Good Morning Britain fails to overthrow BBC Breakfast
Last Friday, over two years after Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley were unmercifully axed from ITV’s safe and cosy morning sofa, the struggling vehicle that carried them, Daybreak, was finally put to sleep by the commercial broadcaster.
Since the departure, the battered Daybreak went through more line-up changes than Atomic Kitten and Sugababes put together and the decision was recently taken by the powers that be to scrap the brand altogether.
ITV’s new tactic was to go for a slightly more nostalgic approach as well as taking the commercial broadcaster’s breakfast show in a bold new direction (if you could describe Americanised morning ‘natter’ with overly eager, perma-grinning presenters sitting in a ominously flashy HD ‘news desk’ bold).
An average audience of 560,000 viewers tuned in for the final-ever edition of Daybreak (ITV, 6am) on Friday, with Lorraine (ITV, 8:30am) following straight afterwards with a more respectable audience of 900,000 viewers.
Only a few weeks after BBC Two so brilliantly depicted the war for the soul of the early 80s TV breakfast viewer, Monday morning finally heralded the return of the Good Morning Britain (ITV, 6am) brand to UK screens.
In place of a straight-laced Anna Ford and David Frost, viewers were instead treated to a line-up of friendly chit chat, news and reassuring facial expressions.
Gone was the comforting sofa – instead Ben Shepard, the recently-poached-from-BBC’s-Breakfast Susanna Reid, Amanda Holden clone Charlotte Hawkins and Sean Fletcher were all put behind a large and shiny desk, in an effort to subtly inform viewers that the whole endeavour was to be taken seriously.
Unfortunately, the launch failed to make much of an impact with the bleary-eyed target audience. An average audience of 768,000 viewers (a 20% share) tuned in for the entire two and a half hour event, with Lorraine (ITV, 8:30am) taking in 992,000 viewers.
All that wouldn’t have been too bad if rival show Breakfast (BBC One, 6am) didn’t manage to attract 1.5 million viewers and a 36% share with apparent ease.
Good Morning Britain did manage to generate a lot of chat on Twitter though, with 12,644 Tweets going out during broadcast, making it the fourth most tweeted about show of the day.
It seems it’s only a matter of time before Roland Rat is dusted off and rolled out then…
Fifteen hours later another battle was taking place as the broadcasters fought for the 9pm slot with the two big stations offering a menu of crime, both factual and dramatic.
On BBC One, Kirsty Young and her presenting sidekicks looked at a female serial killer and doorstep wrongdoings on Crimewatch at 9pm. 3.3 million viewers watched in the patriotic hope that they could help wrap up a case, resulting in a 15% share.
Over on ITV, John Simm stared in the first of a three part thriller about a cop on the run in the precarious streets of Manchester after being framed for the murder of his family. Prey showcased a very frenetic style of drama, in somewhat of a departure for the channel’s usual offerings.
An audience of 5.7 million viewers tuned in for the hectic and tense chase, easily securing the 9pm slot with a 25% share.
At the same time on BBC Two, presenter Michael Mosley travelled to the Philippines in the aftermath of last year’s typhoon in order to shine a spotlight on the special team of vets sent in to save the animals.
Vets in the Disaster Zone (9pm) might have seemed like it had its priorities all mixed up but the eye-opening documentary highlighted the dangerous and important work, pulling in 673,000 viewers and a 3% share.
The final episode of One Born Every Minute‘s fifth series provided Channel 4 with its biggest hit of the day. 1.7 million viewers tuned in to experience a final chance to witness torn flesh and agonising screaming, translating to a 8% audience share.
Straight up afterwards, a former BFF of Madonna’s was taking a mostly grim peak behind the curtain of the sex industry in Love for Sale with Rupert Everett (Channel 4, 10pm). 988,000 viewers watched as the fearless actor uncovered suicide, murder and contentment within the industry, netting a 6% share.
Over on BBC Two, the third series of Rev (10pm) wrapped up in the most depressing manner possible. Lost without the church and his congregation, the rather dour finale saw former vicar Adam struggle with his new life, bringing in 1 million viewers and a 6% share.
But of course it was the teatime soaps that won Monday’s top spots with Emmerdale (ITV, 7pm) securing 6.3 million viewers, while EastEnders (BBC One, 8pm) did much better with 7.8 million, the second biggest audience of the day.
The first episode of Coronation Street (ITV) at 7:30pm took the top spot with 7.9 million viewers, while the second trip to Weatherfield at 8:30pm netted 7.4 million.
The Social TV Analytics report is a daily leaderboard displaying the latest social TV analytics Twitter data from SecondSync. The table shows the top UK TV shows as they are mentioned on Twitter, which MediaTel has correlated with the BARB overnight programme ratings for those shows (only viewable to BARB subscribers).
Overnight data is available each morning in mediatel.co.uk’s TV Database, with all BARB registered subscribers able to view reports for terrestrial networks and key multi-channel stations. Overnight data supplied by TRP are based on 15 minute slot averages. This may differ from tape checked figures, which are based on a programme’s actual start and end time.