TV-AM, er, Daybreak relaunch...
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James Martin posted on Monday 3rd September 2012 at 16:38Looks very good I must admit. Like how GMTV had to go back to being TV-AM in all but name, Daybreak is now GMTV (and therefore TV-AM) in all but name…
Daybreak have introduced elements from GMTV back, such as the return of the 6-7am news and current affairs hour presented by two broadcast journalists.
What we have seen with GMTV in 1993 and ITV Breakfast in 2012 is that the TV:am template can’t be beaten and both owners have reverted to the 1980s format.
I said exactly the same thing to someone who said “oh, it’s just gone back to GMTV.”
But GMTV, of course, had a similarly nightmare start to Daybreak where they tried to re-invent the wheel and found themselves going back to the format so successfully used by TV-AM.
Indeed, even TV-AM itself struggled until Greg Dyke introduced a populist agenda and then Bruce Gyngell perfected it with his view that TV-AM should be “Summer every day.”
Between them they invented a great breakfast television forumula that, like Martin says, has never been beaten as the changes at Daybreak show.
Will they never learn?!
It’s also amuzing to remember that the original TV:AM “mission to explain” format was a total flop, and it was only when TV:AM copied the BBC Breakfast Time formula they got their viewers back.
And then the BBC dumped Breakfast Time for Breakfast News, a sort of News-night-morning, with Paxman and Walk.
Breakfast found the right mix of current affairs and light discussion. Have the show news heavy during peak viewing from 0600-0830 with a short 45 minute entertainment and arts segment at the end.
Copying Breakfast won’t work for ITV as a commercial channel, but they need to ensure they have enough of the target audience to make Daybreak v3.0 to be viable.
I think the people who want the Breakfast format will, ultimately, watch Breakfast, and possibly Sky News Sunrise.
ITV will always be better off running a bright n’ breezy populist agenda, really.
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I tuned in for a little bit yesterday. I saw a pop band miming a song, or perhaps singing it live, it was hard to tell, in front of fifty unimpressed people by a river somewhere. Then Lorraine came on. I switched it off again.
Breakfast television always reminds me of The Onion’s marvellous spoof Today Now! – which if you’ve not seen it is highly recommended, if often rather dark.