
- Image via Wikipedia
What does the word Daybreak mean to you? No, it isn’t the final chapter in the Twilight series. (Incidentally, does anyone else think they should change the strapline for that film to ‘One girl’s choice necrophilia and bestiality’?). It’s the new name for the new look GMTV. A fresh, vibrant approach to early morning television fronted by Christine Bleakley and Adrian Chiles.
VOM.
Now I have to confess I was never a fan of GMTV. While TV-am gave us the starchy pleasures of Anne Diamond (before she started looking a bit like Ann Widdecombe) and Wincey Willis, GMTV brought us little more than the Fiona ‘don’t give your child the MMR vaccine’ Philips, and made stars of Eamonn Holmes, Tony Blair and Dr bleeding Hillary. Yes, Lorraine Kelly has been consistently marvellous. But this is only for the baffling ‘Instant Glam’ makeovers she runs every Christmas where Sue, 38, a systems analyst from Barking is larded with sparkly eyeshadow and shoehorned into a sequinned batswing blouse.
So perhaps it’s no surprise that ITV, now the sole owner of GMTV after it bought Disney’s stake out last year (I’m assuming they no longer thought there was an animated feature in the Penny Smith story), wanted to refresh the format. After all that set’s been around since Anneka Rice was running around with a mobile phone the size of a washing machine strapped to her back, so it’s hardly breakfast telly for the iPhone generation.
But DAYBREAK!? Yes, the name has those vague, optimistic leanings that bad ad executives mistake for engagement, but that sans serif typeface and the purple colour scheme mean you couldn’t pass a Swedish crispbread between this brand identity and a chain of cheap motorway hotels. Mind you, the whiff of a Welcome Break just off the M6 might be just the right thing to reignite the kind of seedy sexual chemistry that kept British viewers grimly glued to breakfast television during the Anne and Nick years.
Oh, GMTV, you have consistently under-delivered and long may you do so. You don’t innovate, you mug the mid-market and year after year you convince the women of Britain that NEXT is worth shopping in. But nobody wants excitement at breakfast-time. And if they did, they wouldn’t be watching you.









