ITV Takes Full Ownership of GMTV

That's a rather naïve statement considering how ITV have managed to convince Ofcom that they can abandon just about every commitment within their various regional licenses!

The changes to Channel 3 licences making them 24/7 have already been approved by Ofcom, in principle. However, without that they could still rename GMTV as 'ITV1 Breakfast' or something similar, but be unable to shuffle around their remaining news commitments to suit themselves. No doubt they will now ask for the licence to be amended properly.

It's going to look like a very unified service in England, Wales and the Channel Islands (who use ITV1 branding), but certainly not for those in Scotland or Northern Ireland. I suspect this is just further pressure on the remaining independents to either sell out or go it alone.

Be interesting to see if anyone leaves/joins the station (or should that now be programme) as a result of this. You can bet your life once the outsourced news contracts end it will be branded ITV News for the news updates. Be interesting to see if News moves to Grays Inn Road.

Does this come into place with immediate effect?

If you mean the sale of Disney's 25% stake in GMTV to ITV, yes, it's already happened.

Yeah thats what I was wondering, I wasn't sure if ITV would effectively 'take over' at a later date (ie the sale hasn't completely gone through yet).

I suppose one thing that might come out of it is that gm.tv may be scrapped and the GMTV website integrated on itv.com/gmtv, or GMTV might remain but it could go into the style of the ITV website. I think the GMTV website looks very dated, almost like someone has created it using a Freewebs template or something.

Do STV and UTV still use ITV1 branding overnight?

UTV do, STV uses their own branding. (Before the rebrand, it was known as Nighttime TV)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l5vH4RXPGI

Rumour from insiders has it that GMTV is to be renamed, simply, 'AM' by as early as January.

The provisional 6am - 9.25am schedule will work as follows:

6am - ITV News Hour.

7am - Two hours of celebrity/soap/reality/current affairs chat.

9am - A repeat gameshow or something, followed by an ITV News update at 9.25am.

There will be no children's programming at weekends or bank holidays. The Saturday and Sunday AM shows will feature repeats of interviews from the weekday shows. AM may share the This Morning studio, although that hasn't yet been decided on.

There is more in-depth background information about this posted on the Digital Spy Broadcasting forum.

I hope thats a joke.

Why change the name? It's like renaming BBC News 24 all over again. Don't ITV realise that people will continue to call it GMTV. Also, they think 'repeating a game show' at 9am will bring viewers in? I very much doubt it!

The poster seems credible enough judging by their posting history.


Chant after me: Change is good, change is great, change is your friend...

I think they should repeat more gameshows and things in the afternoon, instead of showing Dickinson's Real Deal every single day. Jeremy Kyle is being axed soon so ITV just need to fill that slot with something interesting (ie. not another property/antiques show or chat show) and they'll finally have a good daytime schedule all round.

hate the new name 'AM', its too bland and the 'proposed' schedule looks absolutely crap.

They should just go back to naming it 'Good Morning Britain' and its schedule should be as follows:

5:00am - 6:00am - ITV Nightscreen

6:00am - 7:00am - Good Morning Britain First Edition (ITV's Newshour - current affairs, sports and national and international news)

7:00am - 9:30am - Good Morning Britain (Magazine Feel show with News, Sport, Showbiz and Current Affairs and also exclusive interviews)

9:30am - 10:25am - 'An ITV Daytime Show' like Dickinson Real Deal or something

10:25am - 10:30am - ITV News Update.

May I also say that, looking at the DS post, it doesn't seem very likely ITV would be discussing their plans with a stand-in presenter on a regional news programme.