NJ
Neil Jones
Founding member
To be honest the glory days of commercial breakfast TV probably disappeared with TV-am. It is documented that GMTV when it took over in 1993 suffered dramatically ratings wise and followed the same pattern that TV-am did, in which it lost shed loads of money and nearly went bankrupt.
In fact it could probably be argued the only reasons these programmes survived at all was because they all tried to do things differently with failing results and so reverted to emulating the (later) model that TV-am had hit on. I don't know what the actual ratings were like for TV-am in 1991/1992 but they were the most successful and popular breakfast TV channel at the time.
In fact it could probably be argued the only reasons these programmes survived at all was because they all tried to do things differently with failing results and so reverted to emulating the (later) model that TV-am had hit on. I don't know what the actual ratings were like for TV-am in 1991/1992 but they were the most successful and popular breakfast TV channel at the time.
SW
Well, it's no surprise, really, look at the competition at the time. Peter McHugh talks about it in Morning Glory, in the early nineties you had Breakfast News, which was a very boring programme indeed, The Channel Four Daily which was absolutely an acquired taste (McHugh: "I watched it and I couldn't believe it had got on the telly") and BBC2 had either the Open University or a blank screen. Sky was pretty much an irrelevance. So where else was the mass audience going to go? It was TV-am or nowhere.
The problem GMTV had was that The Big Breakfast then began so all the families with children than GMTV assumed were going to be there and were counting on weren't. Of course, The Big Breakfast went off the boil incredibly quickly and by the mid-nineties GMTV was enjoying almost as much of a monopoly as TV-am had. It was never going to go bankrupt, though, the fact it had tiny overheads compared to TV-am counted against that, Greg Dyke says that it would still make money for LWT and its other shareholders regardless.
There's another thing McHugh says in Morning Glory about TV-am becoming GMTV that you could well apply to GMTV becoming Daybreak. He said the assumption was that the viewers would come flocking to GMTV because TV-am was an absolute joke in the industry, nobody had a good word to say about it, and now you'd have a proper professional service - but the viewers didn't know that. They liked TV-am. And similarly when GMTV ended it was a bit of a toxic brand, they'd had all that trouble with the phone-ins which really damaged it and the audience was ageing and declining - but again, the audience weren't really bothered about that.
The other thing is that Daybreak is an absolutely cursed name and I don't know why people keep on using it. The original hard news TV-am programme was a disaster, the consortium of that name failed to win the franchise in 1991 and this was a flop. It's completely plagued!
In fact it could probably be argued the only reasons these programmes survived at all was because they all tried to do things differently with failing results and so reverted to emulating the (later) model that TV-am had hit on. I don't know what the actual ratings were like for TV-am in 1991/1992 but they were the most successful and popular breakfast TV channel at the time.
Well, it's no surprise, really, look at the competition at the time. Peter McHugh talks about it in Morning Glory, in the early nineties you had Breakfast News, which was a very boring programme indeed, The Channel Four Daily which was absolutely an acquired taste (McHugh: "I watched it and I couldn't believe it had got on the telly") and BBC2 had either the Open University or a blank screen. Sky was pretty much an irrelevance. So where else was the mass audience going to go? It was TV-am or nowhere.
The problem GMTV had was that The Big Breakfast then began so all the families with children than GMTV assumed were going to be there and were counting on weren't. Of course, The Big Breakfast went off the boil incredibly quickly and by the mid-nineties GMTV was enjoying almost as much of a monopoly as TV-am had. It was never going to go bankrupt, though, the fact it had tiny overheads compared to TV-am counted against that, Greg Dyke says that it would still make money for LWT and its other shareholders regardless.
There's another thing McHugh says in Morning Glory about TV-am becoming GMTV that you could well apply to GMTV becoming Daybreak. He said the assumption was that the viewers would come flocking to GMTV because TV-am was an absolute joke in the industry, nobody had a good word to say about it, and now you'd have a proper professional service - but the viewers didn't know that. They liked TV-am. And similarly when GMTV ended it was a bit of a toxic brand, they'd had all that trouble with the phone-ins which really damaged it and the audience was ageing and declining - but again, the audience weren't really bothered about that.
The other thing is that Daybreak is an absolutely cursed name and I don't know why people keep on using it. The original hard news TV-am programme was a disaster, the consortium of that name failed to win the franchise in 1991 and this was a flop. It's completely plagued!
:-(
A former member
I think Daybreak was doomed from the start due to constant efforts to undermine it. For some reason the press just had it in for the show, with constant negative stories about ratings and the presenters.
For what it’s worth, I rather liked it. Adrian and Christine worked well, the look of the show was relatively slick (certainly compared to what came before and also the competition) and it had a decent mix of stories and features. At the time I had a job that required being up stupidly early and it was always my choice of show whilst getting ready to leave the house.
The studio was obviously an issue being so dark, and any attempts to fix that were poorly done - however once it was light it looked stunning. A pitch black view partially obscured by orange panels wasn’t a good look.
