Good Morning Britain - the launch

Although to be fair, the Digital Switchover has happened and Freeview integrated TV's are the norm which reduces the issue, so much so that most UK channels have moved their presentation graphics to 16:9 safe, including ITV channels.

Yes, and I'll upload it this afternoon.

I think it's foolish (and slightly disrespectful) to suggest the 'average joe' doesn't value presentation when it comes to programming. In fact it's something of a contradiction to suggest this and then say that the same people have been affected by the various recent changes at ITV Breakfast.

Also I find it insulting to say what 'people like us' think about a particular programme is less important than what anyone else thinks. Aside from the fact that a programme like GMB intends to please the masses (the masses being a WIDE range of people, not just one section of society), it is 'people like us' with attention to detail that make decisions in advertising and broadcasting in general.

I didn't say that. I said we on TVForum think differently about presentation, etc. I said how we think about these changes is entirely different kettle of fish to they way the general public think about them.


Did I say otherwise? No. I said we think differently about presentation, etc. I said that these changes have been implemented with little thought to what the audience actually expects or wants.


Therein lies the problem. 'People like us... that make decisions in advertising and broadcasting in general'. Just because 'people like us... make decisions in advertising and broadcasting in general' doesn't make us right. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink if it doesn't want to. You can make all of the changes under the sun to Good Morning Britain. You can tell the viewers that they will like these changes and that they make the show better and that these are the people you want to see at breakfast. If the viewers look at it and say 'No' they will look elsewhere.

Well I think it's fair to say that the title sequence is like a TV Forumer's wet dream (and my god it's awesome) but I think that's a good thing - it's big and bold enough for "the average viewer" to appreciate it as well.

But then you can't really ask what people want. They don't know what they want until you give it to them. Henry Ford springs to mind... "If I had asked my customers what they wanted they would have said a faster horse." So really we could go round in circles arguing about this all day.

The bottom line is that there has been a generally positive reaction to the show, day one ratings aren't the be-all and end-all, but the real success of the show will be if it's still around one or two years from now.

Excusing the fact that quote has only been attributed to Ford for about a decade, surely a person like Ford would have been clever enough to take that idea and transform it into a workable solution (you can't breed horses to make them much faster than they already are, so what about a mechanical replacement for the horse?).

The first close:

Here's a nugget of joy from Facebook...



Ah yes... nice, relaxed Sunrise(!)

I particularly enjoyed someone using the hashtag #beingBackDatbreak on their Facebook page. Looking at all the comments, if it's the illiterate and idiotic that are taking the time to post on Facebook about how they are never watching again, then they must have got the show right.

After Paul O'Grady moaned about his experience on GMB on Monday's show, Susanna Reid is a guest on tonight's. I hope she wasn't watching on Monday or it'll be, as my teenage brother would say, '#awks'.

Paul did have a point!