When the BBC launched its daytime present Morning Live, it insisted that it was not a carbon copy of ITV’s This Morning.
But 5 years because it launched, The Mail on Sunday can reveal that bosses on the Beeb are secretly plotting to steal viewers from their rival programme by extending Morning Live’s airtime, in what is set to be one of the crucial vicious tv wars to date.
Sources on the Corporation say there have been discussions about the opportunity of maintaining the present, hosted by Helen Skelton and Gethin Jones, on display till 12.15pm fairly than its present finish time of 10.45am when Crimewatch Live begins, adopted by Homes Under The Hammer.
BBC chiefs are hoping that viewers who’ve left This Morning – as a current drop in viewers figures signifies – will change to the lengthened Morning Live.
A supply on the broadcaster mentioned: ‘There have been a number of meetings about the possibility of extending Morning Live to go fully up against This Morning. Bosses know that their ITV rival is struggling, so they want to encourage viewers to switch over.’
It is, says my supply, a ‘plot to see This Morning off’.
Where such a transfer would go away Crimewatch Live and Homes Under The Hammer is but to be determined, significantly as the ‘Beeb know just how much their viewers love both, particularly Homes Under The Hammer’.
Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard took up their roles as This Morning’s hosts in March 2024, following Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby’s departures the yr earlier than
BBC sources inform Katie Hind there have been discussions about maintaining the present, hosted by Helen Skelton and Gethin Jones, on display till 12.15pm fairly than 10.45am
‘They could incorporate Crimewatch Live into the show,’ I’m instructed, ‘as a segment rather than it having its own programme, which would of course save money, which is always a bonus.
‘There could be many outcomes from this, but Morning Live is going so well and there is a huge desire to strike while the iron is hot.’
‘If this all goes ahead,’ they add, ‘then it is war.’ For its half, the BBC say: ‘No discussions have been taking place about extending Morning Live. It was extended in January 2024.’
The Mail on Sunday first revealed the BBC was launching a rival to This Morning back in 2020, although bosses insisted, maybe unconvincingly, that the 2 exhibits wouldn’t be adversaries.
However, they sniffed blood when the ITV present was thrown into chaos following the departure of long-serving hosts Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield in 2023. That similar yr, the company introduced that it was extending Morning Live’s slot from 45 minutes to 75, which kicked in simply weeks earlier than This Morning’s new hosts Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard took up their spots on the blue couch in March 2024.
And it seems to have paid off as at this time, Morning Live brings in virtually double the viewers of This Morning.
Though the BBC present hasn’t fairly ‘seen off’ its rival yet, nevertheless tempting that could be for Morning Live’s editor Emma Morris – who beforehand labored on the ITV present below its long-serving boss Martin Frizell.
She left in 2019 to take cost of the BBC’s One Show – and was later additionally handed the role of launching Morning Live.
‘Emma was senior at This Morning, she worked there for many years,’ says a supply. ‘At the time it was very toxic there so it was such an amazing move for her to go over to the BBC.
‘But surely it would be only natural for her to want to beat her former show.’
While This Morning has weathered much criticism for its viewing figures, bosses are happy with the 700,000 who frequently tune in, regardless of it being nicely beneath the 2 million viewers that Willoughby and Schofield drew in at their peak.
‘We are just delighted that there is some stability on This Morning now,’ one workers member mentioned. ‘It was a rocky ship for a long time, now it has settled, it’s calm and Cat and Ben are going nowhere despite the silly rumours they are being replaced with Tess Daly and Vernon Kay.’
Indeed, it has been rocky for the great ship This Morning.
The very way forward for the present regarded unsure in spring 2023 when Willoughby and Schofield, 63, fell out, with him latterly confessing to the Mail on Sunday that he’d had an affair with a much younger male colleague at This Morning.
And then in October that yr, it emerged that Willoughby, now 45, had been the sufferer of a terrifying plot to kidnap, rape and murder her by former security guard Gavin Plumb. He was later sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimal jail time period of 16 years.
So, as an ITV insider says: ‘The last thing This Morning needs right now is for the BBC to steal its audience.
‘But it’s brutal in tv.’
