is lovely. I don't think there's much argument against the fact that GMB has the best presentation of the 3 morning shows - Sunrise and Breakfast's studios and graphics are decent (certainly no Romanian dentist room travesties) but nothing more.

However, Breakfast will continue to comfortably rate higher than GMB and the new studio won't do anything to fix that (though nobody I'm sure is claiming it will) as they have a few big issues which still remain - some of which they can't do much about, some they can.

1) Adverts. There's not much they can do on this but viewers don't like adverts and switch over and therefore are naturally likely to move to Breakfast. Not much ITV can do about this one.

2) Viewers do seem with news to gravitate towards BBC rather than ITV - and previous ITV breakfast shows mean GMB has a lot to do to win the public back.

3) The presenters. Breakfast's presenters are all pretty solid and no one presenter dominates the programme - it's all mainly about the news. Whereas with GMB it feels like it's promoted like the 'Piers and Susanna' show - so if you don't like them you inevitably won't be keen to tune in. Piers is a very unlikable individual IMO (though I think marmite is probably the term to use) and very much puts people off watching and his personality seems to dominate the show. Similarly, Susanna while less of an issue I don't think is as popular with the public as she was before SCD and her move to ITV. The Piers issue links into 4...

4) Predictability. A big advantage of Breakfast is that you know what you're getting - 95% of the time if I tune into Breakfast I know I'll get the headlines bang on top of the hour, weather at quarter past, sport at 35 past and local news just before the half hour and top of the hour and the format is strong enough that whoever is presenting the show is normally pretty watchable. Whereas when Piers is on you'll have him ranting for minutes at a time or interviews overrunning meaning the timings are completely thrown out meaning TOTHs, features are delayed and they're having to play catch-up throughout the show.
Can't stress how big an issue this is - people don't have huge amounts of time to watch TV in the morning if they do they want to know that if they tune at a certain time they'll get something similar every day - if the TOTH is delayed by 4 or 5 minutes or if a weather bulletin has to be dropped they aren't necessarily going to stick around for it.

Sorry to put a downer on the new thread - and to be clear the new home is very nice - but don't think today solves any of GMB's big issues.

I have to agree ... a news based breakfast show should have all its segments run on time, and not have the overall running order overshadowed and forced to over-run by the arrogance and over-inflated ego of one of its presenters. It could be argued that the reason GMB is in a bigger studio at TVC than it was at TLS is because Piers' ego was getting to big for the old studio to accomodate!

I don’t think the new set was intending to. More that it’s providing a good set for a programme that is now in a strong position and is finally not being suggested it’s about to be axed all the time.

No Breakfast viewers will switch away from it, in the same way that people eat Corn Flakes every morning year in year out.

One thing, GMB was probably more Newsy than Breakfast this morning, which wouldn’t have been the case at one time, and probably had a more heavyweight presenting line up.

I really don't think the general viewer cares as much about timings as people here do - and it is only people here that are saying the headlines are supposed to be at the top of the hour, regional news is airing ten minutes late etc. The producers have no problem with it and actually ratings, although way off Breakfast, have been continually rising, so it's not putting viewers off. I don't think Piers is anywhere near as hated as he likes to think he is either. Yes, he has a reputation but ultimately I think most viewers respect the job he does.

With a breakfast show it isn't just about getting the morning headlines, especially nowadays in a multi-media world where there are several ways of getting up to date. People just want to put something on to start the day - often it's little more than background viewing - hence why I don't think ads are a problem either.


The show has found it's confidence in the last year or so and focused far more on what it's doing right rather than what it is perceived to be doing wrong. When Daybreak relaunched back in 2012 it was almost apologising for it' own existence, but todays refresh felt bold and comfortable, and wasn't a million miles away from the show that was delivered when it launched four years ago.

The point about adverts for me doesn't hold up. For the entire 1990s and most of the early 2000s GMTV was the #1 breakfast TV show and was watched and loved by millions. The adverts didn't put people off then, mostly because the BBC's Breakfast News at the time was completely unwatchable. If the product is good enough and the alternative(s) aren't, then personally I don't think advert breaks matter too much.

The problem with GMB for me is the timings issue as others have said. I have about 15 minutes to watch TV during my morning routine and this morning I got nothing - no headlines, no weather, nothing. Just Piers ranting on. That's not great. So I flicked over to BBC Breakfast and they were on some dreary story about farming. No thanks! I really don't get the adoration for Breakfast any more. For me, it's not the programme it was 5-10 years ago. I'll agree that back then it was at the top of its game. But now? Not so much in my opinion. Millions may watch it, probably out of sheer habit, but I really do think it's generally boring, stuffy, predictable and safe these days. At least GMB is a bit different and wakes you up in the morning! Breakfast makes me want to go back to bed most days.

Oh agreed and totally get that the show itself is in a much more stable and better place than it was back in the Daybreak days (whereas Sunrise in particular these days feels quite lost as a breakfast show). And this is a TV presentation forum so naturally we've going to talk about stuff like graphics, presentation, studios.

I just think as nice as the new studio is, the studio was never GMB's issue really (though as I say I don't anyone was pretending today was about anything more than it being a new studio).



I'd agree more if it were at other times in the day but not so much with breakfast. People normally don't have much time to watch TV before heading to work/school so if they are tuning in they want something at a pretty consistent time - if Piers ends up going on about goodness knows what for 5 minutes before GMB get to the news summary, viewers won't necessarily have the time to stick around. It's fine if it's every once in a while but not so much if it's a few times a week/month.

For example, if I tune into Sunrise and they're doing one of those morning paper reviews I'm not sticking around for the TOTH.

On the advert point too I wasn't suggesting it was the only reason by any means. Just that it doesn't help - when you read many of the complaints about GMB adverts seem to often be one of those that crops up even though ITV can't exactly do much about it.

I realise it's a matter of opinion though.