I reckon if Daybreak had never happened, and Piers and Susanna left GMB, Christine and Adrian would probably be a decent replacement. Given all the bad press, I’m pretty sure they still had some of the highest ratings for ITV Breakfast post-GMTV didn’t they?
For what it’s worth, I rather liked it. Adrian and Christine worked well, the look of the show was relatively slick (certainly compared to what came before and also the competition) and it had a decent mix of stories and features. At the time I had a job that required being up stupidly early and it was always my choice of show whilst getting ready to leave the house.
The studio was obviously an issue being so dark, and any attempts to fix that were poorly done - however once it was light it looked stunning. A pitch black view partially obscured by orange panels wasn’t a good look.
I reckon if Daybreak had never happened, and Piers and Susanna left GMB, Christine and Adrian would probably be a decent replacement. Given all the bad press, I’m pretty sure they still had some of the highest ratings for ITV Breakfast post-GMTV didn’t they?
NG
Adrian and Christine did work together well and had high-ish ratings for their early DayBreak programmes (through Breakfast was always higher rated).
However Adrian and Christine were surfing the wave of their popularity from 'The One Show' - which was rating in the 4-5m range (ratings peaked at around 7m for one programme in their era) plus the press around them leaving the BBC, a previous minor 'are they or aren't they?' tabloid obsession etc. meant there was a 'buzz' about them. Good presenters as they are, I'm not sure pairing them again would create the same dynamic.
noggin
Founding member
I reckon if Daybreak had never happened, and Piers and Susanna left GMB, Christine and Adrian would probably be a decent replacement. Given all the bad press, I’m pretty sure they still had some of the highest ratings for ITV Breakfast post-GMTV didn’t they?
Adrian and Christine did work together well and had high-ish ratings for their early DayBreak programmes (through Breakfast was always higher rated).
However Adrian and Christine were surfing the wave of their popularity from 'The One Show' - which was rating in the 4-5m range (ratings peaked at around 7m for one programme in their era) plus the press around them leaving the BBC, a previous minor 'are they or aren't they?' tabloid obsession etc. meant there was a 'buzz' about them. Good presenters as they are, I'm not sure pairing them again would create the same dynamic.
NG
Given the way ITV treated Adrian over his football presenting duties I can't see him wanting to return any time soon.
noggin
Founding member
Personally, not being a brit and I haven't seen much of Daybreak with Adrian and Christine, from all that I've seen, I like them. Although I'm not sure Adrian Chiles would want to host GMB if ITV called him up since a lot of viewers complained about him being 'too grumpy'
Given the way ITV treated Adrian over his football presenting duties I can't see him wanting to return any time soon.
SW
Well, they have presented together a few times since, because they're still friends, including this series for BBC Northern Ireland eighteen months ago - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09dp67m
He's said in interviews since that he knew they were going to be got rid of because the ratings were so bad, but he was disappointed that they were just dropped without being able to say goodbye because "it looked as though we had our fingers in the till".
He's also spoken quite candidly about the football too, he said that towards the end he wasn't doing very much at all and he actually started to struggle quite badly because he got so out of practice and suffered quite badly from stress and anxiety during this period. It seems as if his abrupt departure from ITV Sport was a mutual decision as he wasn't enjoying it at all.
Happily his career now seems to be back on track with his radio show, his excellent documentaries and now his column in The Guardian which I always enjoy - https://www.theguardian.com/profile/adrian-chiles
Good presenters as they are, I'm not sure pairing them again would create the same dynamic.
Well, they have presented together a few times since, because they're still friends, including this series for BBC Northern Ireland eighteen months ago - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09dp67m
Given the way ITV treated Adrian over his football presenting duties I can't see him wanting to return any time soon.
He's said in interviews since that he knew they were going to be got rid of because the ratings were so bad, but he was disappointed that they were just dropped without being able to say goodbye because "it looked as though we had our fingers in the till".
He's also spoken quite candidly about the football too, he said that towards the end he wasn't doing very much at all and he actually started to struggle quite badly because he got so out of practice and suffered quite badly from stress and anxiety during this period. It seems as if his abrupt departure from ITV Sport was a mutual decision as he wasn't enjoying it at all.
Happily his career now seems to be back on track with his radio show, his excellent documentaries and now his column in The Guardian which I always enjoy - https://www.theguardian.com/profile/adrian-chiles
GO
Problems with the general darkness aside I'm never not amazed by how
awful
the Daybreak launch studio was. I appreciate they had to work with the awkward shape of studio 7 but the whole launch set up looked so nasty on screen. GMB's studio was a night and day (literally) improvement on Daybreak's.
TL
toby lerone 2016
The thing I didn't like about the end of GMTV is that is was around for 17 years and even if it had become a toxic brand ITV gave it no send off, Claire Nasir said it was her last weather forecast during the day and then the last 10-15 minutes they said it was the last show and had Andrew Castle's daughter singing and wished good luck to Daybreak and played the theme with the crew waving bye and that was it. TVAM, Daybreak version 1 with Adrian & Christine and version 2 with Aled & Lorraine were given proper send off and best bits etc but GMTV just faded away with a whimper.