Good Morning Britain - confirmed

I hope Daybreak goes out on a high and there isn't any bitterness about GMB starting on Monday which you could tell at the end of GMTV AND Daybreak V1.5. Hoping for a concert out on the South Bank or at least a look back!

I doubt they will go to much trouble, its not like the programme has done them any good.

Anoilyrag - Will the local news be the same on the new show? Hoping for extended bulletins and more of them!

Was that a joke?

'Concert' may have been the wrong word - 'musical performance' may be better. The first show had it.

In view of the pace of change, it appears ITV want to sweep the whole Daybreak experience under the carpet as quickly as possible. I suspect it will go out with more of a whimper than a bang!

That's probably the complete opposite of what they will do. Why would ITV want to draw attention to a failed show ending?

Yeah, 3 and a half years is hardly a good innings, considering GMTV racked up just shy of 18.

Which brings us to the question - should GMTV have went in the first place?

I agree. ITV took a moderately successful brand (GMTV), dumped it in a skip outside Kent House, and embarked on more than 3 years of random tinkering with a doomed new idea built around new presenters.


ITV seem to be obsessed with the notion that the presenter is the key figure. It's not, as TV-am found out in 1983 with the 'famous five'. It doesn't seem to stop ITV repeating that same mistake over, and over again!

They are forgetting that most of their audience, like me, are probably just listening to the TV in the morning. The face is irrelevant: it could actually be 'Billy the Puppet' from the Saw films on the screen for all I know, as I'm pottering about between the kitchen, bedroom or bathroom at 7am. The only time I watch the screen is if I hear a report which requires me to actually look at the screen.

BBC Breakfast have managed to move location, regularly change presenters, and yet maintain a strong lead because of what they offer. Boring to many, no doubt, but adequate to many others.

Building a programme around the presenters is wrong on so many levels. It means that an inordinate proportion of your programme budget is spent on something that many people won't see or care about.

The British viewer is notoriously reactionary to being sold a 'one trick pony' as something else: we like nothing better than to build someone up, only to watch them fall. I hope this is not Ms Reid's fate, as she was an adequate presenter on BBC Breakfast.

I think the general principle should be: "Make a celebrity out of your programme, not a programme out of your celebrity". BBC operate the former, ITV the latter.

GMTV was a tired brand and needed replacing with something fresh, but as you said ITV went about repeating all the same mistakes that GMTV and TV-am before it made. You do not draw an audience to a breakfast show with a key personality, they don't fall for it.

It can be said they are doing it again this time round, but also there is the return of familiar faces that were unceremoniously dumped when GMTV ended. Let's hope they've got their heads screwed on right this time round.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Media/Pix/pictures/2010/8/31/1283264528219/GMTV-logo-in-skip-006.jpg

And the rest is history.

Thanks Whataday . . . that was the pic I was thinking of!

this feels just like the launch of Daybreak (v1) all over....do viewers really care about theme tunes as much as those working at ITV?

Whether they sit on stools or a sofa, all the format changes over the years have confused the (older) viewers who like routine at that time of the day. Verdict: GMB will settle on 600-700,000 viewers.