Thought this better to post here rather than in the Queen thread but it looks like one unexpected consequence of the end of the Queens reign may be the beginning of the end of the reign of Holly and Phil on This Morning, ITV’s flagship daytime show.
They were captured on Friday at the Queens coffin - Holly in a mask and Phil looking quite shifty - having accessed the hall using a press pass to jump the queue, despite them not being part of the press covering events and despite the show they present being off air for 4 days. Now if you know anything about Britain you’ll know we don’t like queue jumpers.
Now it was just tough luck that David Beckham, arguably the countries biggest star, had joined the queue with the public at 2am and queued for over 12 hours for his chance to pay his respects. In addition Susanna Reid, presenter of the ITV breakfast show Good Morning Britain, who had been on air 6 of the 7 previous days with extra and extended editions (compared to Holly and Phil just doing their usual 4 day week) had queued with the public for 7 hours on Thursday too - and in addition had the funeral of her former co-host to attend on the Friday too.
It has not gone down well at all - ITV have tried to justify it this afternoon with a statement, well over 24 hours after it first broke, trying to justify them attending as member of the press and filming footage for Tuesdays show - but this is not ringing true with viewers who all say the real story is the crowd, not the coffin, that the presenters shouldn’t be putting themselves at the centre of the story and that if they were filming it’s unlikely Holly would be wearing a mask considering even in peak covid periods TV presenters filming were rarely seen in masks except at hospitals or care homes. This Morning certainly has leant towards the “we’ve moved on from covid” narrative too.
Will be interesting to see how this pans out, but on top of a competition last week where cash prizes on their daily game “Spin to Win” were replaced with “4 months of Energy Bills” - footage then used by Russian state TV - if not a career ender it feels like this is their Ellen DeGeneres moment and will hasten their exist from the show, especially off the back of a summer where during their ever lengthening summer holidays the show tried out multiple combinations, all of which were received pretty well.
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This might finish them off, but the end has been nigh for some time now - dropping Eamonn & Ruth seemed to signal that there is a desire from ITV to find a successor.
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How does the show usually rate in the UK though?
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It usually rates between 1m-1.3m.
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Is that good?
It’s decent enough though the BBC usually outrates it with a mix of factual programmes. It is an institution though - been on air since 1988 with Phil presenting it for the last 20 years and Holly since 2009.
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Sky investing in streaming boxes
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They’ve changed the name from Sky Puck then - thankfully.
So basically NOW TV but fully under the Sky banner with the full suite of linear channels that you don’t watch but pay an additional premium for.
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i’m interested in picking one up and seeing if it works with my VPN
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First the BBC, and now the ITV network is getting a rebrand this year.
They’re also planning on renaming the main ITV channel to ITV 1 again.
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Since both threads related to the coverage of the death of Queen Elizabeth II were locked earlier today, I will post this here.
Dimbleby told the (Henley Book) Festival: “Prince George touching his nose, don’t show it. And it went on. Beatrice and Eugenie leaving St George’s, not to be shown.
“There was this complete list of things that no broadcaster could show because the copyright belongs to Buckingham Palace. I think that’s wrong, just wrong.”
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National TV Awards - winners
Hurrah. I wish the ABC would return its main channel to ABC1 and the news channel to ABC News 24.
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Why? Is ABC News Channel not good enough?
I just think naming it ABC News is confusing considering the flagship bulletin on ABC (TV) is ABC News, and there’s also a radio station formally known as ABC News (although still referred to as ABC NewsRadio on air).