Saturday Morning with James Martin

ITV's new foodie magazine show Saturday Morning with James Martin starts this morning - going head to head with his old show, Saturday Kitchen, but starting half an hour earlier.

This kind of Saturday morning show has never really worked for ITV in the past, given Saturday Kitchen's long-standing popularity. Nor has poaching BBC talent for rival programmes in the same slot (eg Susanna Reid). So it'll be interesting to see how this does.

Personally, I still enjoy Saturday Kitchen without James Martin, and he alone isn't enough of a reason for me to switch. I may not be representative of most viewers, though - no idea how it's been performing in the ratings since James left, and he'd been with the show for so long that he might be a bigger draw for others.

What was the reason for him leaving Saturday Kitchen?

Supposedly to get his Saturday mornings back after a decade of doing Saturday Kitchen live.

This new show is pre-recorded. Going purely on first impressions, it looks cheap - filmed at his house. None of the friendly ensemble feel and weekend vibe you get on Saturday Kitchen. The first 15 minutes have mostly been James spatchcocking a chicken on his own.

It's got a film look which doesn't usually bother me as much as it does other people, but it looks really bad on these shots in the kitchen.

I think commercial opportunities played a part; almost immediately after leaving the BBC he appeared in a advertising campaign for Asda. There is a lot of money to be made outside of a golden handcuffs deal with the BBC.

Whenever I flicked over to see what was going on, he was chatting in the kitchen with the same two guests. Seemed like a very bare-bones imitation of Saturday Kitchen and, with the drab grey home kitchen and filmic effect, felt a bit like how it would probably look if London Live did a cookery show.

I wonder if next year's SMTV anniversary show proves to be a success, they might consider something more upbeat on Saturday mornings again.

Interesting you say that, it's shot/setup at 50i in camera/ccu, but the mix and ISO recorders may well have been set to progressive which I wasn't aware of.

Source: I filmed this.

For what it's worth, it looked like it was supposed to be 50i judging from the lighting, though I'm not an expert on these things. That may be why even to me it looked wrong.

The fact it "looks wrong" doesn't seem to matter to many TV producers these days. The Antiques Roadshow and Gardener's World look wrong and bloody awful now too for example.

One nice thing about this programme is it actually had 'End of Part One', and so on, going into the breaks. Which is something you don't see much of nowadays.

He's also all over the first class menu on Virgin Trains East Coast. Must have been worth the money to get him to come up with a sausage roll and a muffin.