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Editor Reports: Daybreak,What went wrong?

Editor Reports: Daybreak,What went wrong?

In this edition of Editor Reports, Shaun Linden looks at the troubles of Daybreak.

It was meant to deliver big audiences to ITV in the breakfast slot after falling behind BBC Breakfast but Daybreak did the exact opposite. Far from exceeding GMTV’s ratings – which were themselves in decline – Daybreak actually drove viewer levels down even further to record lows, but why? What went wrong for the purple planned saviour of ITV breakfast?

If the history of early morning television has taught us anything; its that sometimes they take time to connect with the audience. TV-am and GMTV are prime examples of that. So the failure of Daybreak to immediately hit it off with audiences isn’t all that surprising, but over a year down the line and the show still isn’t performing well.

The press have, it has to be admitted, been out for Daybreak since day one and have fuelled the negative perception of the series. The tabloids have been full of stories about low ratings, crisis meetings, planned revamps and proposed axings; Christine Bleakley and Adrian Chiles have been the subject of a fair few articles over the past year claiming they were being dropped.

As for the presenters themselves while Bleakley and Chiles haven’t connected with the early morning audiences in quite the same way they did with the early evening audiences on The One Show. A fair bit of audience criticism is aimed at the two; they feel that they can not relate to the two presenters.

Ditching the GMTV brand was perhaps a mistake also; bosses felt the name had been tarnished by the premium phone-in scandal but then that very same scandal affected all broadcasters and a wide range of programmes most of which survived. The way in which the brand, and associated presenters, were ditched also angered some viewers who switched to the BBC rather than watch the replacement series.

ATV Today editor Shaun Linden

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