Good Morning Britain - the launch

I’ve been away abroad on work commitments and just back for Christmas, I managed to watch GMB in its entirety for first time at the tail end of last week since July and all I can sum up about the programme it is essentially Daybreak with a desk with 3 presenters.

After months of build up to the launch of the new breakfast show with promises of something new and different, the content is no radically different from the latter stages of GMTV or Daybreak in its various guises. It makes you wonder why ITV went through all the hassle and money trying to revitalise the breakfast brand.

The programme does seem more settled and no one can dispute the on-air chemistry between the presenting team. However, what has been disappointing is the continued focus and over-emphasis on the entertainment / fluff features even from the outset at 6am. At least with the Daybreak newshour these were pushed back to after 7am.

For a programme apparently news driven, entertainment and lifestyle features seem to make up a considerable amount of output. I personally think they need to differentiate the show more by making the 6am-7am hour more focused on news by scrapping the entertainment slot at 6.50am and fluff, replacing it with more in-depth news features and a return of the newspaper review. Then front the show from the sofa after 7am.

On the ratings front, these did recover to just fewer than 600,000 with an average 14-16% audience share in November. These are still down nearly 10% year-on-year compared to last year with audience peaks barely surpassing the 1 million mark. Even some peak figures are down between 15-20% compared to the previous year.

Also, it is disappointing to see Sean’s role being limited to just Sports although the combination of 3 presenters works much better. I assumed being billed as one of the main presenters he would get the opportunity to front the programme. Even though he is the least known or charismatic presenter I think he could have built rapport with the core audience by standing in for Ben or John.

Given the direction of the programme it makes you wonder if they don't just replace the desk with a large sofa and pretend the past year never happened.

That would make the programme too much like Breakfast. But, then again, have the desk for the news and sports news, an the sofa for other features and in depth look at news and interviews.

I mean,I don't get why GMB is off-air for the holidays while BBC Breakfast is on air.

The BBC has a news channel to keep on the air, so they'd be broadcasting live programming anyway. Not the case for ITV. As someone who has worked Christmas Day many times I welcome them giving people the day off where possible.

Before the launch of News 24, BBC news on Christmas day at Breakfast time was a five minute or ten minute bulletin in the early morning, as opposed to Breakfast News. You then had childrens programming or other special programming.

For ITV though, a short bulletin at around 08:10 would have been fine today, lasting no more than five minutes. No need for GMB today though.

In one post you seem to contradict yourself, pointing out how it's reverted back to GMTV/Daybreak then saying it should basically do that anyway.

It's quite clear that reverting back to a format that ultimately got axed anyway, not once but twice, isn't going to work. It's a shame though that mediocre is still quite profitable for "ITV Breakfast" as in a way the only chance things will get better is if they get so bad ITV look to pass the franchise to someone else.

I fully agree I admit my original post does seem contradictory in nature. However, given the clear direction of travel the franchise is going in it would be extremely beneficial or even helpful if they had one hour dedicated to just news, sport and weather, leaving the fluff and showbiz normally associated with the latter stages of GMTV/various guises of Daybreak until after 7am. Instead of being bombarded with it straight away from 6am. It might be away of attracting more viewers earlier in the programme which might help to boost average viewing figures.

I agree it's a real shame that yet again senior executives from ITV believe that reverting to a proven "failed" entertainment/showbiz orientated formula might bring back core viewers rather than riding out and establishing the original GMB format. The reality is that ITV Breakfast will still continue to experience poor ratings irrespective of what happens. Given the declining state of the breakfast TV market, by next year GMB will be lucky to break the 500k threshold.

We all say how the breakfast shows end up becoming the same mix which doesn't seem to work, but when you're trying something new that also doesn't seem to be working that well how many decisions are made based on the advertisers requests/input? After all the breakfast slot is there to make money.

The thing is though as we saw with Daybreak and are now seeing with Good Morning Britain their ratings are falling the more they revert to the GMTV format.

I'm just wondering if they cannot get advertisers who want a stronger news programme, and the only advertisers that they can get at that time of the day want it to be soft with human stories, or would this solely be an broadcasters decision?

I don't think anyone knows what they want really. I think the problem is the advertisers desired demographic doesn't reflect the actual demographic. Each relaunch seems to be designed to appeal a younger, news hungrier audience but when they fail to get that they go after more of what they've got already rather than after the audience they want.

Which in turn turns off some of the one the people who had stuck with them.