AS ratings continue to sink on This Morning, bringing in Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard to front it now looks like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.
It was hoped they would be the programme’s saviours, following the circus of Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby’s departures from ITV’s flagship daytime show last year.
But in their first month, ratings fell from more than one million to 692,500, and after two months they have fallen as low as 635,000.
ITV points to the fact This Morning was watched, on average, 840,000 times a day in April.
But this includes viewings on ITV+1 and ITVX.
By April 30, the average number of people watching live was 544,000.
Ben and Cat can’t be blamed for the demise of This Morning.
The show’s fate is down to the fact that daytime TV, as we know it, is dying.
And it is down to the rise of streaming giants, catch-up services and boom in the number of channels.
The model of popular dramas and magazine shows worked in the Eighties and Nineties because there were just five channels spoon-feeding a captive audience of people at home during the day.
Now there are hundreds of channels and at the click of a button people can select a quality drama or a mind-blowing documentary.
Students who would once sit in front of daytime TV are now glued to their phones.
Viewers who had just a short time to spare between tasks during the day were once content with consuming what was put in front of them. Well, not any more.
People are still watching the main channels but they are much more discerning about what they give their time to, so now programme makers are having to create shows targeting an audience with specific interests.
Those that aren’t bringing in audiences, while costing millions to make, stick out like sore thumbs in this new world — so you are likely to see more big-name shows facing the axe.
Daytime TV in 2024 is hugely expensive compared with the mish-mash of kids’ programmes, bought-in Australian dramas and cookery shows that peppered the daytime schedules before shows such as This Morning blazed a trail in the Eighties.
Drama, in particular, is very costly, which is why in 2022 Channel 5 took the decision to axe Neighbours after 36 years on our screens — and BBC One’s Doctors, which began in 2000, will finish in December.
Other attempts at the “magazine format” have also failed.
Last year Channel 4 confirmed it was scrapping Steph’s Packed Lunch, hosted by Steph McGovern, which had a similar feel to This Morning and cost huge amounts of money to make.
Live TV made in studios is the most expensive to produce, and advertising revenues on linear TV continue to drop as ad makers switch to digital TV.
Combined with falling ratings, it means shows like This Morning, which do not attract the same ad revenues as primetime shows, face a perfect storm.
Meanwhile, BBC One’s Morning Live has gone from strength to strength — getting a peak this year of 1.6million — partly because it does not repeat the traditional format.
It is almost entirely consumer and lifestyle-focused — which is why Beeb bosses claim they do not even see This Morning as a rival.
Talking to industry bible Broadcast last month, the Beeb’s daytime TV boss Rob Unsworth said: “Shows that feel like traditional daytime no longer have a place in our schedule.
“We have a linear audience but those programmes are good enough to appeal to people at any time of day on all platforms, and that is what we are really aiming for.”
These days, all content needs a second life, even if it is repackaged in bite-size chunks on social media.
Rob added: “All our commissions have to feel like they are bringing an extra factor.”
It is not simply a case of fewer people watching TV, as shown in new figures released by the Office for National Statistics.
They showed that viewers spend, on average, two hours and 20 minutes a day watching TV, which is second only to the time spent sleeping and working.
Viewers’ shift in focus is borne out in the general buzz and audience figures for shows such as stalker drama Baby Reindeer on Netflix, which has attracted a long line of sensational headlines.
Meanwhile, Clarkson’s Farm on Prime Video was watched, in its first weekend of release, almost 11million times.
Of course, daytime TV continues to deliver some agenda-setting shows such as ITV1’s Bafta- nominated Loose Women.
But if This Morning and shows like it were to go, it has been suggested new forms of media might replace them on linear TV.
For example, the BBC has commissioned a TV version of Just One Thing, Michael Mosley’s popular health and wellbeing podcast on BBC Sounds.
And ITV has debuted new shows on streaming service ITVX, before moving them to evening slots once bosses see how they are received.
Insiders say that daytime slots could now host shows that have already aired on other channels’ streaming and catch-up platforms.
Regardless, daytime TV is in a huge state of flux, which means that nobody can predict what it might look like a few years from now.
But key figures in TV agree: Drastic change will have to happen.
An ITV spokesman said: “As a broadcaster and streamer, ITV has a range of programming in its daytime schedules. This Morning reached an average 4.2million viewers a week in April alone, its highest so far in 2024. In 2023, This Morning was one of the most-streamed shows on ITVX.
“Like all media, This Morning has expanded into the digital sphere with record-breaking results.
“This Morning remains Britain’s most talked-about and influential daytime TV show and has never had a better connection with its viewers, with just under 160million video views of This Morning content and it reached 63 million unique social media accounts in April.”
