Shame on you for even suggesting such a thing. Interesting that it turned up first in a national newspaper rather than on......GMB.I wonder how much The Sun paid her ?

You also had giants of entertainment like the Bernsteins at Granada, Lew Grade at ATV, Paul Fox at Yorkshire/ Thames. Rupert Murdoch owned/ ran LWT for a while.

All mavericks not afraid to take a chance.

Not to mention Roy Thomson who rather unfortunately said STV was a licence to print money which incurred the wrath of the ITA (as was). But you're right, these characters are missing in British TV today and we will never see their like again.

The Lovely Susanna was back this morning hosting with Ben and Ranvir

A couple of things:
1. Whats happened to Sean Fletcher? He has not been on air since the Commonwealth Games, the programme has been presented by a trio with Ben or John presenting the sports News; this actually works better
2. GMB has been accused of been too American in style and too lightweight in content; CBS revamped its morning programme in 2012, returning to a former branding;' CBS This Morning' (sounds familiar), intending to be Newsier, it has the lowest rating of the three main Networks with GMA and NBC Today getting about 14% audience share whilst CBS has 8%, so is a hard news approach the right one for GMB to aim for, in its next revamp?

Extract from CBS This morning 8.3.2012 below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFPSyJGr9cE

GMB is modelled on ABC's Good Morning America rather than CBS apparently

She looked like an ad for Ronseal.

I was not suggesting that GMB was based on CBS This Morning, it is more like GMA and NBC Today but CBS seems newsier than its opposite numbers at ABC and NBC, some people here were suggesting that GMA should go down that route, a route clearly not working for CBS at 8% share as opposed to 14% each for ABS and NBC.

Did anyone catch the show today? Is it any better?

lol at the Susannah muppet! It's #1 trending topic on Yahoo.

From the bits that I have seen over the past few weekdays:

Three presenters at the desk - better, but still one too many.

Variable selection of harder news items, let down by too much of a focus on human interest/soft stories

Andi Peters was live in the studio this morning

When presenting the main news stories from the desk, the shots are still too tight in that the camera is still zoomed in on the presenters' heads too much. And allies to their desire to show an inset picture relating to the news item, fixed on the screen, as the camera tracks to catch any small presenter movements, the inset picture tracks too, giving a very unstable feeling. \very off-putting to me at least.

Susannah Reid is back, still too forced. Still pulling some faces. Don't know if she is still nodding & frowning on demand though.

Ben Shepherd still presenting that recorded "Over to your local news with xxxxxx" link which looks, well, stupid. They should drop it and go with a generic live link

Thanks. I suppose the news content has improved a great deal from when I last tuned in. Was Andi Peters doing his competitions in the studio or was he filling in for Richard Arnold? I don't mind the Ben Shepherd hand over to the local news recording. It sounds more personal to each region. Where has Sean Fletcher gone?

Culturally, the British and US breakfast time audiences are very different. It was always a stupid idea to try and model GMB on an American programme.

To my mind, and this is simply an impression gained from sampling the output, it is variable. Some days it does seem better, but others not so,


I honestly cannot say for sure as I can't stand to listen to him for too long, but from the short piece that I heard, he was still talking about competitions (but he could have been there for other things too).


One other thing that I should have added previously, I still feel that the desk has to go, it is acting too much like a barrier between the viewers and the presenters. It is far better when they are sat on the sofa talking to someone or presenting a piece to camera.

Bushmills: If you're around do you have any figures for GMB last week ? I believe it was tottering around 400,000 the week before ?

😎 and again.. Look at me and my lovely tan!!!!!

So the girl wears fake tan. Big deal if people think this is a problem they need to get a life

Has Ross King moved to the UK now as he was in the studio and someone else in LA? Actually I thought it was Neil Fox, but it was Ross King as they do look alike

It was announced Charlotte Hawkins is pregnant.

Shades of Natasha Kaplinski there perhaps?

Congratulations to Charlotte and her husband. I wish them all the best

Just seen her announcement on her Twitter feed, congratulations to her and her husband.


Don't really think so, I don't watch much breakfast TV but Charlotte's move to GMTV wasn't as high profile as Susannah's, plus it's not like she's just joined.

I can understand why Channel 5 we were pretty p***ed off though, they paid a heck a lot of money for her and as soon as she moved over she announced she was pregnant and buggered off on maternity leave, so they ended up paying her for doing nothing.

... wonder if that means they'll draft Kate Garraway back in to cover her

That's one way to escape from a sinking ship

Woman in her thirties gets pregnant shock horror!

Expect about 6 months of stories about becoming a mother for the first time, and all the various health issues (what to eat, what to drink, is this feeling anything to be worried about- should I see my GP etc)

Will she be replaced- or a ready made opportunity to reduce the number of bodies around the table?

If only I cared.

Fair points I guess.