But that's exactly what I mean about them not listening. No-one who matters cares about the sets or the presenters - it's the crappy format that's the problem!

I'd definitely welcome them scrapping the competitions. They take up so much time with the long, celebrity fronted promos telling you what you can win and how to enter.

During the premium rate fraud scandal in 2007 these mindless competitions all vanished for a few months, and it instantly improved GMTV!

I did actually watch it this morning , i like John Stapleton hes got it right and always has

The format and content.

The content is still too biased towards showbiz and gossip orientated "stories" that they're trying to dress up as news.

Unfortunately as shown with previous re-launches the bosses at ITV persevere with the same old tat but try and gloss over with flashy sets and new presenters.

On the subject of presenters it's pretty pointless employing the likes of Reid and Hawkins for their professional approach on BBC and Sky and then trying to get them to dumb down to present GMB.

Charlotte's the star of the show for me.

Well said!

If itv can't sort it out than they should not do breakfast tv

If anyone is to blame it's Ofcom, really, for giving ITV Breakfast the right to buy Sunrise Television and take over the breakfast franchise. Alas, everything seemed to work better at ITV when it was privatised. The strict ITC is also sorely missed; OFCOM is to commercial television what the UN is to peacekeeping - toothless.

no, ofcom did not tell itv to buy the 25% from Walt Disney, it might be walt disney

I never said they did.

ITV bought out the Disney share of GMTV to own it outright and take all of the ad money. The terms of the breakfast slot are down to Ofcom. They say what a broadcaster needs to put on in that slot.

ok but they were called GMTV when itv brought the broadcaster

I'l be honest, I'm not 100% sure on the ins and outs of it all, but it's something like:

GMTV was an independent station, mostly owned by Disney and partly owned by Sunrise Television. OFCOM permitted ITV, in 2010, to buy Sunrise and then a few months later Disney sold their share to ITV, giving ITV full control of its breakfast franchise for the first time since it was created in 1982.

GMB launched on April 28 with 800,000 viewers. It is now down to 431,000. So in three months it has lost about 400,000 viewers.

it was in 1983 when itv started breakfast tv

I didn't say ITV started breakfast TV in 1983, I said the franchise was created in 1982.

TV-AM won the franchise in 1980 but they did not start in 1982

The broadcasting ownership rules are nothing to do with Ofcom, they are laid down in statutory legislation. It was the last Government that relaxed the ownership rules for ITV, as part of the Communications Act 2003. Ofcom's role is to ensure that the legislation is complied with and the owners are "fit and proper".

This legislation allows a US company such as Liberty Global or NBC Comcast to purchase the whole of ITV, and that will probably happen before too long. As I understand it Liberty Global have six months to launch a full takeover bid following their recent purchase of Sky's shareholding.

Interesting stuff! Thanks.

TV-AM went on the air on February 1, 1983, with a programme called ''Good Morning Britain.'' The BBC beat them to it starting on January 17, 1983. Ironically many critics said the ITV programme was ''stiff and starchy'' by comparison with the relaxed approach of the BBC programme.TV-AM lost its franchise to GMTV in 1993.

1991, actually. GMTV went on the air in 1993 but Sunrise Television won the franchise in 1991.

There were a few experimental breakfast programmes prior to 1983. In 1982 the BBC mounted a daily programme during the Falklands War and YTV also produced a breakfast edition of Calendar. BBC Scotland televised its morning radio programme to no great effect with lots of shots of tapes going round and one (famously bald) presenter was allowed to buy a wig at the BBC's expense

i know but tv-am lost to GMTV in 1991

What gets me is they still pretend they're a serious news programme when they're more like a TV version of Take A Break magazine.

Throughout the Tour de France on ITV4, almost every ad break, they had a trail showing Ms Reid walking into the studio looking serious with a tagline of something like 'wake up to the news with GMB"

Yet you turn on and find...
"Salads are too salty"
"Win £30,000 by dialling 0898......"
"Where do Hollywood Celebs go for their holidays"

Utter drivel.

He has no sillyness and always smiles and great journalist. Top bloke.